Sure, it has gone from a low of $55 back in December to $67 at the end of last week. But that’s the middle of the range where it has been for the last year.
Even the rally today has faded quickly.
The market itself is telling us that supply is robust and the risk is negligible.
A lot of factors go into this equation, and I am not going to dive into all of them here. But the price tells us a lot.
There's one other “big picture” analysis that I use — looking at the goals of the major consumers and suppliers of oil.
Here’s what I see:
- Trump wants lower oil prices…
- China wants lower oil prices…
- Europe wants lower oil prices…
- India wants lower oil prices…
- Trump wants to pump more oil…
- Venezuela wants to sell more oil…
- Russia wants to sell its oil…
- And Iran wants to sell its oil.
There could be volatility in the near-term.
But when the largest consumers want a lower price and half of the world's production wants to sell more, prices go LOWER.
We’ll see what happens, but I think $45 oil by year-end is a lot more likely than $100 per barrel.
The Political Outcome
There’s a lot of criticism of the Trump administration out there from all sides of the political spectrum.
Without wading too far into the debate, I do disagree with one of the core criticisms. I think there IS a plan.
It was laid out this morning in the press conference from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and General Dan Caine regarding “Operation Epic Fury.”
If you haven’t watched it already, I highly recommend you do.
The goal is to disable Iran’s military capabilities to threaten and destabilize the region. Also, to disable their ability to prevent attacks on their nuclear development plan.
I believe that the Trump administration is willing to spend five or so weeks pounding Iran (along with help from the Israelis and others) to do as much damage as possible to their capabilities.
I also believe that they will stop at the end of this period.
If the Iranian people can rally and force out the regime during this period, then great. But I think the U.S. will still stop after this period, whether the regime survives or not.
If the Trump administration thinks they need to return in 18 months and debilitate the regime again, then they will do it.
While Trump would clearly prefer to have a friendly Iranian government in place, his most important goal is to eliminate the threat any regime could pose.
The Trump administration will not risk American troops on the ground. It’s not necessary to achieve their goal.
The administration has been very clear about its plans so far, whether folks want to believe them or not.
And I think within the next five weeks or so, they will make good on their plans.
To Making YOU Money,
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