Alcoa is one of the first to report for the season – and the outlook was positive. Analysts really had been concerned that Alcoa would come in much weaker because of an oversupply problem. Some of the highlights that Alcoa offered up were that aerospace and automotive were among the strengths that they saw for [...]
When one drives by the local gas station and sees the guy putting up yet another price hike it is pretty tempting to assume that every company that touches the oil business in some way has to be making money hand over fist. The reality is that it is not all that easy to make [...]
Every once in a while you hit a home run in a statistical report – and things seem to fit together perfectly. Today, the Shanghai Rebar report showed that rebar prices have inched up to their strongest levels this year. Rebar volumes are some of the best signs of construction activity in China. Since rebar [...]
It’s a small amount when we think about the size of the ocean, but 12,000kg of radioactive waste water has leaded once again into the Pacific Ocean according to TEPCO, the owner and operator of the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan. We haven’t written much about the plant over the past several months. You should [...]
TheUS will grow its domestic production of oil. Whether it is the XL Pipeline project or the Seaway Project, more pipeline real estate is going to connect key markets in theUS with each other. But, there is also a significant trend worldwide that is being used by terrorist organizations and rebels to inflict damage on [...]
A much milder winter season has pushed down the price of natural gas to levels that will put a lot of pressure on producers. We won’t put a lot of assessment on the impact of these dropping prices – there are a lot of factors that can push them much higher quickly. For instance, next [...]
The rumors yesterday were enough to roil the oil market and for a few hours the price of crude dropped. Then the supposed agreement between Obama and Cameron was revealed to be nothing more than some discussion of the possibility of allowing a release of some of the 696 million barrels in the US stockpile. [...]
There isn’t much fanfare being touted about the oil market today. Although most analysts would like to downplay what has happened in the oil markets, there is a big story in West Texas Intermediate. The US dollar is up today. That typically will cause oil prices to fall – it makes foreign purchases of oil [...]
Several top media outlets today mentioned the Senator Chuck Schumer comments to Secretary of State Clinton – asking her to approach the Saudi Kingdom to increase production. Let’s take a look at some realities about this approach – one that feels highly political and aimed at preventing a disaster for the incumbency (leave it to [...]
Global authorities are watching the price of soybeans closely this spring as a significant downturn in the soybean crop in South America is helping push crop prices significantly higher. Several different forecast agencies from Germany to the US have said that total volume of soybeans will be a bit weaker than expected, but the condition [...]
