THE BOTTOM IS IN?

He's a guy who made tons of money in oil markets.

He is someone who in black gold's decline from well over $100 a barrel to below it 's recent low of under $30 barrel took much heat, not all of it the most kind. He is Andrew Hall, the "god of oil trading" and CEO of commodity hedge fund Astenbeck Capital.

He is also someone who's held to his beliefs during a time when his fund witnessed, some calculate, a decline of nearly $2 billion in capital. Here's what he told investors in a letter earlier this month.

In Astenbeck’s March 1 letter to investors, which has been reviewed by ValueWalk, Hall writes, “we believe the global oil market is already close to being balanced yet prices are at a level that will continue to destroy supply. The longer they stay at current levels the greater the risk that the world will face a significant supply shortfall in 2017.”

Andy Hall: Oil Prices Have Bottomed

This isn’t the first time that Hall has attempted to call a bottom in the price of oil. Astenbeck has been positioned for a rally in crude prices for around a year now, but so far the rally has failed to emerge. Thanks to its bullish stance on oil prices it’s believed that Astenbeck dropped in value to about $2 billion during 2015 after suffering a 36% loss.

However, even after suffering these massive losses last year, Hall hasn’t changed his strategy. He continues to believe that oil prices will head higher this year, and after suffering a 20% loss during the first 17 days of 2016 (the fund soon recovered these losses and finished the first month of the year down only 4%), it appears as if Astenbeck’s outlook for the oil market is finally starting to pay off.

After WTI prices briefly tested $26/bbl during January, they’ve quickly recovered, rallying by 59% to $41.26/bbl at the time of writing.

And Andrew Hall believes that this is just the beginning of the recovery in oil prices, despite what others in the industry may be saying.

Four key themes are running through the market which Hall cites as evidence to support his hypothesis on oil prices: More.

.businessinsider.com/andy-hall-says-80-possible-in-12-months-2016-3

THEY'RE HERE TO HELP

Those of you who have followed our blogs know we've been saying this for a long, long time. This is not a back-patting on our part. These signs and symptoms are hardly new. Nor is the bed sharing claim.

What is new is people like this lady finally coming out with her rants. Late may better than never and deserve some credit, but very little because the Internet is fraught with decent, intelligent, informed commentators who have been blurting out such charges for years. The only difference is platform size.

While we appreciate her comments, we respect much, much more those less in the MSM cynosure who risk much, much more to view theirs views. And still do to this moment. If you fail to understand this is about your liberty and freedom of choice and expression, so be it. One of the unspoken rights of the Constitution as it was originally written is one's right to remain ignorant.

We ourselves have been censored, blocked for 16 days from sending out our blogs over a major news outlet. Our crime: questioning the description one of the nation's most powerful scribes used to depict Trump supporters way back in the Iowa primary. The story centered on the writer's description of the Trump supporter as a middle aged, white male, semi-literate tow truck driver with less than a King's English command of the language.

We used no foul or unseemly language, merely questioned the description and it condescending and contemptuous attitude toward not just the driver but anyone who by implication would support such a rogue. We stated we couldn't imagine anyone in today's environment getting away with writing that about a Mexican or African-American tow truck driver in California or New York without the sky caving in on him.

We were told next time the penalty could be worse. After the episode, we inadvertently, as life sometimes strangely unfolds, came across others who had been censored and warned, people we had never even seen before. So think not this is new or novel. You're an elitist if you think it won't or can't happen to you.

Two weeks ago, Judge Jeannine Pirro hit it out of the ballpark with her stunningly honest and frank monologue that "there's an insurrection coming" and that "the American people are sick and tired of crony capitalism."

Overnight, she followed it up with another striking rant, this time explaining why the Republican Party's mantra has suddenly become that "Donald Trump must be stopped. "Why?" she asks rhetorically:"why would Republicans try to sabotage their own front-runner and risk a Democrat winning the White House?" Her answer, which is absolutely accurate: "The Republican establishment, elected officials and party leaders are in bed with the Democrats!"

She explained:

“If Hillary wins, nothing is lost for them, it’s business as usual. The lobbyists keep their offices on K Street, the pharmaceutical companies keep paying them, the unions keep adding to their pensions and the lawmakers get their reelection bribes – I mean contributions – while we the underclass work two and three jobs and rack up a debt our children and grandchildren will have to pay for generations!”

For the full read, here's the link. zerohedge.com/news/2016-03-20/judge-jeanine-republicans-plotting-against-trump-proof-they-are-bed-democrats

When the Iowa primary tattoo tossed out to describe Trump supporters failed to take, the elite of these two parties and much of MSM ramped up the onslaught of more vicious epithets in their attempt to derail the Trump train. See and count, for example, to give just one example, the number of editorials deriding Trump and his supporters in The Wall Street Journal alone.

 What they don't get or don't want to get and will never get until you open your voice and join the fray is:Many of Trump's supporters are not bigots, haters, gun nuts, xenophobes, homophobes, little kids searching for their mommies and daddies, illiterates or any such thing.

They're educated, generous, kind, forgiving, loving people of all races and creeds who simply want the freedom to live their lives in their own way, completely indifferent to what you and I do so long as it doesn't impede their freedoms anymore than you and I want theirs to impede ours.

They're fed up with over-regulation, over-taxation, increasing government invasion of privacy, big, indifferent government, big government deficits and even bigger government lies and the phony two-party elitist status quo system. They're sick and weary of a deceptive, mindless foreign policy that has, to use one of the elite's favorite terms, no endpoint. In short, they get it.

They understand we're all about to be stranded and hogtied in a cashless society under the usual phony guise of catching the bad guys and gals and altruistically doing what's best for us. After all, they're from the government and they're here to help us.

OVERNIGHT

The Shanghai Composite Index rallied 1.9% Monday with the Hang Seng Index up 0.3%. Just a short while ago Chinese officials were reeling in margin investing, but since apparently have softened that stance, giving some oomph to shares.

At a time when the Chinese property market appears over-priced and is causing concerns, investors have seen some light at the end of the equity tunnel. One could postulate the government has put its own put option under stocks as the WSJ reports: Those gains came after a state-backed company called China Securities Finance Corp. published new interest rates on a range of loans that it gives to brokerages. The lender, which is tasked with providing funds to brokerages so they can lend cash to investors for buying shares, lowered the rate on 182-day loans to 3% from 4.8% previously. That effectively offers support for the market, which is on a nascent recovery.

The unwinding of the margin loans, which rose to more than 2 trillion yuan, was a key reason why Chinese stocks tumbled so quickly last summer. The Shanghai Composite Index remains off 43% from its peak in June, while the total amount of margin loans has since fallen to 847.4 billion yuan as of last Friday, according to database provider Wind Info.

Even as the amount of margin loans has dropped this year, the Shanghai stock market has been rebounding—it is up 11% since the beginning of the month and was on a six-session winning streak as of Friday.

Meanwhile, stocks elsewhere traded mixed as oil prices declined with the Australian S&P/ASX 200 off 0.5%, the Kospi down 0.3%. Several markets will have a holiday-shortened week. The Nikkei was closed Monday.

IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS A DOT

 
We know that NCAA March Madness is capturing much of many peoples' attention this weekend and that there are few if any interesting funny sitcoms to entertain during the day. We certainly don't want to seriously disrupt the entertainment spectrum of the masses.

So here's a suggestion and a taste that should arrest your attention, the Fed's new dot-plot scheme. Read it and laugh. It's just might console some of your pain if your favorite team got bounced.

The "dot plot," part of the FOMC's Summary of Economic Projections released along with the policy decision statement, shows where each participant in the meeting thinks the fed funds rate should be at the end of the year for the next few years and in the longer run. 

Each of the 17 members of the FOMC anonymously provides their predictions for the target fed funds rate at the end of this year, each of the next few years, and in the longer term. The Fed releases those predictions in a chart that includes a dot for each of the members at their target interest rate level for each time period.

You might find curious the use of the term anonymously. It looks as if anonymous covers a lot of ground. Some of you are no doubt feeling that way right now about your March Madness picks.


businessinsider.com/fed-dot-plot-march-2016.

IT NEVER STOPS

It's really fun to watch MSM spread it's propaganda.

In the pharmaceutical industry if some natural, inexpensive, non-prescription remedy gets too much positive recognition, proving in many incidents to actually work, you can bet it won't be long before big pharma cranks up its huge research engine, opens it deep pockets and produces a widely, MSM-covered research report saying it doesn't work.

Usually, they will toss in a few requisite scary side effects the natural substance might contain just to buttress the point and attach the names of a few high pedigree physicians from the requisite high pedigree academic knowledge boxes to the study as a closer.

If that fails, those deep pockets suddenly will reopen and that huge, bureaucratic wasteland called the FDA will abruptly issue a cease and desist edict to those writing about or recommending the substance, accusing them of practicing medicine. You need a license to do that.

You also need a license to sell booze, so if there's a certain level of alcohol present expect to hear from them. Elections are supposedly about voters giving others a license to rule. In this case, unfortunately, we pay them instead of them paying us for the license.

When is the last time anyone asked you to vote for a director of the FDA, the chairperson of the Federal Reserve or, for that matter, the Supreme Court? Again, supposedly, the license we grant to those others implies they would do a better job of choosing. And again, unfortunately, history says otherwise. All three can deeply impact your lives.

President Obama recently named his candidate to fill the vacant seat at the U.S. Supreme Court, a pretty far left of center magistrate in the eyes of many. Well, you didn't have to wait long. After some questioned the candidate's political leanings and his close ties to labor unions, the other side got their printing presses rolling. Pronto.

Here's an example from a noted liberal news organization, Business Insider. There's no implied evil here, just a statement of fact. The title tells you everything you need to know, especially if you're a rare member of that small-but-rapidly-disappearing society of people who like to think for themselves and know that this is really about political, social and financial turf. Nothing more and nothing less.

It's the struggle to impose one brand or another of serfdom on your liberty, also known as pick your poison.Trying to pass this guy off as middle of the road is as hilarious as it would be to try to pass his predecessor off as being middle of the road. But we have little doubt some historian in the not too distant future will most likely try to do it. And it will most likely make the New York Times bestseller list.

The one sure thing you can count on is the contempt for and the insults to your intelligence from these two sides, left and right, never stops.

.businessinsider.com/merrick-garland-republicans-2016-3

THE IDES OF THEORY.

We're told to be leery of the Ides of March this time of year. But as investors what one needs to be chary of anytime of year is the Ides of Theories.

There's a lot of theory out there. Most of it as unreliable as campaign promises by presidential hopefuls. Here's one you heard a lot about since oil prices tanked. Cheaper gas prices make it cheaper to get to stores. Two words: In theory.

As a story in this week's Barron's noted: But a lot of traditional retailers have struggled to keep up with rapid changes brought on by e-commerce, and the most recent holiday season proved challenging for many apparel makers owing to the warmer weather, pressuring margins. 
Warmer weather and cheaper gas was supposed to bring out more shoppers.

Now, with spring approaching, investors are fretting about soft sales. Last month, for example, retail sales fell by 0.1% compared to January. (That includes restaurants.) And January's results were revised downward, to minus 0.4%.

The point here is many retail stocks, despite what some might have assumed, struggled of late. Of the eight tracked in the article, all members of the S&P 500, only two, Home Depot and Target, delivered positive total returns in the last 12 months, certainly a period of declining energy prices not just at the pump. A warmer winter in the clder climes should leave more dollars for shopping.

Political theory suggests a new White House occupant will make intelligent changes people want and can subsist with. Since the demolition of the American middle class in recent decades, there's more subsisting than living going on. The recent campaign that offers the choice of an avowed socialist, an established prevaricator and a stimulating but dangerous loose cannon is just one more case in point.

With a good number of the globe's central banks implementing negative interest rates to stimulate growth it becomes more suspect almost daily that these bureaucrats know what their doing is more theory than fact, more wishful thinking than reality.

Theories are rife, financial, social and political. How much attention one pays to them can damage more than just one's ego.

DARK AND GRAY

We realize in a world so addicted to quantitative data, anecdotal information is a distant stepchild .

Still, we like to pay an occasional kicking-the-tires visit to businesses, particularly the smaller ones  that never make much of a news splash but in essence are the economic cervical, thoracic and lumbar spine of this nation's existence.

The commodities world as nearly everyone knows has been dark and gray for some time. A recent WSJ story, "Scrap-metal Sector Is The Latest Victim of Commodities Bust," tells part of the tale.

PITTSBURGH—Cars are piling up at junkyards across the U.S., as the commodities bust that has already bruised mining and metals companies from Ohio to Australia ripples through another sector: scrap.

As prices for steel, iron ore and other commodities have dropped because of a demand slowdown and oversupply in China, prices for scrap metal have also collapsed.

That is leading junkyard operators to stockpile cars instead of shredding them, stalling the auto-recycling industry and the chain of largely small businesses that make up the U.S. scrap sector, which is a linchpin of the U.S. industrial economy and an $105 billion-a-year business.

 ,
Brad Barnette runs Integrity Metal Inc., a Santa Ana, California scrap metal business he founded in 1996 after a few years of collecting when he decided to hook an old trailer to his used truck and collect scrap metal. A retired Fire Captain, he was active and well-known in the area partly for his volunteer work with a local community boxing club for kids, TKO Boxing.

That was then. Twelve years later he was running a multi-million dollar firm with 20 full-time employees. Before 2009 despite the usual ups and downs and things first started turning dark and gray, his initial impression was it's just another business bump in the road. Like a dripping faucet at night, however, that starts out soft only later to sound like a sledge hammer pounding metal, he didn't see the severity of the downturn coming. 

What we know now is he was not alone. By the end of 2015 business was so slow he'd cut his full-
time staff nearly in half and was considering further cuts to keep the firm afloat. As the above chart clearly shows, the price per ton between mid-2010 and late last year dropped dramatically.

Around the same time he decided to convert some of his unused building space into a boxing gym to possibly generate some income from non-metal activities. After all, the space was there, not being used and he loved boxing. Though it's still too early to tell, the gym, Train With Integrity, is off to a decent start. It's a place "Where real men scrap," he offers, with a chuckle.

"In the U.S.," the Journal notes, "scrap has come to underpin almost every sector of heavy industry, because the U.S. began churning out massive numbers of cars, refrigerators and other steel goods decades before any other country."

Some might think scrap is just that--scrap. But they'd be very wrong. According to the WSJ: Scrap—largely the product of recycled consumer goods—is a rare commodity segment where the U.S. is still the world’s dominant player and biggest exporter.

More than 60% of steel in the U.S. is made from scrap, compared with only 7% in China. The U.S.’s biggest steelmaker, Charlotte-based Nucor Corp., and many of its rivals, use scrap as their main raw material.

Steel production in the U.S. was down 11% last year to 78.9 million tons, meaning steel mills bought that much less scrap. That slowdown is dampening demand for junked cars, the biggest reliable source of scrap metal.

We asked Barnette if he sees any light at the end of the current tunnel?

"It's been a real fight," he said. "And I'm not saying that as a pun. Competition and service have always been our thing. We thrive on it. But I think we're turning the corner now though I know a lot
of my competitors won't be around to see it."

PERSISTENCE AND HYPOCRISY

The WSJ's bevy of editorial writers have managed to lob just about every bomb they can toward the Donald. But the Trump Train despite some hitches keeps on chugging down the track.You can tell their running low on their supply by today's paltry peeve.

Are you ready? Here it is: "He is the least commanding front-runner since Ford." Now think about it; that's a serious charge. The key phrase in this pathetic editorial is "...weakest Republican front-runner." Ford was with all due respect a pretty dull character on a good day. A former center on the football team at Michigan, one of his opponents characterized him as "playing too many games without his helmet on."

Call Trump what you want, but dull isn't one them.

Then they cite the breakdown of those who voted for Trump so far in what they label as "the large and fractured GOP field," dividing it into what one can only suppose they deem true GOP lemmings and the disgruntled. By their calculations the disgruntled outnumber the lemmings about 3:1, a fact that ought to tell them two things: one about their archaic, bankrupt party and the other about the current state of widespread despair and how far they and their ilk are out of touch.

They next shuffled their cards to deal out one of their pet terms that's right up there with other nonsensical political favorites, bipartisan and compromise--coalition. That's their way of threatening him to make amends (We all know what that means!) with the 39% of GOP voters who recently said in exit polls "...they would consider supporting a third party candidate if Trump and Clinton are the nominees."

Well, here are a couple of observations: These folks love to lose and last time we looked there's no shortage of cake around. But you got to give those kids on the WSJ editorial staff credit for two things, their persistence and their hypocrisy.

OVERNIGHT

A weaker dollar after the Fed's do-nothing comments sent currencies across Asia higher and several stock markets there Friday took their lead from the action. The weaker dollar translated into a stronger yen driving the Nikkei index down 1.2%, not good news for Japanese officials who have been trying to drive the yen down with their negative interest rates and looked forward to ramping up exports against a stronger dollar.

The weaker dollar also affected oil prices, sending them higher, a plus for materials energy shares
The Shanghai Composite  rallied 1.3% while the Hong Kong Hang Seng Index edged up 0.5%
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.2%, and Korea’s Kospi rose 0.3%.

The WSJ reported other currencies that rallied against the dollar.

Other currencies in Asia are hovering near multi-month highs against the U.S. dollar. The moves reflect investors’ willingness to take on more risk while the dollar is weak.

On Friday, Chinese authorities guided the yuan stronger to 6.4628 per U.S. dollar, a 0.5% appreciation and the strongest move since mid-December.The Australian dollar rose to $0.7680 per U.S. dollar, its highest since last July. The Korean won, Thai baht, Singapore dollar and Malaysian ringgit have also rallied versus the greenback.

OBSCURES TO REALITY

Want to know how to accurately define elitist political contempt?

Daniel Henninger is one of the WSJ's big shot editorial page gurus. His regularly appearing column is titled, "Wonderland." Well, you don't have to wonder any longer where he's coming from.

Henninger is one of those elitists who symbolizes in one mind all those epithets he and his editorial gang like to hurl at those who disagree with them. This time around it happens to be Trump and his supporters. But just to set the record crystal clear one more time, we're not Trump supporters. Nor have we ever contributed one depreciating U.S. dollar to either of these fraudulent groups called political parties in a lifetime.

Discussing Kasich's Ohio primary victory over Trump last Tuesday, Henninger, in "Kasich's Art of the Deal," writes:

Mr. Kasich's Ohio win Tuesday did elevate in stark terms whether Mr. Trump's appeal in November in crucial Northern swing states would ever grow much beyond his lower middle-class Republican base."

Despite claims to the contrary, obviously Mr. Henninger and his fellows travelers of the conservative Republican tribe don't really give a damn about their "lower-middle class Republican base" or what they might want or believe they need.

Now we don't reside in the Midwest. We're out here in Lala Land, the home of more liberal left wing Democrats than one would find at a national Democrat convention. The people we converse with, businessmen and women, professionals, are hardly lower middle class, though surprisingly many with middle American roots however distant.

Those who are brave enough to wear their Republican lapel pins in public in general don't seem to have many good things to say about their current Republican Party, the one Henninger and his gang are so frantically trying to preserve. Funny thing is, some of the Democrats we speak with, hardly lower-middle class ones, seem to have a similar view of their own party.

Trump supporters--at least those brave enough to articulate it in public--come in all sizes, shapes and classes, a point the Henningers on the planet either can't or don't want to grasp. There are many more who will only reveal that fact in private. They're hardly stupid or uneducated, whatever that passes for today. And it might surprise Mr. Henninger that many of these people are not Caucasian, don't own any weapons and actually like other human beings of all races and so forth, proving another point.

Henninger and his clan are more out of touch with reality than those astronauts that recently returned from living nearly a year in outer space. But, then again, that's what living in, breathing in and believing in that ratified editorial air does: Obscures one to reality.