In this episode of Talks at GS, investor Stanley Druckenmiller discusses his current outlook on the market, his approach to risk management throughout his career, and his perspective on the conversation surrounding the role of capitalism in American society.
The best performing commodity for the week was natural gas, up 12.09%. U.S. natural gas futures extended gains through the week, amid colder weather forecasts across the country for February. The spread between March and April natural gas futures -- known as the widowmaker -- flipped to positive on Monday for the first time since January, writes Bloomberg.
Brent crude continues to make a comeback, trading near $60 a barrel, which was a low as $35 three months ago. OPEC+ said it will continue to quickly clear the oil surplus created by the pandemic and is currently withholding 7 million barrels a day of output, or around 7% of global supplies. China’s biggest offshore oil and gas producer said it will boost spending by 19% this year ahead of an expected production surge, in contrast to other global producers cutting spending.
Credit Suisse upgraded the U.S. steel sector to overweight, predicting prices could remain above the historical average of $600 a ton through the year. Bloomberg notes the firm turned bullish on Nucor, Steel Dynamics and Stelco.
There are all sorts of signals pointing to rampant speculation in the stock market today. And if we are to measure it by way of margin debt (normalized by the size of the economy), then what we are witnessing is, in fact, a level of speculation that dwarfs anything seen in modern times.
Not only is the overall level of margin debt hitting new highs, the 9-month increase in the total amount of margin debt also just soared to a new record. It’s hard to believe that both of these could be possible simultaneously, that off of such a massive base the amount of debt used to speculate could increase so rapidly, but there you have it.
During one of the craziest weeks I can remember in the markets, I chatted with Max Wiethe from Real Vision about what is going on. We covered a lot of ground, including an overview of why this is a golden era for Event-Driven trading and how KEDM can help you capitalize on all of the opportunity. We also go through a few historic examples so you can get a better sense of how to use KEDM. (For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, click here for my introduction to KEDM.Com)
By special request, my friends at Real Vision have let me distribute the interview for those who aren’t yet paid up Real Vision subscribers (Seriously?? Who wouldn’t already be a subscriber?? It’s well worth the cost).
Silver is set to become a major beneficiary of emerging industrial applications.
That includes sources of renewable energy, solar specifically, which continues to ramp up around the globe in response to a combination of carbon emissions legislation and a rapid decrease in the cost of “green” electricity. President Joe Biden has made addressing climate change one of his top priorities and has ambitions to legislate a more rapid transition to clean technologies that favor not just silver but other metals as well.
According to a report by CRU Consulting, solar power generation will increase to 1,053 terawatt hours (TWh) by 2025, close to double the amount that was generated in 2019. Amazon alone is planning five major solar projects around the world, including its first in China, as the retail giant seeks to reach 80% renewable energy by 2024 and 100% by 2030. Once completed, these five projects will generate 1.2 million megawatt hours (MWh) of energy every year, or enough to power 113,000 average U.S. homes.
