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Markets Soar on Vaccine News, Presidential Transition

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Final answers to lingering questions shot markets up today - Oil markets hit an 8 month high and the stock market soared,  with the Dow breaking 30,000 for the first time. Airlines, Cruise Lines, and Energy stocks all pushed up on continuing positive news regarding a COVID-19 vaccination. 

In intraday trading, WTI surged over 4 % to $44.80 (the last time we saw the $45 benchmark hold was in March, prior to both the Saudi/Russian price war and the expanding of COVID into a full blown global pandemic. In other words, its been quite some time. Who can even remember life before lockdowns started?).

Since November 9 (first vaccine announcement) Crude has gained ~15% and Brent is in backwardation, another positive sign. 

ULSD & RBOB both traded up over .05+ the majority of the trading day. At the close, ULSD was up +.0490 to 1.3595 for December & +.0484 to 1.3642 for January. RBOB gained +.0542 for December to 1.2582, and +.0539 for January to 1.2510. Crude closed at $44.91/bbl - juuuuuuust under that $45 benchmark. 

Earlier in the month (November 9) we saw markets jump on the announcement by Pfizer that they had developed a 90% effective vaccine. AstraZeneca and Moderna have also announced success on their iterations of a vaccine, one of which has the potential to solve some of the logistical issues regarding cold storage transport posed by the initial vaccine. Obviously, a vaccine means markets are hopeful that we will see a transition back to "normal" sooner rather than later, and the rally in industries particularly hammered by lockdowns, including air travel and general transportation would seem to bear that out. 

The other factor pushing markets today is the official start of the transition of power to the Biden Administration. Given the legal challenges being raised by the Trump Administration regarding vote counts, there was substantial uncertainty around the transition, and if there's anything the market hates, its looming questions without answers. It seems that the clarity is boosting confidence.

Lest we get overly optimistic however, it's important to note that although vaccine news is good news - none of the vaccines announced have been approved for general use yet. We are also still in a surge of COVID cases right now and there is no timeline on when a large enough contingent of citizens will be vaccinated in order for restrictions to begin easing. Goldmann Sachs & JP Morgan have revised economic expectations due to surging, New York City has closed schools again, and even in Massachusetts we are seeing field hospitals being reopened to handle expected increases in cases. All of this to say while today was great for 401(k)s, it is probably premature to be overly optimistic about the next few weeks to months. 

Despite all the craziness of 2020, we're Thankful to be here still working for our customers. We hope you have an amazing and relaxing (social distant) Thanksgiving. Enjoy the long weekend! 

 

 

 

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Oil & Stock Markets Plummeting on Trump Travel Ban

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Oil opened down 6% this morning, and has continued to slide. We are currently off ~7.9% at time of writing (10:30am)

Crude oil (both Brent & WTI) have shed almost 50% of their price since the beginning of 2020. Currently, on refined products we are looking at ULSD -.0872 &  RBOB -.1907 (@ 10:30am)

In addition to the Saudi/OPEC price war, we now have yet another factor weighing on oil prices, which is the 30 day travel ban President Trump has imposed on European countries in an attempt to contain the Coronavirus.

The announcement sent stock markets crashing this morning (even worse than yesterday, when the DJIA entered bear territory).The so called "circuit breaker" kicked in to halt trading at 9:35am for 15 minutes.

The markets are now down ~8% - if they hit 13% another trading halt will kick in. 

The stocks being hit particularly hard are Cruise lines, airlines, etc - in other words, basically the stock market is setting demand expectations for major transportation companies extremely low - which means demand for oil products overall are an increasing concern. 

Obviously, this is developing as we are about 12 hours out from the original announcement, and the markets are open in full swing. You can follow developments here:  Business Insider 

(For specific live updates on the stock market itself versus meta analysis, go here: Stock Market Live )

 

 

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US-China Trade Deal Keeps Markets Range Bound

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Prices have been somewhat up and down, but largely range bound over the past several days of trading.

It's not because there's nothing going on but because there is a lot happening but it's sort of up in the air which way everything will go. 

The ongoing US/China trade tension situation is both the major factor and a good example - "Phase One" of a trade agreement is in the books as of Wednesday, including a pledge by China to buy "at least 52.4 billion of US Energy products over the next two years" (although what that entails specifically was not clarified)... That sounds like news that should be pushing oil up substantially -  but we don't actually know if any trade deal will change demand forecasts, so it may be that pricing is largely unaffected. 

Some of the confusion is that this is "just phase 1" and the US has announced that they are not removing tariffs on billions of dollars of Chinese goods until phase 2 (whatever that is) is agreed to, but we have revised tariffs down substantially on 120 billion OTHER Chinese goods previously at a higher rate.

Essentially, no one is really sure what we can expect to see in terms of real impacts from Phase 1 -or how long Phase 2 will take. 

(You can read the details of Phase 1 in this article on MarketWatch: "Trump signs landmark China deal and says removal of tariffs would come in next phase"). 

Yesterday (Wednesday) The EIA inventory report for the week ending January 10 showed surprisingly huge builds on distillates and gasoline, 6.7mmb and 8.2mmb, respectively. (Analysts had predicted 3.3 on gas and 1.3 on distillates). Crude also surprised traders with a 2.5mmb decline (against a 1.1mmb speculated build). Wednesday's close reflected the report with a drop of .0324 ($1.8779) on ULSD, a drop of .0176 on gas ($1.6368) and a final number of $57.81/bbl on WTI Crude. 

Today we have been mixed most of the day as the trade deal news gets analyzed and digested, primarily. At the close, ULSD was down .0179 to $1.8600, RBOB gained .0180 to $1.6548 and Crude settled at $58.52, from $57.81 Wednesday.  

This week the EIA also revised its expectation for WTI & Brent crude for 2020, putting WTI at an average of $59.25, pretty close to where we have been trending the past week or so (1/8-1/16: 58.08-59.61/bbl)

Stay tuned! 

 

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