Screwball

Rubio has always been a warmongering POS slut to the killing people for profit people. In his latest gig, he was confirmed 99-0. Imagine that.

Yes, I remember that too. I worked at a station on the edge of town. Open field to the West. 6 am, cold as ****. Had to take the cap off, which had a padlock. Froze in winter. So fun. Junior in high school. Went through the oil embargo of 73-74. Had to ration gas. Not on the bingo card. We had cars lined up down the street. What's crazy...Before that happened that year, there was a huge concert somewhere around here out in the sticks. Big name bands. When I went to work on Sunday morning the place was full, even parked along the streets to get in. I opened the door, called my boss and said - get the hell out here. What a zoo. I got to meet and talk to the guys from Brownsville Station. That was super off the charts cool, and I did smoke in the boys room.

Who knows? False flag, crazy people, planned strike? I could believe anything. I trust nobody.

What we don't produce ourself we import. From 2023, but probably not much different today; When oil prices didn't go nuts today I thought about the above. The straight doesn't mean much to us. But at the same time, Brent crude, which will have a bigger impact on that part of the world, didn't go nuts either. Most of Iran's oil goes to China, which is probably why the straight is still open (there are reports this isn't true as well). You need money to fight a war, and oil is money. You can't print it either. :-)

In prior years this would be the **** hitting the fan. Nothing happened, yet. Orange Hitler has nothing to do with it. We will see. Insurance rates on tankers aren't getting any cheaper.

A little follow up on the plant closing thing up-thread - with a new twist. Our local rag of a paper finally covered it today, good for them. I talked to one of the girls who work there, and she told me they had a potential buyer there today. Lot's of people hoping for the best. Around 5:30 a crew of 5 guys came in wearing snot green safety vests. They work for an energy company about five minutes from the ****hole bar. Their place was built a couple of years ago. It serves as a warehouse for all the supplies needed to run power lines. They have crews who truck the stuff to wherever they are running lines (in this case an hour an a half away), come home, take more tomorrow. None live around here. They are pretty much gypsies. The guy I was talking to lives in the UP of Michigan and gets home only every few months. He runs the warehouse, so he's one of the lucky ones that doesn't have to drive hours each day (he rents a house here, probably paid for). The others, if lucky get home more often. They all make big ****ing bucks. What exactly are you doing and for who? Ohio AEP, and another one, but I didn't catch the name. I will find out more. Why? Data centers. Imagine that. The funny part. He tells me his company wants to buy the place right beside them that is going out of business because they need more floor space. I won't be repeating that... I'm going to drive by tomorrow and count cars. I'm guessing, even if the road crews park there, there isn't a dozen cars. So it's not like they have a lot of local employees. Now maybe they can turn a factory that employed 400 people into a staging area for AI and data centers. He said it was all about AI. I'm not convinced, and I'm a big time tech guy. It put food on my table. AI - all idiocy.

This is kind of funny. Usually when the market makes a big move you will have many opinions on why. In this case, we have many opinions on why not? This was just a normal day for the most part. I have followed, and traded, the oil markets since the early 2000s (disclosure: I'm long crude). I expected a much bigger response to what is going on in one of the most important choke points on the globe. From my travels today I can say I am not alone. Even pump prices didn't change around here. Doesn't make a lick of sense given history.

I was late. 11:44.

Brent crude is up more than WTI, both 6 to 7% range. The S&P has gone up since open and wouldn't be surprised if it was green by noon. DOW down about 140 and the NASDAQ 23. Basically a big yawn here.

I suppose they can, but the girls at the one I go to still get a call. I asked them. With the technology we have today, they should know how much they pump and when, how much was delivered, and when they need more. I wonder if they still stick the tanks? I'll bet not. Then again, the Office Space documentary didn't really do corporate America justice.

They are all over the place around here. From $2.20 ish to $3.20 ish depending on where you are. These stations will get a phone call in the morning, or maybe tonight, telling them to change the price at the pump tomorrow. It's going up. Funny, price of gas is one of the things the CPI does a poor job of reporting, as measured, and I say reporting because the numbers are in the report if you interrogate them correctly. Going with the bigger picture, the last CPI report was better due to the lower price of gas. Depending on what happens with oil supply chains, terminals, and refineries, it could get ugly quick. To risky? They won't insure a vessel through the straight, then what, or at what price? All inflationary, directly, and indirectly. Could also be cargo. The American people can't afford a oil war right now. It didn't turn out so good last time. Not looking it up, going on memory, but maybe July of 2008 crude hit $147 a barrel. The crash of 2008 and the S&P hitting 666 around March 2009? Many think the oil shock was the pin. I think they were right.

Sunday night update since the futures markets are open. I expected the price of crude to jump, which it did. But as I type this as of 7:40 for the most part has been uneventful. As shown in the chart above crude was around $67 at close on Friday. When it opened tonight at 6 it jumped to $75 and change, then went back down to around the 72ish range and has done little since. This is Sunday night, we don't know what's going on. If anyone Wall Street does, and the tape will tell us what happens when they decide it does. It's all about the Straight of Hormuz. Some analysts think if that is closed, crude will go to $110ish. If that happens, we will of course see that at the pump. Crude today at open (incoming chart porn): For perspective, crude over the last 3 months. Notice the large gap up today, but the candle going green because it has went down since open, even though up around 7 percent. Looking at the S&P futures, the e-mini as they call it, is down, but not really a significant move, even in normal volatility on news. Looks uneventful. But it is bouncing around a resistance level. Let's zoom out a bit and look at a 6 month chart. Like some of the chart porn up thread going back to October of last year, this shows the point of downside resistance from getting into the range created by that big sell-off back then. As a trader, this will tell us what to do next. Looks like next stop 6540 if this doesn't hold. Of course, depending on what happens in our current world this can all be moot. All bets are off - or on.

I was trying to protect the names, but it's all out there now. The people I know work for the TMD plants. They are a blow mold operations making parts for Ford. Things like windshield water bottles or anti-freeze containers. They make the part in a blow mold, then it goes to a secondary operation where they might poke a hole or cut off a neck. Those are bunches of those machines - many of which are leaking oil all over the floor. Ford was there, and saw it. Not happy. For the workers, and our town, I hope they can figure it out. The Horizon they mention, if it is the same one I was familiar with years ago, make wheel lug nuts. We had a plant here at one time, but long gone. Probably to China.

Update. This became official today as it hit the news. 3 plants total, all in Ohio, 1,011 total employees. Closing at the end of April. But it gets worse. They have been under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for a while. I wasn't aware of that. The release states (this is funny); “Company leadership has indicated there has been interest in the facility and they remain optimistic about a potential path forward prior to the April 30 date,” Of course, but then there is this you have to deal with; The worker bees tell me the union wouldn't do squat. I don't know why they list maintenance workers when they seem to not do anything, and neither did management. They wouldn't do **** after the girl I know slipped on the oil and got hurt, and didn't do **** for her either. But hey, a fish stinks from the head down. What a crooked bunch of dicks. May they rot in a jail cell.

Might be a good time to be long crude oil. Some reports claim the Straight of Hormuz is not getting the usual traffic, or even closed. Crude markets are closed for the weekend, but here is the chart from yesterday for reference. 3 month daily.