Since 3:30 on Friday the Dow futures are up 100 points!
Isn’t that fantastic? As we are forced to do in the face of positive market movement, we will try to find a story to justify, to “fit” the move because human beings like for things to make sense, even when they don’t. Casting our market bones and reading the news entrails (as we did extensively in this Weekend’s Ramblings) I’d have to credit rumors of additional job stimulus as well as Surging Chinese Imports(quick, he said CHINA – BUYBUYBUY!), which were up 57% in December.
Let’s ignore the fact that oil was up 100% (not from demand, prices are up 100% from last December), iron-ore is up 42%, copper is up 63% (the price of copper is up 274%) and aluminum is up 164% – I mean, who cares – paying more money for the same stuff is a sign of a healthy economy, right? “Surging imports show that the economic stimulus policies are effectively boosting domestic demand, which also helps to drive the global economic recovery,” the Customs Bureau said in a statement. See, I told you that was right and the Customs Bureau agrees with me – case closed!
I mean, we’re back to paying $3 for gas this weekend and oil is up to $84 a barrel as Rent-A-Rebel attacked another Nigerian pipeline where they couldn’t afford $5 a day for a Nigeran Security guard to protect 100,000 barrels a day of $80 oil ($8M). Of course, if they stop the rebels from attacking the pipeline then oil would be $82 or less today (where it closed on Friday) and not $84 and CVX and RDS.A would make $200,000 less selling that oil today, not to mention what they make on the other 8.5M barrels those two companies alone sell around the globe (OK, I’ll mention it, it’s $17M a day) as a bonus for NOT securing their pipelines.
As we discussed in Member Chat this weekend, the system is designed to make it not just economically foolish but downright dangerous for the Officers and Directors of an oil company to insure a safe, reliable and inexpensive supply of oil to the public THERE’S NO PROFIT IN THAT and, as a shareholder, you should be outraged at the very suggestion that they put an end to these Nigerian Rebel Attacks, which are a reliable 2.5% boost to the price of global oil (even though Nigeria is only 3% of global supply) about 20…
