President Trump is Evaluating Ways to Stave Off a Recession
August 21, 2019
The estimates from the Bloomberg survey for today’s inventory report on average are calling for crude stocks to be down 1.392 million barrels. Gasoline stocks are estimates down 73,000 barrels and distillates to be up 35,000 barrels. Refinery run are estimated to be down 0.1% from last week’s number of 94.8% of capacity.
The API released their inventory update yesterday late afternoon and it called crude oil stocks down 3.5 million barrels. The outlook for today’s report from the DOE from Reuter’s survey is that crude stocks will be down 1.9 million barrels. The API called Cushing crude stocks down 2.8 million barrels.
Gasoline stocks were down 403,000 barrels in the API report and the outlook for today’s DOE are for a build of 169,000 barrels. Distillate stock according to the API report were up 1.8 million barrels and the outlook for today is for a build of 314,000 barrels. The release of the API numbers offered a bit of support to the market but the bulls will need to wait and see how the DOE number come out this morning.
President Trump says the US is very far off from a recession. He also said he is considering a range of option to stave off any recession. The news has had a few stories about the President doing a payroll tax cut or even a capital gains tax break to help out consumers.
Fed Chairman, Jerome Powell will speak on Friday at the annual Jackson Hole meeting and traders will be listening for any potential changes from the 50 to 75 points of rate cuts by the end of the year that they have assumed.
The US plans to extend a reprieve that permits the China Company, Huawei Technologies, to buy components from US companies. This is a sign of relaxing trade tension between China and US and this news helped generate some buying yesterday to prop the markets up.
Also supportive to the markets was news that Germany is prepared to abandon its balanced budget rule and take on new debt if necessary to prevent a possible recession.
Greece said it has not received a request for an oil tanker at the center of a dispute between Iran and the US to dock at one of its ports as the US warned Greece against helping the vessel.
An Iraqi military official and a source in a paramilitary group said several blast hit a position held by Iraqi Shiite paramilitaries next to Balad air base north of Baghdad on Tuesday. The military official said the intended target of the blasts was the militia’s position near the base.
President Donald Trump’s administration has finished rules that will make it easier for banks to make speculative commodity trades that were prohibited in the wake of the 2007-2008 financial crisis. US financial regulators say the changes, approved today, will avoid confusion with the “Volcker rule” that was required as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial law. The rule is intended to stop banks from making speculative bets using publicly-insured funds. “The amendments will provide more clarity, certainty and objectivity around the Volcker rule, while tailoring the requirements to focus on those banks that conduct the overwhelming majority of trades,” Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) chairman Jelena McWilliam said.
Estimates for today propane inventory are that supplies will increase by 2.7 million barrels.
The EIA in is most recent update showed that the US is the global leader in global petroleum and natural gas production. Here are the comment from their story.
US petroleum and natural gas production increased by 16% and by 12%, respectively, in 2018, and these totals combined established a new production record. The United States surpassed Russia in 2011 to become the world’s largest producer of natural gas and surpassed Saudi Arabia in 2018 to become the world’s largest producer of petroleum. Last year’s increase in the United States was one of the largest absolute petroleum and natural gas production increase from single country in history.