Siemens Slashes Jobs; Southwest Cozies Up to Canada; VMWare Axes CEO; Office Depot Drops on Dismal Sales; Oil Drops $10 in a Week; Fed’s New Lending Restrictions; Anheuser Busch Sues InBev; ConocoPhilips Strikes Deal with Abu Dhabi
In the energy market Thursday, crude for August delivery jumped as high as $146, before settling at yet another alltime closing high of $145.29 up $1.72. July reformulated gasoline tacked on 2.2 cents, to $3.571/gallon.
Editor’s Note: Crude oil prices are still above $140 a barrel, and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has told us all to get used to high prices. But Mike Burnick — senior analyst at The Sovereign Society — says the black goo is ‘pretty cheap.’ When you compare it to other products consumed heavily by Americans, oil actually seems pretty good value.
Editor’s Note: Are market fundamentals to blame for sky-high crude oil prices? Of course not, says Andrew Gordon. It’s the tens of billions of dollars pouring into the oil futures markets are. Sure, demand is high – but the high-end costs of producing oil are $70 max, so a barrel of the black goo should cost about $110.
The price of oil climbed 38% between April and June, the biggest quarterly increase in nine years. Today oil stood at $141 a barrel, a slight drop from yesterday’s sky-high $143.
Editor’s Note: Dave Gonigam in Desidooru Saloon has picked up on a power struggle among Saudi Arabia’s oil elite that could have major implications for the energy market…
Editor’s Note: Money Morning’s William Patalon III says Dubai’s oil-sponsored development bonanza could yield some great returns on well-placed investments. At the top of the list is Dubai’s ambitious $82-billion plans for the aerospace industry.
Editor’s Note: Banning speculators will bring down crude oil prices says Congress. But they’re missing the point, says Dave Gonigam in The Daily Reckoning. This will not address the imbalance in the oil market… “In ’speculators,’ everyone from members of Congress to the king of Saudi Arabia has found an excuse to ignore the supply-demand imbalance that’s at the heart of $138 oil,” says Dave. “It enables denial.”
Crude oil prices are up again today despite a pledge by Saudi Arabia to boost production.
Traders focused instead on disruptions to Nigerian supply and heightened Middle East tensions — namely Iran’s threat of a “devastating” response to any attack on its nuclear sites by Israel.
On Friday, Pentagon officials said a large-scale Israeli military exercise in the eastern Mediterranean early this month may have been a dress rehearsal by Israeli forces for an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.
Saudi Arabia may boost its oil production, says Bloomberg, “beyond a planned 200,000 barrel-a-day increase in July if the oil market requires extra supply.”
The report follows a comment by Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi at a summit in Jeddah.
The oil market due a correction, says Brian Hunt in DailyWealth… Is a drop of $40 on the prices of a barrel of crude coming soon
