January 21, 2020 - Financial Occultist

Kremlin statement

Actions speak louder than words so this is the best possible endorsement of Russia’s cooperation with OPEC.

Earlier today, OPEC’s secretary general confirmed there will be a meeting in March and said that Russia was expected to continue with OPEC.

In other oil news, Halliburton reported earnings today and along with Schumberger yesterday, they signaled that shale activity has already peaked. The oilfield services giants have keen insight into the industry and today Halilburton CEO Jeff Millers said that spending would keep falling in North America

“2019 solidified the pivot from growth to capital discipline in North America,” Miller said.

The outlook for US production depends on DUCs or drilled but uncompleted wells. In theory, these could allow companies to tap into oil without spending money but some market watchers are skeptical that the wells have any real value.

More on the outlook from Halliburton here via Bloomberg.

….and they continue to grow….

21-Jan-20 11:12 pm

Anirudh Sethi

European shares close lower on China virus concerns

21-Jan-20 11:11 pm

Anirudh Sethi

German DAX unchanged

The coronavirus concerns have sapped upside momentum from European shares. The falls come despite economic data out of Europe that was not bad. UK employment data was strong and German/EU ZEW sentiment data was also better-than-expected.

The provisional closes are showing:

German DAX, unchanged
France’s CAC, -0.54%
UK’s FTSE 100, -0.57%
Spain’s Ibex, -0.57%
Italy’s FTSE MIB, -0.6%

In the European debt market, the benchmark 10 year yields are ending mostly lower with Italian yields up marginally. France’s 10 year yield move back toward the 0.0% level. The low reached 0.001%.

In other markets,

gold slid earlier to a low price of $1546.41, but has rebounded and currently trades at $1557.19. That’s down about $3.50 or -0.23%
WTI crude oil futures are down $0.25 or 0.43% of $58.29

In the US stock market the NASDAQ index turned positive after opening lower and traded to it a new all-time high.

The current prices are showing:

S&P index -3.04 points or -0.09% 3326.60
NASDAQ index +5.068 points or 0.06% at 9394.20
Dow industrial average -41.7 points or -0.14% at 29306.64

In the US debt market yields are lower led by declines in the 10 year yield up -4.6 basis points. The yield curve is also flattened with the 2 – 10 spread falling to 23.74 basis points from 26.23 basis points on Friday..