International Investing

Previously a $5 move would be front page news. Now it’s just to be expected:
Crude oil for July delivery rose $5.07, or 3.9 percent, to settle at $136.38 a barrel at 2:48 p.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil reached a record $139.12 a barrel on June 6. Futures have doubled in 12 months [...]

Gartman sounds the alarm:
Noting the Hunt silver problem back in ‘79, Dr. Verlager wrote:
Dennis, There are clearly big problems in the dated crude contracts (Dec 11 to Dec 2016). One or more firms that sold the oil is trying to get out. They have a problem, though. The parties that are long do not want [...]

Great chart and analysis from Sudden Debt:
There have been millions of pages written about Peak Oil, both pro and con, and I don’t claim to be an expert. But I do want to add just one fact based on common sense. Exxon is the world’s largest non-state oil company and the largest publicly traded corporation [...]

A case in point about the incompetence of state control. According to this story, during a period of record high oil prices, the Mexican national oil company is actually LOSING money:
Mexico’s Cantarell oil field — discovered in 1976 and one of the world’s largest — is drying up. Pemex reported a 2007 net loss of [...]

Who are you going to believe, government statistics or your lying eyes? The increase in food and energy prices is something the man on the street has been feeling for the past year+ but has been massaged out of the official numbers. Year-over-year the increase looks awful.
Consumer prices rose by 4.1 percent for all of [...]

Before retreating. The WSJ reports:

The prospect of $100 crude becoming increasingly likely encouraged further buying interest, and deterred sellers as they braced themselves for more gains, with all eyes on Wednesday’s U.S. Department of Energy inventory data.
“We have U.S. energy stock numbers this afternoon with again draws expected for crude, the magnet of $100 has [...]

Without knowing about the “crack spread” the answer is not very intuitive. Trading guru Dennis Gartman explains:
It is not all that difficult to understand when seen in the context of the “crack spread.” The “crack” is the profit margin earned by the refiners, and it has been falling steadily since the late summer. If we [...]

WSJ on the USD, its weak against everything:
The dollar’s problems didn’t stop with the euro. The greenback also reached a fresh 33-year low against Canada’s currency, a 23-year low against the Australian dollar and dipped to its weakest point in three months against the U.K. pound.

The US is doing everything it can to raise the [...]