Futures oil contract trading is generally done by two different groups, speculators and commercial hedgers.
Speculators are essentially taking a position on where oil will be at a future time. If they think it will go higher, they will buy an oil contract to profit from what they expect, a higher price. If they believe that oil will be lower, they will sell (short) oil contracts to profit from the decline they expect.
The eurozone is a gigantic machine of monetary redistribution. Several independent governments can finance their expenditures through deficits that are monetized directly or indirectly by one printing press.
In economic terms, war and pandemic are the same without even evoking imagery of the virus as an invisible enemy or of a long struggle interspersed with brief truces. Both disasters emit massive supply shocks which hit the engines of prosperity.
With its $700 billion bond-buying expansion in response to the COVID crisis, the Federal Reserve has thrust itself into the limelight. Like a sixteen-year-old with a credit card, the Fed is salivating over what money-printing powers it shall seize next. How is the prudent investor to respond?
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Who defends your liberty? According to the establishment and current ethos, your rights exist because US soldiers roam the globe crushing yesterday’s enemy of the state. So your ability to speak your mind, worship God in personal and corporate ways, own property and the fruits of your labor, in short, your right to be left alone by government, is defended in such places as remote desert valleys in Afghanistan, steaming jungles in Thailand, or late night bars in Okinawa.
From California to New Jersey, Americans are protesting in the streets. They are demanding an end to house arrest orders given by government officials over a virus outbreak that even according to the latest US government numbers will claim fewer lives than the seasonal flu outbreak of 2017–18.
The money supply growth rate rose again in March, climbing to a 92-month high. The last time the growth rate was higher was during July 2012, when the growth rate was 11.5 percent. At that time, however, money supply growth was on its way down. The current upward trend has more in common with the trend we saw during late 2008 and early 2009.
