Saudi Arabia
OPEC 2.0 is building physical optionality, to deal with different possible moves the U.S. can make on Iranian oil export sanctions and waivers. This comes despite an apparent break in the sense of urgency Saudi Arabia and Russia feel re production cuts. The coalition’s market monitoring committee…
Highlights So What? Our “Black Swan” risks for the year reveal several potential wars. Why? While we think it is premature to expect armed conflict over Taiwan, an outbreak of serious tensions is possible. Russia and Ukraine may have a shared incentive to go renew hostilities this year…
Highlights When we flagged the increasing likelihood of higher volatility a few weeks ago, we did not expect the Trump Administration's granting of waivers on sanctions against Iranian oil exports, which ultimately led to the oil-price meltdown.1 Neither, it seems, did the market, as the surge in…
Highlights So What? The Trump administration is focusing on re-election in 2020, which could push the recession call into 2021. Why? The midterms were investment-relevant, just not in the way most of our clients thought. We are downgrading our alarmism on Iran; Trump is aware of his…
Highlights Gold's performance during the "Red October" equities sell-off, coupled with that of the most widely followed gold ratios (copper- and oil-to-gold), indicates investors and commodity traders are not pricing in a sharp contraction in global growth. These ratios are, however, picking up…
Mounting supply-side uncertainty will keep the risk premium in oil prices - and volatility - elevated after U.S. export sanctions against Iran kick in November 4 (Chart of the Week). Chart of the WeekOil-Price Risk Premium Will Continue To Increase…
Highlights Recent estimates by ship trackers put the loss of Iranian exports at close to 1mm b/d as of mid-September vs April levels. This loss is higher (and sooner) than our previous baseline expectation, and prompts us to raise our estimate of lost Iranian oil exports to 1.25mm b/d by November…
Highlights Our antennae are twitching wildly, as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) walks back a widely telegraphed commitment to surge production. This occurs against the backdrop of a possible loss of as much as 2mm b/d in exports from Iran and Venezuela next year, with demand expected to remain…
Feature Valuations, whether for currencies, equities or bonds, are always at the top of the list of the determinants of any asset's long-term performance. This means that after large FX moves like those experienced so far this year, it is always useful to pause and reflect on where currency…
Highlights Solid fundamentals will keep the backwardation in the forward curves of the benchmark crude-oil streams - WTI and Brent - intact. If our long-held thesis is correct and OPEC 2.0 becomes a durable producer coalition, we believe it will maintain some level of production cuts in 2019.1…