The other day a White House spokesman offered familiar criticism of oil companies for not reducing gasoline prices to match the recent drop in crude. It’s easy to manipulate charts to make a point, and the example used in the press briefing does that. Gasoline prices have fallen recently, but is their relationship with crude […]
Higher prices for traditional energy are supportive of increased use of renewables. The point of a carbon tax is to create price signals for users and producers of coal, oil and gas that reflect society’s assessed cost of the burden imposed by rising CO2 emissions. Uncertainty over long-term public policy has led to years of […]
Earnings season for the pipeline sector kicks off Wednesday 20th with Kinder Morgan. Crude oil prices have slid over the past several weeks, reflecting increased fears of recession and China’s ongoing efforts to eliminate Covid through regional lockdowns. Sharp moves in oil affect energy sentiment and the consequent drop in midstream energy infrastructure reflects these […]
On Monday Nord Stream 1 was shut down for annual maintenance, cutting off the remaining Russian natural gas exports to Germany. Europe’s biggest economy continues to provide lessons to the rest of us on what a flawed energy strategy looks like. German industry anxiously waits to see whether some contrived additional repairs will extend the […]
It’s an odd recession when the economy adds 372K jobs and the unemployment rate stays at 3.6%. We seem to be talking ourselves into one. Consumer expectations are the lowest in almost a decade. High prices for energy and food are the culprit. Few are seeing their incomes keep pace with 8% inflation, so real […]
US drivers may complain about the cost of filling up, but the epicenter of the energy crisis is Germany. The world’s third biggest exporter (behind China and the US) reported a monthly trade deficit for the first time in over thirty years. Higher energy prices hit in two ways – Germany is spending much more […]
May 17 represented a memorable anniversary for me as it marked 40 years since I first moved to the US. Another Brit leaving the old world for the new. I arrived on an evening flight from Toronto where I’d spent a week with family. It was my first time in NY and such was the […]
The energy transition’s long overdue reassessment was already under way by the time Russian missiles began falling on Ukraine. Fear of stranded assets has been replaced by the sudden need for energy security. At a recent JPMorgan energy conference, CEO Jamie Dimon repeated his call for a new “Marshall Plan” to ensure energy security for […]
Amid the more hawkish Fed and consequent sharp drop in the market, the jump in real yields has not drawn much attention. The rise in ten year yields came with inflation expectations remaining well anchored at around 2.75%. TIPs yields rose with nominal ones. Factset earnings expectations don’t yet reflect the pessimism of public company […]
People may disagree on whether this Fed is hawkish or not, but reactionary is not a controversial adjective. They first demonstrated this in waiting eighteen months after the Covid vaccine and fifteen months after the last $1.9TN slug of fiscal uber-stimulus to roll back their monetary accommodation. Quantitative Easing (QE) is more aptly followed by […]
