Oil Forecasts Collapse; Trump Needs War Ended
I spent recent weeks pushing back on $150 or $200 oil price forecasts. Those are now firmly off the table. Brent futures are down sharply and that's right. There's lots of open questions, but the big picture is that Trump desperately needs this war to end. https://t.co/xHCtqSNnrA https://t.co/lYSwOfsp6h
Ukraine's Drones Aim to Choke Russian Baltic Oil
If Iran can shut down the Strait of Hormuz, why shouldn't Kyiv shut down the Baltic? Kyiv is using drones to hit Russia's two key ports in the Baltic. It spared key infrastructure, but the signal is clear: Ukraine can...
Spot Brent Lags Futures Yet Set to Drop Quickly
It takes an oil tanker between 2 and 4 days to go from the Persian Gulf to India, which is where the most severe shortfall exists. The spot Brent oil price (white) will be slower to fall than the futures...
Dark Shipping Boosts Hormuz Oil Flow to 12 Mb/D
Oil tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is up. You don't see that in publicly available data like these from Bloomberg, because ships now transiting are travelling "dark." I'd say we're now at 12 mb/d out of the Persian...
US Victory Claim Pushes Allies to Guard Hormuz
Declaring "mission accomplished" for the US isn't a climb-down. Instead, it'll force the hand of others who so far are failing to step up to protect the Strait of Hormuz, so it'll bail in Europe and Asia. That's a smart...
UK, Japan, Euro Periphery Lose Fiscal Space
What countries are running out of fiscal space? To see that, you mustn't look at absolute 30-year government bond yields (lhs), as those are up everywhere. Look at 30-year trade-weighted differentials (rhs). The UK, Japan and Euro periphery are in...
War‑driven Gas Prices Could Hit $5 Before Midterms
The US is running on borrowed time in this war. The average price of one gallon of gasoline isn't yet at the $5 it reached in 2022 after Russia's Ukraine invasion, but it's heading there if this war continues. That...
Ceasefire Triggers Oil Drop, Dollar Decline, EM Rally
A ceasefire is coming. Two things will get repriced quickly when that happens. Oil futures will tumble and the Dollar will fall sharply. The latter is up on safe haven inflows to the US. All those inflows will unwind very...
Record Foreign Inflows Defy “Sell America” Rhetoric
One year ago, after the rollout of reciprocal tariffs, "Sell America" was all the rage. But there never was a "Sell America" trade and no "Hedge America" trade either. Foreign inflows into the US are at record highs. Actions speak...
Global Debt, Not Oil, Fuels True Complacency
I keep hearing the word complacency regarding oil prices. Maybe. But the real complacency is in global debt markets. We have an inflationary shock and fiscal policy that - especially in Europe and Japan - is out of control. This...
Forward Yield Spike Signals Looming Global Debt Crisis
The 10-year Treasury yield is 4.3% (blue) and looks benign. But 10y10y forward yield (red) is 5.5% and pushing above pre-2008 levels. The global debt crisis waits for no one. Fiscal policy is out of control and geopolitical uncertainty makes...
Policy Moves, Not Data, Drive Oil, Dollar, Gold Trends
On yesterday's live stream, I discussed which oil prices to watch, why the Dollar failed to rise on Friday's strong payrolls and the large drop in gold holdings of Turkey's central bank, which is entirely a function of the decision...
Gulf Oil Disruption Hits Asian Nations, Fuels Global Price Surge
The bulk of crude oil out of the Persian Gulf - before the war - went to Asia. That dependence is now creating a giant hole, which is what's driving up oil prices globally. Especially hard hit are Pakistan (PK),...
Turkey's Gold Reserves Fall to Defend Lira Peg
There's 3 central banks that publish weekly data on FX reserves and gold holdings: India, Thailand and Turkey. Only Turkey has seen a sustained drop in gold holdings (blue) that have been used to lift FX reserves and defend the...
Live: Oil Prices, Weak Dollar, Central Bank Gold Sales
I'm doing a livestream this morning at 9 am (ET) to talk through: (i) the different oil prices floating around and how they all fit together; (ii) how the Dollar is trading weak, with yesterday's payrolls another example; (iii) central...
War's End Determines Brent Spot vs Futures Direction
This is the spot Brent oil price (white), the Brent March futures that just expired this week (orange), the current Brent June futures (yellow) and WTI (green). If war ends quickly, white converges down to yellow. If war drags on,...
Dollar's Upside Surprise Effect Fades, Weakness Looms
A few months ago, I wrote about how upside data surprises weren't lifting the Dollar anymore. Today is a case in point. Big upside surprise to payrolls and the Dollar does basically nothing. We're seeing regime change for the Dollar...
Surprise US Payrolls Lift Yields, Hit Emerging Markets
The last thing the word needed this morning was strong US data. But that's what we got. A +1.5 standard deviation surprise on payrolls that's pushed up the 2-year yield 5 basis points, which is broadly in line with its...
Europe's Gas Price Surge Makes Hormuz Intervention Urgent
Whatever objections Europe has to helping open up the Strait of Hormuz, it's a matter of urgent self-interest to help sort this situation out. On a similar time scale to 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine, European natural gas prices are...
Brent Futures Discount Deepens Amid Spot Oil Shortage
The discount on the Brent future expiring in June to the spot Brent oil price is up to 22%. There's acute shortage of oil in the spot market, while futures markets think the war ends soon. This decoupling isn't unprecedented....
Spot Oil Outpaces Futures as War‑end Expectations Rise
Lots of people say the disconnect between spot and futures prices in oil means markets are broken. No! Spot Brent at $140 (white) is above the June future (yellow) because markets think the war ends soon and tanker traffic comes...
Turkey's $40bn Lira Defense Mirrors 2025 Intervention
Factoring in gold, I estimate Turkey has intervened to the tune of $40 bn in March 2026 to defend the Lira. That's the same as in March and April 2025 after the arrest of Ekrem İmamoğlu, an episode that ended...
Embargo Preferred Over Military to Stabilize Oil Prices
Taking Kharg Island or bombing powerplants takes Iran's oil off global markets for a long time. That spikes oil by a lot more and is what markets fear most. Better to do an embargo and take Iran's oil off the...
US Election Clock Forces Push to End War, Brent Slides
Brent has fallen sharply as the US sounds increasingly like it just wants to declare "mission accomplished" and end this war. I do think the midterm elections later this year mean the US is on a very tight timeline and...
Industry Lobbying Inflates Oil Forecasts, Not Reality
When the G7 price cap was being negotiated in 2022, one US bank had an oil forecast of $380. That was the oil sector talking. It hates interference in its business. It's the same now. $150 or $200 forecasts...
Turkey's Overheated Growth Fuels Deficits, Risks Shock
The danger for Turkey is always the same. The current government pushes growth way above the speed limit, which leads to a large current account deficit. Then a shock like high oil prices hits and things run out of control....
Turkey's Reserves Plunge, Echoing 2025 Devaluation After Mayor's Arrest
Turkey's reserve losses rival March 2025 after the arrest of Ekrem İmamoğlu. They're up in the most recent data point only because the central bank used its gold to get access to more foreign exchange. In March 2025 this ended...
Oil Upside Limited Even With Iranian Embargo, Brent at $115
I'm starting a new weekly video every Saturday morning on markets and macro. The first episode was yesterday. I discussed why upside to oil is limited even if we embargo Iranian oil. Brent at $115 already prices significant disruption. You...
Embargo Iranian Oil; Cut Funding to War‑fueling Regimes
I support an embargo of Iranian oil. The reason is Russia. We never embargoed Russia. If we had, there's a good chance it wouldn't still be wreaking havoc in Ukraine. You just can't allow the life blood of these regimes...
Dollar Weakness Paused; Brazil Set to Surge Post‑war
The Dollar downtrend has now been meaningfully disrupted. But that doesn't mean it's over. As soon as this war ends - and it must because of the midterms - Dollar weakness will reassert itself. EM commodity exporters like Brazil will...
Saudi Oil Revenues Rise, No Gold‑selling Crisis
There's lots of misinformation at the moment, including the idea that big Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia are having to sell gold. Saudi Arabia's revenues from oil exports are actually up, because the rise in oil prices more than offsets...
Turkey Alone Sells Gold Amid Fragile Currency Peg
A recurrent theme since war began is that central banks are selling gold. That's mostly not true, but there is one central bank that did. Turkey's gold holdings have fallen 50 tons in recent weeks. But Turkey is an outlier...
War Risks Renew Bond Market Crises Across Europe
The last time we had a supply shock and oil prices rose - in 2022 - Italy and Spain got the ECB to cap their yields to survive and the UK bond market blew up in the LDI crisis. If...
U.S. Gas Prices Up 30%, Still Below $5
Not all oil prices are created equal. There's only one that matters: what Americans pay at the pump. That price is up 30% from before the war (bottom right). That's up, but - at $4 a gallon - we're nowhere...
US Financial Markets Expose Vulnerability in Global Conflicts
The US' Achilles heel in this conflict - much as in the tariff confrontation with China a year ago - is financial markets. Those are flashing red as uncertainty mounts. We have lots of skeletons in the closet in private...
Rising Nominal Rates, Falling Real Rates Boost Gold
Many are attributing the fall in precious metals to rising real interest rates. That's wrong. Real rates (red) have fallen. The rise in nominal interest rates (black) is all about break-even inflation (blue) rising. That's fundamentally good for gold... https://t.co/5amZtGPz0B https://t.co/t11fMQc7JV
War Spikes Oil, Gold Falls, Bonds Surge Globally
Many things are happening simultaneously. War in the Middle East is spiking oil prices, gold has fallen and all the uncertainty is pushing up long bond yields, like in Japan where they're back to the highs. I'll talk about all...
Weekly Live Show Launches: Oil, Gold, Yields Explored
I'm going to start doing a weekly livestream on Saturday mornings at 9 am (ET). Tomorrow will kick things off with a discussion of: (i) impact of an Iran embargo on oil prices; (ii) what's going on with gold and...
Iran Oil Embargo Threatens US Treasury Basis Trade
We need to embargo Iranian oil to end this war. Biggest risk from that isn't catastrophically higher oil prices, but vulnerabilities in US financial markets due to the basis trade in the Treasury market and private credit. Those are our...
Ukraine's Baltic Embargo Shows EU Missed 2022 Opportunity
While everyone is focused on an Iran oil embargo, Ukraine is embargoing Russian oil in the Baltic. If Iran can close the Strait with drones, then Ukraine can certainly shut down Russia's ports in the Baltic. If only the EU...
Krugman Explains Economic Impact of Iran Oil Embargo
If you're interested in what an Iran oil embargo means, how it would work, how it would be enforced, how high oil prices might rise as a result, what would happen to Iran's economy, I discussed all this with @paulkrugman...
Skipping Oil Embargo Prolonged Ukraine War, Says Analyst
Key mistake the West made after Putin's invasion of Ukraine was not to embargo Russian oil. The result is that - more than 4 years later - Russia is still waging war with appalling loss of life. A short, sharp...
Blockade Risks Spike Prices, Yet Market Already Priced In
Key pushback to a blockade is that it might spike oil prices. Iran's 2 million barrels per day could spike oil prices by 20% if they go offline, but - with Brent already up 60% from before the war -...
Saudi Lobbying US to Prolong War for Oil Profits
The Saudis are lobbying the US for war to continue. On the surface, they want Iran to be properly defeated, but there's another reason. They're making lots more money now than before the war, even with somewhat lower export volumes...
Retail Influx and Hedge Fund Margin Calls Drove Gold Slump
Why has gold tumbled? Two reasons: (i) the big rally pre-war sucked in lots of retail investors who're more skittish than the previous buyer base; (ii) volatility meant hedge funds had margin calls, so sold profitable positions like gold to...
Iran's Strait Fees Prompt Calls for Counter-Embargo
We go to war and end up getting embargoed by Iran, which is now charging protection fees for oil tankers to go through the Strait of Hormuz. That's nuts. If Iran can embargo us with a couple of drones, we...
Oil Prices Stay High Amid Ongoing Iran Conflict
I talked to @kairyssdal on @Marketplace yesterday about the latest developments in oil and what to make of the latest switcheroo in the conflict with Iran. I don't think this conflict is over by a long shot, so I doubt...
Oil Prices Fueled More by Conflict Expectations Than Supply
The oil price is a combination of two things: (i) a physical shortage of oil in the here and now; and (ii) expectations for how long this conflict lasts. The latter channel is by far the more important one in...
Trump’s Self‑negotiation Lost; China Won 2025 Standoff
At the height of the tariff stand-off with China in April 2025, Trump was essentially negotiating with himself - threatening escalation and then pulling back - while China stayed silent. We're at that stage now on Iran. China won the...
Brent at $100 Relieves Political Fear of High Oil
Brent is down to $100. The latest de-escalation signal is worth about as much as the escalation signal Saturday night, but - underneath all that - it's clear that high oil prices scare this administration as much as they scared...