Same as it ever was...

Been a little busy with the new semester and other work, so another quick post just to put my thoughts out there on oil prices this year.  So far, things have played out as I expected. First, there was some re-balancing in supply and demand that started last year, and inventories declined for an extended period.  The problem, and it's the same problem, the Hedgies push prices up hoping this time is for real--meaning they believe the fundamentals have changed, and they push prices into the $60-$70 range hoping they will hold there.  However, their actions create incentives for US shale to expand, and the higher prices stop the re-balancing that's needed to sustain higher prices. Instead, inventories are rising again, and prices have dropped.

For 2018, I see more volatility in prices for precisely the reason outlined above--there will be periods when Hedge Funds think markets are balanced (enough) and they bid up prices, just to have them fall back again.  I think trading will range between the low $50s and the low $70s, but most of the time WTI should trade between $55-$65.  As the US economy accelerates from the tax cuts, that will bring hope and higher prices, only to be dashed again and again...Same as it ever was, same as it ever was...

Financialization of Commodities and the Monetary Transmission Mechanism

Most of my writings on this blog relate to financialization of commodity markets. Specifically, I describe how financial traders now dominate the commodity futures markets and their decisions have the greatest impact on prices. I recently published a paper that ties these ideas to monetary policy and inflation.

I argue that financialization created a more direct influence on commodity prices through an "expectations channel." As a case study, I describe the impact QE2 had on commodity prices and measured inflation via this mechanism. As the FED cranked up QE2, inflationary expectations led investors to bet on oil and other commodities, creating a temporary bubble that popped dramatically the first week of May 2011. However, since the process was driven by investors who may (or may not) learn from their mistakes, it may have been a one-time occurrence.

The paper was published in the International Journal of Political Economy, HERE.

Evaluating my 2017 forecast

It's been awhile--I had an overwhelming semester...

There are a few articles I came across over the past two months that I want to address at some point in the next few weeks, but for now I simply wanted to review my 2017 oil price forecast.

I started the year off with a fairly conservative range of $30 to $70 for WTI oil, but as I gained more confidence in my overall assessment of the market, I tightened that range to $40 to $60 in this February 15th post.  WTI hit a low of $43 in late June, and a high of $59 November 24th.  I think it's safe to say I nailed it. 

Within the next month I will provide my forecast for 2018.  I do think there is a solid floor in the low $50 range, but more on that later.

Cowabunga and Happy Holidays!

The Political Economy of Food & Finance

It's been awhile...

Just a quick note to say my book is now available in paperback HERE.

Just to add, while it may seem that "it's the end of the world as we know it..." given hurricanes and political turmoil, WTI remains close to $50, and should stay in this range for the remainder of the year.  I will provide a more detailed update in the near future.

A quick note related to the Fire post....

I just came across this Bloomberg piece, Five Charts That Explain Crude Oil's Sudden Nosedive Toward $45, which provides some charts and data on last week's oil market panic.  The charts include a look at technical analysis, showing that WTI broke through some low measures which would cause technical traders to sell; action in the options market focused on puts with strike prices of $45 and $46; and a change in the forward price structure from contango to backwardation, which they suggests shows a move from bullish to bearish sentiment.  

It should be another interesting week. Will prices break lower, or will OPEC and Wall Street be able to defend the current low?

"Fire!"

Someone screamed "Fire!" in the oil theater, and the Hedge Funds headed for the exits.

As predicted, the weight of "pork oil" finally broke the back of Hedge Fund long bets, and some big players were forced to go defensive over the past couple of weeks. According to this piece from SeekingAlpha, Pierre Andurand liquidated much of his long oil position last week, with others followed suit, citing "stop loss" triggers and "risk management requirements." The article states that Andurand's fund is down 15.4% for the year.

As I've mentioned, Hedge Fund long bets in futures peaked at the end of February, and they were slowly declining for the past two months, but the trickle became a flood over the past two weeks. According to this Ft.com article, Managed Money positions fell by 26% the week prior to Tuesday (that's when Andurand closed his position). That scramble continued the rest of the week, leading to volatile price swings; for example, WTI experienced price moves in a 7% range yesterday.

Here's how dramatic the sentiment has changed: according to this Bloomberg.com article, some trader(s?) made a serious bet(s) yesterday (Friday 5/5) that WTI will drop below $40, as 14,000 July puts @$39 were sold, almost 20 times the number of contracts previously outstanding! The price of the option was somewhere between 15 and 20 cents per contract, so that amounts to almost a $3 million wager.

Will it pay off...?  I'll stick with my call here that WTI will stay above $40, as both OPEC and Wall Street banks will try to prevent that from happening. In addition, if the price does approach $40, it will most likely cause the bulls to jump back in, especially since inventories have declined over the past two weeks. Note, that doesn't mean the huge wager won't pay off, as the option premium will increase in value if the price does fall lower.

Now, I could be wrong on that price floor, and the condition for a price collapse is the unraveling of OPEC, which is certainly a possibility given every country's need for oil revenues.  Interesting times...

On shale hedges and oil prices

Catching up on the oil news of late....

Several recent pieces on the impact of shale producers on prices. Liam Denning's article from Bloomberg.com looks at the use of hedges by shale producers and how it's restraining OPEC's attempt to raise prices (as I've mentioned in quite a few of my previous posts).  Denning provides data that essentially confirms how shale producers use hedges to lock in prices a year out when WTI oil rises above $50 per barrel, which then puts a cap on any price run up. His conclusion:

"In other words, if shale producers can live with oil at $50 or thereabouts, then others will have to adapt themselves to that level. Moreover, if OPEC "succeeds" in pushing up price expectations with extended supply cuts, Permian producers will thank them in the only way they know how. Namely, by laying on more hedges for 2018, using the cash to produce more oil -- and thereby pulling those prices back down."

This shouldn't be news to anyone who has been following my blog.

The data provided by Denning provides some interesting information concerning the history of oil prices and the impact of financial players.  In particular, there is a figure that shows the net shorts of the swaps positions (includes options and futures) in NYMEX oil.  According to Denning, "This is a proxy for hedging activity by E&P [exploration and production] companies (which generally use swaps dealers to establish their hedging positions). The lower the number, the more oil sold short, or hedged." His explanation is consistent with what former Goldman Sachs COO [and current chief economic adviser to Trump] Gary Cohn stated about the creation of Commodity Index Funds (CIFs):

"We had clients that wanted to sell future production forward. So we had many clients that wanted to go drill oil wells, but they needed some predictability of the price of oil they were going to receive out of the well to go borrow money. They tried to enter the market and sell oil. There was no natural long in the market. The consumers are so fragmented that they don't amalgamate to a big enough position. So we actually, as a firm, came up with the idea in the early 1990s to create a long only, static investor in commodity markets. We created the commodity index where we could allow people that were willing to commit large pools of capital into the market for a very long period of time to facilitate the actual producers and allow them to be able to hedge their production forward to increase their production."

Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street banks sold CIF swaps to pension funds as a way to invest in commodities long term; however, the banks (swap dealers) then had to buy contracts on the exchange to hedge their payouts on the CIF swaps they sold. These long-term commodity investments held by pension funds allowed oil exploration firms to lock in prices over a longer time horizon to cover their investments, just as Cohn argued above.  However, the flexibility of the shale producers is changing the nature of hedging as discussed in this FT.com article:

"The number of outstanding oil contracts for delivery years into the future has plummeted on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Since 2012 open interest has declined by more than 75 per cent for benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude expiring in three or four years’ time. During the same period the entire WTI market has expanded by 40 per cent."

Shale oil producers are able to rapidly ramp up production with new rigs, and costs are sufficiently low enough that they are profitable whenever the futures price exceeds $50.  In addition, as the data show, long term hedges (3 and 4 years out) have declined significantly yet overall hedging is 40% higher.  The bottom line is the shale producers are making it nearly impossible for OPEC to raise prices through production cuts because of their ability to rapidly open new rigs, lock in prices a year out, and it is profitable for them to do so when the price of WTI exceeds $50.

The latest development, according to this Bloomberg piece, is that Hedge Funds have lost patience and have dramatically reduced their long bets on crude. As I have recently argued, the banks have been preaching patience to the Hedgies, and even though US inventories have declined the past few weeks, they simply won't stand by any longer and lose money:

Investors had been expecting prices to rise to $55 or $60 a barrel in light of the OPEC deal and prices never reached that level, Tariq Zahir, a New York-based commodity fund manager at Tyche Capital Advisors LLC, said by telephone. “You started the year with longs. They’re giving up on the trade to a certain point.”

If oil inventories continue to decline, then I am sure the Hedge Funds will be tempted back in; however, to reiterate my argument once again, prices will rise too high, too fast which will both raise supply through the shale producers' reactions and curtail demand. Oil prices will certainly stay in the range of $40 to $60 for the rest of the year.