Crude Oil

Is Oil Price Anticipating an Imminent War Between Iran & Israel?

Aug 12, 2024 2 min read

The war in the Middle East may be about to widen. Consider the following: (1) The Israeli intelligence community reportedly believes that Iran has decided to directly target Israel in retaliation for the assassination of Hamas Political Bureau Chief Ismail Haniyeh. That decision was made after an internal debate between the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRG) and the new Iranian president and his advisors. The IRG has been pushing for a

Ed Yardeni

Market Call: Bad Breadth Again

Jun 23, 2024 3 min read

The stock market has a bad breadth problem again. For a while, it seemed to be attributable to the outperformance of the Magnificent-7. Many other stocks performed well, but not as well as the Mag-7. More recently, the outperformance seems to be narrowing to the Magnificent One, i.e., Nvidia (chart). Technical analysts are warning that this development increases the risks of a selloff in the market led by technology

Ed Yardeni

Bonds, Oil, Copper, Gold & The Dollar

Jun 10, 2024 3 min read

On a regular basis, we like to check on the correlations among the fixed income, commodity, and foreign currency markets. Here are a few of our observations: (1) Bonds. The 10-year US Treasury bond yield has normalized, fluctuating in a range roughly between 4.00% and 5.00% (chart). That's where it traded for a few years prior to the Great Financial Crisis. The same can be said

Ed Yardeni

Powell Says No Stag, No Flation.

May 1, 2024 2 min read paid

Fed Chair Jerome Powell wasn't dovish at his presser today. But he wasn't hawkish either. He said, "I think it's unlikely that the next policy rate move will be a hike." The 2-year Treasury yield fell back below 5.00% to 4.98%, consistent with one 25bps cut in the federal funds rate over the next twelve months. The S&P

Ed Yardeni

Tanks A Lot

Apr 17, 2024 2 min read paid

The war premium in the crude oil market fell again today. Fears of a significant disruption to global oil production continued to dissipate this week. That's even though Israel has threatened to attack Iran in response to the aerial attack launched by Iran against Israel on Saturday. The price of a barrel of Brent crude oil peaked recently at $91.17 0n April 5 (chart). It was down

Ed Yardeni

The Spreading War In The Middle East

Apr 12, 2024 3 min read

Ever since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, we've warned that the latest war in the Middle East between these arch enemies could be protracted and spread to the rest of the region. On October 10, we wrote: "This one isn’t likely to lead to a quick ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, as occurred in the past, because it is in fact a war between

Ed Yardeni

Market Call: $100 Oil, $3000 Gold?

Apr 7, 2024 3 min read paid

Will the current decade turn out to be like the 1920s, 1970s, or 1990s? We are still assigning subjective probabilities of 60% to the Roaring 2020s (like the 1920s), 20% to a bout of irrational exuberance (like the late 1990s), and 20% to a second peak in inflation (as occurred during the 1970s). We might have to increase the odds of a 1970s-like scenario if the price of oil continues

Stephen Rybka

Loose Fed Lips Sink Stocks

Apr 4, 2024 2 min read paid

We are in the same camp as Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari. On March 6, he said, "If we have a run rate that's very attractive, people have jobs, businesses are doing well, inflation is coming back down, why do anything?" We wrote an op-ed in the March 25 Financial Times titled, "The Fed should resist messing with success." We asked:

Ed Yardeni

More Bumps Ahead?

Apr 2, 2024 2 min read paid

Fed Chair Jerome Powell has often said that the road toward lowering inflation down to the Fed's 2.0% target is likely to be bumpy. Nevertheless, there has been no turbulence in the stock market's smooth ascent to new record highs since October 27, 2023, which marked the end of a 10.3% correction in the bull market that started October 12, 2022 (chart). Nevertheless, we

Ed Yardeni

'There's Still No Rush'

Mar 27, 2024 2 min read paid

So said Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller this evening at the Economic Club of New York in a speech titled “There’s Still No Rush.” He noted that the latest inflation figures were "disappointing" and that the economy and labor market remain strong. So, in his opinion, "it is appropriate to reduce the overall number of rate cuts or push them further into the future in response

Ed Yardeni

Stock Market Has Discounted Lots Of Good News

Mar 19, 2024 2 min read paid

Nvidia was up a measly 1% today despite the exciting presentation, after Monday's close, by CEO Jensen Huang about the company's future in the AI ecosystem. He announced a new generation of GPU chips and software for running AI models. The first chips in the new Blackwell platform will be shipped later this year. They are more powerful (with a five-fold increase in petaflops) and consume

Ed Yardeni

What Will Powell Say?

Jan 29, 2024 2 min read paid

Fed Chair Jerome Powell might disappoint the markets on Wednesday, when he conducts his press conference to discuss the decision of the latest FOMC meeting. He will say that economic growth has been better than expected and that inflation seems to be falling towards the Fed's 2.0% target faster than expected as well. He knows that the markets are expecting five 25bps cuts in the federal funds

Ed Yardeni

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