As we have been analyzing the crude oil market from several aspects, we would like to summarize our predictions in this article.
The oil price has been tumbling since 2014 due to the oversupply by the US shale oil industry. The following is the chart of WTI crude oil futures:
The shale industry has made it possible to extract oils that could not be extracted in a conventional way, and consequently the supply of oils immensely increased. Now even oil tankers are used as storage.
Tax havens are countries with zero or very low tax rates, and they are known for being used by global companies and hedge funds. There are various kinds of tax haven countries in the world, and thus we are going to discuss their differences and characteristics in this article.
The writer does not have any qualification for laws or accounting in any country, so please read and understand disclaimers to read this article.
Continue reading Tax haven countries for global businesses: hedge funds and tech giants
This is somewhat old information but surely illustrates what Japan thinks of quantitative easing. The following is a video of the Japanese financial minister Taro Aso in 2010 explaining why Japan’s huge public debt is not a problem:
In this video, Mr Aso asserts that Japan will not go bankrupt despite the huge public debt because debt monetization will clear all of it. This was when the Liberal Democratic Party was not ruling the parliament, and thus he was perhaps more frank to talk about what he actually thinks of the debt.
Continue reading Japan’s finmin Aso supports the debt monetization by the Bank of Japan
The global deflation and low economic growth are the keys to investment in 2016. The weak demand from the decelerating Chinese economy has pushed down the commodity prices, and Europe and Japan are still struggling to recover from the recession.
Even the US economy has a symptom of a slowdown now, indicating it cannot support the rest of the world economy alone.
The advanced economies have already relied on the quantitative easing, and if even the QE cannot revive the economies, what would be the cause of such a strong deflationary force? Larry Summers, the former Treasury Secretary, called it secular stagnation.
Continue reading Hedge fund managers on secular stagnation: George Soros, Ray Dalio and Bill Gross
The currency war, the market turmoil and the secular stagnation will make the gold price skyrocket to $2,000 in 2017 or 2018.
In Jan, 2016, we predicted the turnaround of the gold price, and since then gold has indeed rebounded from its three-year bear market as you see in the following chart of the gold price:
The timing of our prediction was perfect. Investors finally realized three or four rate hikes in 2016 are practically impossible, and the secular stagnation will keep the US and global economy in need of financial easing. In addition to it, there are several facts for which we can be bullish about gold.
After the radical crash in 2015, the WTI crude oil price has been trading around $30s, and many try to forecast how long it will remain low.
The prospect of the crude oil price depends on the two factors: the OPEC and the US shale oil industry. Whilst the OPEC now tries to cooperate to freeze production, Saudi Arabia is still unwilling to cut its output.
Then what about the US shale industry, which Saudi Arabia tries very hard to kill? They surely have larger costs for production, and then it would be them that would die out if low oil prices continue.
The shale oil companies published their earnings releases in February, and this article is examining the results. Are they cutting production? Are they close to bankruptcy? These factors will be necessary to know in order to foresee the future of oil prices.
Continue reading Shale oil companies’ earnings releases predict the crude oil price in 2016