Poll: Oil Be Gone!
“Oil over-production, stockpiling to the hilt, and no demand. Where will oil be trading this summer?”
- 47%: Thirsty between $30 and $40
- 28%: Race for glut, under $30
- 25%: Shale Glory! Over $50/barrel
The Invstr community has come out in force for one of our closest and most difficult polls to-date. Predicting oil prices is tough, and economists over the past few weeks have twisted themselves into knots trying to do it.
President Trump forced an OPEC+ deal through last week to clip supply somewhat, and most of our community is confident that will support oil prices between $30 and $40. The price war has ended, Putin and the Crown Prince must climb down from their vast drilling outputs, and Brent Crude is edging higher as a result.
Now that supply cuts have been agreed, it makes sense for the alliance to find additional consensus later in the year if coronavirus drags on and quantities need cutting again. However, 28% of the community thinks Trump’s “historic” OPEC deal is just a whole lot of nothing.
Every nation cheats in OPEC, always producing slightly more than its quota. There’s still twenty-to-thirty million barrels of oil coming out of the ground each day, and that oil needs a home. It needs converting into dollars!
The bears are suspicious of an immediate bounce back in demand to fly and to buy goods, especially with such high rates of unemployment. We could be looking at an even lower dollar figure for Brent Crude in a few months, by which point the world might be cookin’ with gas anyway!
The showdown between crude oil and natural gas as an energy source is getting more intense. Environmentalists and politicians want less smog, and so do companies to qualify as ethical investments. Some investors are positioned for an acceleration of the ‘natgas’ trend, which would take even more demand away from oil, threatening an even lower price.
A recovery in demand would be needed to get oil prices heading north, and a recovery with some serious spring! That’s what a quarter of our community predicts. The world will gradually reopen when the virus is under control, and industrial companies will be asking for oil again.
If suppliers shut down now, they might not be able to reboot in time for the abrupt lifting of quarantine restrictions. It takes weeks to re-start, so a supply crunch could take hold, sending the price of a barrel to the moon! Still confident in your prediction?
Staying Bust During Market Closures
Anyone out there? American markets took the day off on Good Friday, as did many exchanges around the world on Easter Monday. With no action on the indices, what’s a trader to do?
Well, out goes the noise. There are no momentary mega-risers or flash crashing mega-fallers to distract you from your investing analyses. Some will hit the Invstr feed with hot topics and questions, how long the rally will run. Others will unplug completely, crunch numbers in silence, and return to markets with conviction next week. One thing’s for certain, now’s the time to extend an advantage over market rivals.
Investing is not a zero-sum game, there’s plenty dollar to go round. However, to make more than the average investor, you need an ‘edge’ that the average investor doesn’t have. You need to know something he or she doesn’t know. You need a stronger gut, more practice, experience, and you need to work harder flat-out.
Most buyers and sellers are active between 9:30 a.m. and 4.00 p.m., official trading hours on the New York Stock Exchange. Others start at 8:00 a.m., catching pre-market, and they don’t go home until the bulk of after-market moves are made at 6.30 p.m. Commendable, but what if they took it a step further.
What if they didn’t take leave on days like today, studied companies at night, and traded them during the day? What if they took investing as seriously as athletes take their training? It won’t matter what your rivals do in the pre-market if they’re already ten years behind you. Down to business!
