demand (8)

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How Big Oil Will Die

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It’s 2025, and 800,000 tons of used high strength steel is coming up for auction.

The steel made up the Keystone XL pipeline, finally completed in 2019, two years after the project launched with great fanfare after approval by the Trump administration. The pipeline was built at a cost of about $7 billion, bringing oil from the Canadian tar sands to the US, with a pit stop in the town of Baker, Montana, to pick up US crude from the Bakken formation. At its peak, it carried over 500,000 barrels a day for processing at refineries in Texas and Louisiana.

But in 2025, no one wants the oil.

The Keystone XL will go down as the world’s last great fossil fuels infrastructure project. TransCanada, the pipeline’s operator, charged about $10 per barrel for the transportation services, which means the pipeline extension earned about $5 million per day, or $1.8 billion per year. But after shutting down less than four years into its expected 40 year operational life, it never paid back its costs.

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Investors, advertisers, and business leaders around the world are still trying to understand millennials, the generational group that will shape commerce for the foreseeable future. In the past, that’s why we’ve looked at millennial investing and banking preferences, their favorite brands, and even what real estate professionals need to understand about the generation.

Today’s infographic from Adweek is of particular interest, because it focuses on a very particular subset of millennials. The data in the graphic is from a survey of nearly 500 nominees for the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. While the subject range is broad, it’s a good snapshot of how some of the brightest millennials in business think.

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What’s interesting is that there on some topics there was a surprising consensus, while others had a diversity in responses.

In terms of consensus, 97% of the brightest millennials agreed that they were optimistic about the future, and 80% said they still believed in the “American Dream”. In

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fredgraph.jpg.png?zoom=1.5&fit=1272%2C763&ssl=1&width=750The chart above tracks the broad stock market against the spread of lowest-rated investment-grade corporate bond yields. They normally track each other very closely as they both reflect broad investor risk appetites.

When investors are hungry for risk stock prices move higher and corporate spreads get narrower. When risk aversion takes over, however, stock prices fall and spreads widen.

Another reason they closely track each other is corporations’ ability to access credit is very closely tied to the overall demand for equities. When it’s very cheap for companies to borrow, it’s very easy for them to fund stock buybacks and acquisitions of other companies.

Certainly, these two factors have been very important to the bull market of the past six years or so. Ray Dalio recently said he estimates that buybacks and M&A have roughly amounted to 70% of the total demand for equities.

As spreads widen, it becomes more expensive for companies to borrow and thus more difficult to fund stock bu

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China’s market downfall has been dramatic and painful for the investors involved. But so far there has been little immediate impact on the rest of the world, because China tightly limits foreign investment in mainland stocks.

China’s stock markets are, for the most part, a mom and pop affair—about 80% of the trading that happens in Shanghai and Shenzhen is done by Chinese individuals. They represent at most 14% of the total Chinese population.

But there’s little doubt the effects of this downturn will be felt globally—it just may take some time. After all, Chinese investors have lost more about $3.4 trillion in equity value from the markets mid-June peak until the July 7 close:

And although the government is supporting state-owned companies in the markets, other companies have seen their market value plummet.

As of July 8, about half of the stocks that traded in Shanghai and Shenzhen have voluntarily halted trading indefinitely—which potentially puts the brakes on everything from co

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Lower Oil Spawns Numerous Opportunities

1290973?profile=RESIZE_480x480As many Western economies are seemingly slowing down again, with most of them still struggling with stubbornly high unemployment levels, they will only benefit from the current sharp drop in oil prices which will stimulate the global economy. Moreover, countries now have the opportunity to replenish stocks and protect themselves against future price hikes. Stockpiling begs the question: how long will prices remain relatively low compared to recent years? Will they fall further? $60 would certainly kick start substantial economic activity or will supply be rained back?

In the past, we have seen the US and its Western partners put pressure on OPEC, and the world's only swing producer Saudi Arabia, to increase supply so as to lower prices or maintain price stability. Are we about to see them create further price fixing market imperfections by asking the Saudis to cut production so as to create a return to higher prices? Much of the Western economic commentaries are suggesting the Middle

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Admin

Zero Growth In 4Q For Germany? Dark Skies For Europe

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If Germany is the European leader, one can easily see how this bodes for the rest across the pond as well as DEMAND for goods and services coming out of the U.S.

According to Reuters Ifo economist Klaus Wohlrabe said on Monday he expected zero growth in the fourth quarter in Germany and that there were almost no bright spots for German industry at present.  "Things have not gone well for German industry and there are no bright spots for industry," he said. (click chart to enlarge)

Business sentiment darkened in October for a sixth month running, according to the Munich-based Ifo think-tank's business climate index, which fell to 103.2 from 104.7 the previous month. That was its weakest reading since December 2012.

Wohlrabe said recent upward momentum in the Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) for Germany was not yet visible. Only firms' export expectations had risen slightly, he said, although it remained to be seen if this was sustainable.

Hans-Werner Sinn, President of Germany’s Ifo In

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Who Will Quench China's Thirst For Crude Oil

In September 2013, China became the biggest net importer of crude, beating out the U.S. for the first time. This came as no surprise, given how rapidly China’s thirst for oil has grown, although landing in top place happened a little ahead of U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) predictions that it would take place in 2014. However, where the U.S. has been shoring up its own internal production, China has lagged behind. Between 2011 and 2014, U.S. oil production rose by 31 percent, as opposed to China, which saw its own production increase by a little more than 5 percent over that time. This leaves China utterly dependent on oil imports, a vulnerable position to be in at a time when its economy is beginning to wobble.

energy-china-transit-traffic-2_30863_600x450.jpg?width=300China’s demand for black gold is only set to increase, causing it to spend a staggering $500 billion a year on imports by 2020, according to Wood Mackenzie. This increase is being fueled largely by an explosion in car ownership. But who will be the faithful bartender, ref

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Stock Buybacks; Sustainable Smoke And Mirrors

1290774?profile=RESIZE_480x480My simplistic view of the stock market, the one my muddled brain is able to wrap around, is to imagine that of the waterfalls at the Continental Divide at Glacier National Park in Montana.  Numerous rivers, all converging into to one.  Hedge funds, pension funds, investment firms, your own 401k, option flows, you name it.........and share buybacks.

Throughout the recovery, the amount of cash being held on corporate balance sheets was in some instances, astounding, leaving many investors wondering if/when the cash would be deployed. 

Well if you haven't noticed, they have been deploying more and more.  Just imagine the many streams you see in this image to the right.  One is M&A which can be the acquisition of a company to compliment ones existing structure OR a direct competitor which is a plus for a stock by making your space that much smaller.  Another stream, a small one, is (hopefully) R&D, another stream represents cash being returned to shareholders via higher dividends and las

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