" Stories Going Beyond the Mainstream "
Chasing Functional Extinction - Tigers, Oil Industry, and...
Goldman Pegs Oil Between $20-40 in New Industry Order
PUTTING SENSE TO AN INDUSTRY'S TRANSFORMATION
After a decade-long “investment phase” that helped unleash the shale revolution, oil is seeking a new equilibrium between supply and demand. Jeff Currie, head of Commodities Research for Global Investment Research at Goldman Sachs, describes how the market has entered an “exploitation phase” that puts downward pressure on prices.
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The Nuclear Taboo - Rethinking Armageddon
The world is far different today. On the one hand, both the United States and Russia have far smaller nuclear arsenals than they did at the Cold War’s end. At the same time, new nuclear powers have emerged in pace with advanced conventional precision warfare capabilities. The rise of cyber warfare has also led to concerns over the security and reliability of early warning and command-and-control systems, and weapon systems as well. Advances in the cognitive sciences and research on Cold War crisis decision-making have challenged some of our thinking as to how strategies based on deterrence work, or risk failing. Together, these and other recent developments have combined to form what some are calling a Second Nuclear Age.
Sure Sign Global Economy Heading for Recession
China Ocean Freight Index Collapses to Record Low
- ....exports are down 9.6% year-over year. Specifically:
- To the US -8.8%
- To Hong Kong -6.5%
- To Japan -5.5%
- To South Korea -11.2%
- To Taiwan -3.7%
- To the countries in the ASEAN -13.7%
- To the EU -6.9%
- To South Africa -29.6% (!)
- To Brazil -47.2% (!!)
- To Australia -1.9%
- To New Zealand -12.4%.
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GRIM CHARTS: Earnings and S&P Negatively Correlating
Since mid-2015, corporate earnings and the S&P 500 have been moving in the complete opposite direction. Last time they had a complete negative relationship, it was back in 2009—when the stock market crashed.
Stock Market Crash: These Charts Are a Grim Warning for Investors
Charts Investors Shouldn’t Overlook
Mainstream stock advisors will never tell you this, but it’s true: the odds of an economic collapse and stock market crash in 2016 are stacking up higher each day.
When I want to know where the stock market is headed, I look at three indicators and they are very powerful predictors over a longer-term period. Those indicators are copper prices, corporate earnings, and how investors treat utilities stocks compared to technology stocks.
More Woes for Schlumberger
Less spending on oil and gas exploration taking its toll on one of the sector's largest companies.
HOUSTON, April 22 (UPI) -- Schlumberger, the largest oil field services company in the world, said its first quarter revenue experienced one of its sharpest declines since 2014.
The company said revenue through March 31 was $6.5 billion, a 16 percent drop from the previous quarter and 36 percent lower year-on-year.
Chairman and CEO Paal Kibsgaard said in a statement the sequential decrease was one of the largest since crude oil prices started moving sharply lower near the end of 2014.
Just Awful: "Beautiful Cambodian Tigers Functionally Extinct"
Tigers Are Now Extinct In A Country Where They Used To Thrive
Six years after 13 countries pledged to double the number of tigers in the wild by 2020, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) declared tigers “functionally extinct” in Cambodia on Wednesday.
According to WWF, the last wild tiger in the country was observed in 2007 thanks to a hidden camera in the Mondulkiri Protected Forest. Cambodia, one of the 13 countries in the world where tigers live, has approved a plan to reintroduce tigers into the Mondulkiri protected forest in eastern Cambodia, the Guardian reports. “We want two male tigers and five to six females tigers for the start,” said Keo Omaliss, director of the department of wildlife and biodiversity at the Forestry Administration, according to the Guardian. “This is a huge task.”