Written by Gary
Oil up despite another rig count increase (SPY +0.6%). Oil prices end 2020 on a positive note, but suffer 20% annual fall as pandemic took toll on demand.
The Market in Perspective
Here are the headlines moving the markets. | |
Merger Mania Is Transforming Canadas Oil SceneCanadas oil landscape looks encouraging for 2021 as Whitecap Resources Inc. acquires two oil and gas companies in addition to mergers between other energy companies, with anticipated growth through the coming year as demand for energy steadily increases. In November, Whitecap Resources announced a plan to acquire rival company TORC Oil & Gas through an all-stock transaction of $704.12m equivalent. The deal is expected to go through by 25 February 2021, providing an encouraging outlook for the first quarter of next year. This merger | |
Possible Mine Found On Oil Tanker Off IraqA Liberian-flagged fuel oil tanker off the coast of Iraq has been identified to be carrying a suspicious object according to sailors, which could be a mine. The suspicious object was reported by authorities on Thursday, and comes as relations between the United States and Iran continue to sour. According to two private security companies, sailors think they have found a limpet mine on the tanker MT Pola, a floating fuel oil storage tanker that is Liberian-flagged but owned by a shipping company traded in the United States. The vessel | |
Robots Are Creating The Super Batteries Of The FutureArtificial intelligence and robots are a hot topic of discussion, especially in the context of automation and job loss for humans. But they are also helping humans with a lot of jobs, including battery research. The development of bigger and better batteries has somewhat suddenly become a top priority for energy researchers as the world moved in a renewable energy direction. Solar and windthe most abundantly publicized forms of renewable energyrequire storage facilities to become truly competitive with the fossil fuels they are replacing. | |
Exxon Set For Fourth Loss In 2020 After $20-Billion Write-DownExxonMobil is on track to book another quarterly loss this yearits fourth consecutive loss in 2020announcing that it expects to book a massive up to $20-billion write-down for Q4, the U.S. oil and gas supermajor signaled in an SEC filing on Wednesday. Impairments of between $18 billion and $20 billion will weigh on the fourth-quarter earnings in Exxons upstream division, the company said, narrowing the previously reported $17 billion-$20 billion range announced at end-November in its first major asset write-downs in | |
Analysts See Oil Prices Averaging Just Above $50 In 2021Brent Crude prices are set to average $50.67 a barrel in 2021, slightly down from the price at which they traded early on the last trading day of 2020, the monthly Reuters poll of analysts and economists showed on Thursday. The key downside risk for oil prices in 2021 will be the mutating strains of the coronavirus that threaten economic and oil demand recovery with lockdowns and travel restrictions, according to the 39 experts polled by Reuters. In the December survey, the analysts raised their average expectations for Brent Crude prices for 2021 | |
Oilfield Service Giants Are Expanding Beyond Oil TechThe oilfield services sector is usually the one to suffer the most during an oil and gas industry downturn. This last crisis has been no exception in most respects. Drilling fell sharply this year in response to the demand slump in both oil and gas, budgets were cut and exploration plans shrunk. There was talk we might have already seen peak oil demand. The situation begged the question what happens to oilfield services beyond oil? To be fair, the world will need tens of millions of barrels of oil for decades to come, so beyond oil | |
Gene Munster, who called Apple’s run to $2 trillion, says a path to $3 trillion is in sight“It may seem tone deaf for a company to lead FAANG for three straight years, but I think that in fact will happen,” Gene Munster said of Apple. | |
Doctors criticize UK health officials for changing Pfizer Covid vaccine plan“We have real and grave concerns about these sudden changes to the Pfizer vaccine regime,” the Doctors’ Association UK said on Thursday. | |
West Virginia health officials mistakenly gave 42 people Regeneron IV Covid treatment instead of vaccine shot“It has been determined that this was an isolated incident,” Julie Miller, an administrator for the Boone County Health Department, told CNBC by email. | |
New York City wants to vaccinate 1 million residents against Covid in January, Mayor de Blasio saysMayor Bill de Blasio said the city will use schools, pop-up clinics and “whatever it takes” to reach 1 million people within the month. | |
Dr. Fauci says slow Covid vaccine rollout has been ‘disappointing’States and counties need more resources to accelerate the pace of vaccination, Fauci said. | |
Israel says it has vaccinated 7% of its population against Covid, it’s less than 1% in U.S.“Our main advantage is that we have a centralized health-care system,” said Eran Segal, a computational biologist in Rehovot, Israel. | |
CDC says new Covid strain in U.S. could further stress ‘already heavily burdened’ hospitalsThe new variant “could lead to more cases and put even more strain on our already heavily burdened” hospitals, the CDC’s Dr. Henry Walke said. | |
California has identified first case of new Covid strain found in UK, Newsom saysCalifornia Gov. Gavin Newsom told Dr. Anthony Fauci Wednesday that the state has identified its first case of the new and more infectious strain of Covid-19. | |
Colorado health officials are investigating a second suspected case of new Covid strainOn Tuesday, Colorado health officials confirmed the nation’s first case of a new and potentially more infectious strain of Covid-19. | |
JC Penney CEO Jill Soltau to leave retailer after it emerged from bankruptcy with new ownersThe company’s new owners are seeking a new leader after the legacy retailer emerged from bankruptcy. | |
Operation Warp Speed chief says Covid vaccine distribution ‘should be better’ as U.S. misses goal“We agree that that number is lower than what we had hoped for,” Moncef Slaoui, chief advisor of Operation Warp Speed, said Wednesday. | |
Watch live: New York Gov. Cuomo briefs the press on Covid pandemic as outbreak worsensNew York Gov. Andrew Cuomo will hold a press briefing on the coronavirus Wednesday as the state reportedly searches for more hospital capacity. | |
Trump blames states as he faces criticism for slow Covid vaccine rolloutBiden Covid advisor Dr. Luciana Borio said the incoming administration will have to “dramatically ramp up” support to states to distribute the vaccine. | |
$15 Trillion Cashnami Crashes Dollar In 2020, Sparks Gold’s Best Year In A Decade$15 Trillion Cashnami Crashes Dollar In 2020, Sparks Gold’s Best Year In A Decade Global stocks added around $15 trillion in market cap in 2020 (pushing above $100 trillion for the first time ever)… Source: Bloomberg Which is an oddly coincidental number given that global liquidity has soared around $15 trillion in 2020… Source: Bloomberg That kind of ‘tsunami’ hasn’t historically ended well (in the movies)… | |
Pentagon Orders Aircraft Carrier Out Of Gulf In Potential Iran De-EscalationPentagon Orders Aircraft Carrier Out Of Gulf In Potential Iran De-Escalation In a first hopeful sign of potential US de-escalation in the Persian Gulf, where there’s been a recent build-up of US forces as threats continue to be exchanged between Washington and Tehran, the Pentagon has announced it is bringing its only supercarrier in the gulf home. The AP reports of the sensitive timing, “The decision, announced Thursday by the acting secretary of defense, Christopher Miller, came one day after Air Force B-52 bombers flew nonstop from the United States to the Persian Gulf in a show of force that military officials said was intended to caution Iran against carrying out attacks against U.S. forces or interests.” The Mideast and Gulf region constitute the USS Nimitz’s normal area of operation over much of the past year. It’s now being sent “home” to its US West coast base. Just last week the US also provocatively sailed the USS Georgia nuclear submarine th … | |
Getting Out Before The Crash…Getting Out Before The Crash… Authored by Doug Casey via InternationalMan.com, International Man: Markets have extreme emotions. They can go from irrational exuberance “where it seems everyone is swinging from the chandeliers “to a bottom-of-the-barrel bear market where people don’t even want to look at the business section. Why is assessing the psychology of the market so important? Doug Casey: The market, as Warren Buffett has pointed out, can be either a weighing machine or a voting machine. You can make money in the market either way, but you have to recognize which machine is giving you signals. Although Mr. Market sees and knows almost everything, he pays the most attention to the voting machine, because he’s basically bipolar, a manic-depressive. As a result, not only do you have to deal with the psychological aberrations of millions of other people who are running in a crowd and voting with th … | |
Human-Run Hedge Funds Beat Quants In PandemicÂHuman-Run Hedge Funds Beat Quants In Pandemic Hedge funds that use complex, automatic-trading strategies have been beating human stock-pickers for several years. But that all seemed to change in 2020, as wild market swings in all asset classes, driven by the virus-pandemic, along with an unprecedented flood of central bank money into capital markets has resulted in a year where human-run hedge funds trounced quants, according to Bloomberg. Many of these so-called quants – Renaissance Institutional Diversified Alpha, Odey European, QAR Global Stock Selection, and Bridgewater Pure Alpha II are expected to record significant losses this year as the March stock market crash upended their computer trading models.Â
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FTSE 100 suffers worst year since financial crisisInvestors nest-eggs have been hit as the UK’s leading share index falls 14.3% in 2020. | |
Spent less, saved more: What we bought this yearConsumer spending fell 7.1%, says Barclaycard, which tracks half of all credit and debit card spending. | |
Scotsman owner JPI Media sold to National World for £10.2mNational World, a media takeover vehicle led by industry veteran David Montgomery, buys JPI. | |
Motown diaries: Expect double-digit wholesale growth in DecemberRetail sales have been flat, channel checks indicate. So, wholesale growth has been driven by restocking by dealers ahead of planned price hikes by automakers, say analysts tracking the auto market. | |
2021: The year of capital challengeWith the government’s hands tied due to a collapse in revenues and increased spending to fight the Covid-19 fallout, banks were forced to test the waters on private capital. The result is a wake-up call. | |
Milliman Advisors selected as reporting actuary for LIC embedded valueThe firm was chosen from three in the race including EY Actuarial Services and Willis Towers Watson Actuarial Advisory. | |
26 December 2020 New York Fed Weekly Economic Index (WEI): Index ImprovesWritten by Steven Hansen The New York Fed’s Weekly Leading Index (WLI) continues to show an economy that is just above the worst seen during the Great Recession. However, this index remains on a recovery trend based on the 13 week rolling average.. | |
Market Extra: Key moments that rocked ” and then repaired ” the stock market in 2020The equity market wasn’t the main conduit for the response to the pandemic and social unrest that emerged in 2020, but it was one way that Wall Street interpreted the pace of the rapidly spreading contagion and the human ingenuity that rapidly brought about remedies and cures to combat COVID-19. | |
Personal Finance Daily: Mortgage rates hover near record lows to close out 2020 and New Year’s resolutions to stay on top of the world in 2021Thursday’s Personal Finance Stories. | |
Futures Movers: Oil prices end 2020 on a positive note, but suffer 20% annual fall as pandemic took toll on demandOil futures end 2020 on a positive note, but suffer a hefty yearly fall, only partially recovering from the hit to crude demand from the COVID-19 pandemic. |
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