US Crude Oil Supply Landscape In Four Charts

"Total U.S. liquid fuels consumption rose by an estimated 60,000 bbl/d (0.3%) in 2014. Motor gasoline consumption increased by 80,000 bbl/d (0.8%) reflecting an increase in highway travel that was partially offset by fleetwide increases in fuel efficiency...

In 2015, total liquid fuels consumption is forecast to grow by 290,000 bbl/d (1.5%). Lower pump prices contribute to an 80,000-bbl/d increase (0.9%) in motor gasoline consumption."

EIA, Short Term Energy Outlook, 10 February 2015

The charts below are from today's This Week in Petroleum Report from the US EIA.

 

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - There For All To See

“He did not care for the lying at first. He hated it. Then later he had come to like it. It was part of being an insider, but it was a very corrupting business.”

 

Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

"Und der Haifisch, der hat Zähne

und die trägt er im Gesicht

und Macheath, der hat ein Messer

doch das Messer sieht man nicht."

Berthold Brecht, Die Moritat von Mackie Messer

It was a remarkably quite day for the precious metals, as the option expiration for the inactive month of March contract went by quietly enough.

 

Madame Yellen, American Viceroy of Wall Street's careless few, paid a visit to the Senate, where the august personages threw posies and puffballs for the most part, with a little side muttering for the benefit of groundling in the pit. 

 

And between inanities and well trod but unremarked policy errors she reminded us that the Fed can consider raising interest rates at any meeting, and if they remove the word 'patient' from their pronouncement, it does not mean that they are losing theirs.  The patience which they have shown to their serially recidivist patrons at the Banks, for example, is legendary.

 

Speaking of recidivism, JP Morgan, which is currently on a mockery of 'two years probation' for a crime spree almost too long to comprehensively recount here, is once again under investigation with ten of its fellow Banks for rigging the London Precious Metals market.  Unashamed of course, it appears that the House of Morgan will now start charging for the privilege of given them your money. 

 

That's all rich, in its own way.  The mighty US regulators cast their eyes at the transgressions in London, which is of course their right since the plottings were apparently undertaken in the Banks US offices, while they turn their regal noses aside from the greasy, noisome bucket shop that is just a light breeze away in lower Manhattan.

 

The Greek government apparently accepted a document as it was handed to them by the Die Neue Reichskanzlei, according to the usual non-mainstream media suspects.  I suspect that the plot here might have a few more twists and turns ahead, and some additional complexities.

 

Let's see if gold and silver, which has been acting surprising well all things considered, can find some footing after Madame Yellen meets with the surlier House tomorrow.

 

This is the 6500th post on this blog.

 

Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

 

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - NASDAQ Hits a New 15 Year High - Death By Overdose

"Easy is the descent down to hell;

Its gates stand open, day and night.

But to retrace one's steps, to return

To see again the pure clean air, and cheerfulness and life:

That is the real task, that is our true labour."

Vergil, Aeneid

I cannot believe it, they are going to do it all over again.

All the fraudulent securities, the wanton bubbles in paper, the watered stocks, the wildly overvalued IPOs, the lies and double dealing, the financial deception, the mispriced risks, the abuse of language, the widespread corruption of public policy, and then the inevitable, sickening crunch.

 

Never have so many sacrificed so much, for such an underserving, careless few.

 

If heaven is seeing and in turn being seen, transformed and made new, by the beatific face of Pure Love in resplendent glory, then hell must be seeing, at the last and forever, one's own dark and miserable soul, as it really is, alone.

Finally, I can believe it, what I could never really accept before, believe in the reality of a place and people with a will that is beyond redemption.

 

Have a pleasant evening.

 

What Then Is Your Point, Mr. Potter?

"The more people rationalize cheating, the more it becomes a culture of dishonesty. And that can become a vicious, downward cycle. Because suddenly, if everyone else is cheating, you feel a need to cheat, too."

Stephen Covey, The Speed of Trust

"The greatest crimes of human history are made possible by the most colorless human beings. They are the careerists. The bureaucrats. The cynics. They do the little chores that make vast, complicated systems of exploitation and death a reality... And they do not ask questions."

Chris Hedges, The Careerists

 

If, as Jamie Galbraith has put it, economics is 'a disgraced profession,' what does it matter, when almost all the professions from medicine to law to finance have also given themselves over to the darkness of this world in high places?

 

Can they be so aloof that they do not see it, see what they are becoming?  See what they serve?

Are they such bystanders that they can no longer even see themselves and where they stand?

Can such a lack of self-awareness be attributed to the blindness of egoism? Or some more profound denial of conscience that rips the very fabric of their reality and its consequences?

Have we finally approached the tipping point of corrosive indifference in our leadership and the careless few, again?

Have the wages of supreme narcissism and exceptionalism finally come to be paid with a third financial crisis, and then another?  And finally the unleashing of madness?

 

It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world... but for a stipend?

 

And when the hard winds of nemesis start howling across the land, where do they think it will end, and who and what do they think will remain standing?

 

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - The Reign of the Careless Few

Tomorrow will be an option expiration for the precious metals on the Comex. A calendar is included below. The March contract is not active and the expiration itself is not likely to be significant.

Probably more important will be Janet Yellen's testimony to the Congress, which will last two days.

 

It is difficult to forecast exactly what the Fed chair will say.  Of late, she is focusing on 'productivity,' that most malleable of metrics, as a possible sign of a recovery. 

 

And of course, we see the cash Nasdaq pushing at the 5,000 level, bringing back sweet memories of 1997-2000.

 

There is certainly a recovery--  for some.

And of course the presentation of the action plan by the Greek government to the troika which was postponed by them today.

These are very 'technical' markets, meaning the usual fundamental ties to the real economy and market supply and demand are a bit 'tenuous.'

 

We seem to arrive at this point, about every seven years or so.   It is not that hard to do, when you keep repeating the same failed policies that benefit only a few.

What could go wrong?  

Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

 

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Back to the Bubble with Nasdaq 5,000

The big tickle today was 'Nasdaq 5000' with the cash Nas around the 4960 area.

The tech heavy Nas was leading the way higher today, and traders are pushing it to squeeze the shorts.

It is a bubble, it will eventually collapse, the Fed and the Wall Street courtiers know it, but don't care.

This is the entitled triumph of the 'careless few.'

Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

 

 

NAV Premiums of Certain Precious Metal Trusts and Funds

The cash level at Sprott Silver couldn't buy a decent residential house in a Canadian city.

 

I wonder when the shoe of a secondary offering will drop.