Screwball

The S&P is holding up pretty well considering what's going on. More concerned with the 6762 level that, if breeched, would take us back into the channel from the huge sell-off in October, which puts 6550 in play as the next stop. Incoming chart porn warning. Reminder, the yellow arrows were Fed rate cuts. On to the story of the day - energy, and the price of crude. It was fun to watch today. Got as high as $82.16. Little under $80 as I type this. For perspective, a 6 month chart of crude and what it looks like in the last week. This isn't new, when you look back in history - given the price of crude right now. There are some parallels. Look around Jan 15, and later what they call the 12 day war. Blowing **** up is directly proportional to the price of crude it appears. There is an old saying. This time is different. Seems like some **** is getting blown up. Next stop according to the charts is around 92.

Crude is at $79 and change as I type this. Was as high as $79.97. Dow down 780ish, S&P down 48, and the NASDAQ only -77 Here are two very long and sobering reads on the Iran/oil situation. Systemic Risk: A 12-Order Cascading Analysis of a Zero-Flow Strait of Hormuz Closure The Invisible Siege: How Insurance Markets, Not Missiles, Closed the Strait of Hormuz

What counts is what they blow up, or incapacitate. Some things are more penal than others.

It's not only about what might, or could, get blown up, but what does it do to the supply chain. This has all been war gamed and they all know the score. It all depends on how ugly it gets.

I saw that today but didn't think much of it. More BS. War, and now premium insurance rates due to said war. Both are inflationary. News at 11 kind of thing. Was busy and couldn't follow the timing, but you reminded me. Funny this... Love the chart porn. I wondered about this, but couldn't find the exact time of release. These guys did. It's really fun to watch the headlines vs. the tape. This is a case where they jawboned the price of oil down. For today anyway. Won't stay that way if they all keep blowing things the **** up. The next CPI report won't show this, but starting the next month it should start to. One of the only things that made the last one decent was the lower price of...oil and gas. No longer. Summer is coming, farmers will be planting our food very shortly. Need fertilizer. Natty gas is a large part of that process. That only drives up the cost of our food. Our corporate overlords know that too. They are probably having meetings as we speak to figure out ways to cut costs - because - the bottom line. What and who gets whacked? We must beat the next quarterly earnings report for the pigmen of Wall Street.

Crude (WTI) up around 8 percent today. $76.87 as I type this (Brent crude at 83.72). Also of note, from OilPrice on natural gas; Qatar’s LNG Blackout Just Broke the Global Gas Market Natty gas here is up almost 6 percent.

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.