Monkey’s Market Minute: August 12th, 2022
Disclaimer: Never take investment advice from strangers on the internet, especially monkeys.
- 1 day after the CPI is released and the Biden Administration gets their “peak inflation” talking about, everything begins reversing. Jesus, they didn’t even attempt to be casual or subtle about it either. The 180-degree shift in the narrative one day later is worthy of those Spongebob “One Day Later” transition memes. I suspected that energy would reverse between the CPI being released and the end of August so that when the September contracts rolled over, the manipulation wouldn’t be exposed, but I wasn’t expecting it to be the fucking NEXT DAY. Well, I’m here for it. This is what we were waiting for, and I guess we’re skippin’ the foreplay and gettin’ straight to fuckin’.
- WTI is at $93.92 and Brent is at $99.18. The average between the two is $96.55 and the spread is $5.26. With WTI likely to hit $95 as early as . . . TODAY, we need to discuss our options and what I’m watching for.
- Right now WTI and Brent are moving together and a $5 spread isn’t uncommon, so maybe . . . just maybe the $100 ceiling on WTI has been revoked and crude will be allowed to break $100 again now that Biden got his “peak inflation” in July. However, I’m watching the spread. If Brent goes above $105 while WTI is sitting below $100 and the spread starts to widen between WTI and Brent closer to $10 as we saw in July, then whatever bullshit Biden is pulling is still in play, and likely will remain so until the election, or until Russia and/or China does something that Biden’s manipulation can’t compensate for, whichever comes first.
- All of that might sound confusing I admit, so let me back up and take it slow and be explicit so I don’t confuse anyone regarding what we’re doing and why:
- We are watching WTI and Brent as crude oil goes above $100 again. We are paying special attention to the spread (i.e. the difference in price) between Brent and WTI. If the spread widens from $5 to $10 and Brent is closer to $110 while WTI is still under $100, then sell your WTI because Biden is still manipulating WTI to keep it below $100.
- If that happens, just take the loss in USO if you bought (just as I did) when the fair price was $110-$120 and you bought just under $110 before July. It sucks, but if Biden is still manipulating the oil price at this point, it means he doesn’t plan on stopping until after the election, so WTI is going to be hitting a ceiling of $99 until then, so just take the “L” and free that cash up for opportunities elsewhere.
- I am NOT telling anyone to sell their crude oil right now. I’m not telling anyone to sell their crude oil when WTI hits $95. I’m saying to WATCH THE SPREAD between Brent and WTI and see if Brent climbs above $100 and the spread approaches $10 while WTI is hanging back below $100. If THAT happens, then and ONLY then take the “L” and sell because the price is being actively manipulated, and there isn’t going to be an opportunity for crude to recover to $110+ until after the election or until Russia/China do something crazy, which we can’t control and don’t want to rely on.
- Everyone got that? If you’re confused, please ask questions. I don’t want anyone telling me that they sold all their crude and cut their penis off and that it’s my fault because I told them to do it. It’s also very possible that WTI simply goes above $100 now that the July CPI print is out and Biden got what he wanted, and I’m spinning my wheels over nothing. Time will tell.
- Let’s welcome the energy bulls back with a flood of bullish news articles that came out today:
- In “supply go down” news: OPEC is going to cut production and raise prices. Also, Shell had to shut down 3 offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico due to a pipeline leak. The bigger news is the production cuts from OPEC. That’s a kick in the balls to Biden after he begged them for oil and gave them weapons. The Saudis are probably laughing their asses off with Putin right now.
source: https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/OPEC-Sets-The-Stage-For-New-Output-Cuts.html , https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/OPEC-Oil-Production-Could-Dip-In-September.html , https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Shell-Halts-Oil-Output-At-Three-Gulf-Of-Mexico-Platforms.html
- In “where were you all of July?” news: One day after the EIA reported a “surprise” crude build based entirely on the SPR release, the EIA is now forecasting higher oil demand. They also revised their supply forecast for North America. How convenient of them to wait until AFTER the July CPI came out and everyone celebrated to revise their forecasts and call for rising energy. Again, they’re not even trying to be casual or subtle. It’s literally like they just bit their tongue until the CPI came out so Biden could have his talking point, and then the next day they revise all their numbers. Anyway, it’s fine. It’s better this way I guess. Also, Goldman Sachs is calling for $5 a gallon gas and $130 Brent by the end of the year. The smug light has been illuminated. Feel free to be as smug as you want.
source: https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/IEA-Sees-Higher-Oil-Demand-This-Year.html , https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Goldman-Sees-5-Gasoline-130-Brent-By-Year-End.html , https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Are-Oil-Prices-Set-For-A-Comeback.html , https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/sorry-white-house-gasoline-prices-are-about-surge-heres-why
- In “I know things are bad right now, but they’re gonna get way worse” news: the US is sanctioning Russia EVEN MORE, this time sanctioning a Russian steel company MMK, and also sanctioning its CEO for good measure. That’ll stick it to Putin brah! Also, Europe has initiated its ban on Russian coal, which was imposed months ago, but went into effect now after the grace period expired. France is going “all in” on wind energy in response to the vast European energy crisis, implementing more corporate welfare and stimulus which I’m sure won’t make inflation worse. However, on the off-chance that all this doubling-down on environmentalism that caused the energy crisis makes the energy crisis worse for some reason, and on the even more remote chance that all this money they’re printing causes energy inflation to get worse, Gordon Brown, former UK prime minister has the solution . . . just nationalize the energy sector. Gee, I wonder if nationalizing the energy sector was the entire plan from the beginning or something.
source: https://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/International/US-Sanctions-Russian-Steel-Giant-MMK.html , https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/EU-Embargo-On-Russian-Coal-Goes-Into-Effect.html , https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Renewable-Energy/France-Announces-Emergency-Renewable-Energy-Package.html , https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Former-UK-PM-Calls-For-Energy-Utility-Nationalization.html
- Here’s the bottom line: everything I said would happen is happening, and we’re perfectly positioned to take advantage of it. I’ll admit that things are happening sooner than I expected. I was worried that there would be another week or two where stocks rallied and commodities were flat and I’d have to talk some of you guys off the ledge before you kill yourselves following the normies back into stocks because of FOMO. Luckily, the impatience of the institutional normies to get back into commodities after doing their favor for Biden works out to our advantage. For now, my goal is to keep an eye on WTI and see if it can hold above $100 and if the spread between WTI and Brent widens to $10 again. If we cash out at $95-$99 because of Biden’s manipulation, we dust ourselves off and look into other commodities like natural gas or agriculture. The food crisis is going to start heating up soon, and if crude oil and gold are too manipulated to profit from, there are plenty of other commodities we can trade to take advantage of inflation. What? Did you think winning a rigged game would be easy?

Monkey’s Market Minute: August 11th, 2022
Disclaimer: Never take investment advice from strangers on the internet, especially monkeys.

- The markets responded very favorably to the news that inflation has “peaked” and gone from 9.1% year over year to 8.5% year over year. Let’s look at the best performing sectors today:
o Natural Gas +5%
o Crypto +4.7%
o Info Tech +3%
o Consumer Discretionary +3%
- So aside from natural gas, the best performing sectors were the tech sector and crypto. This shouldn’t surprise anyone because the normies were waiting on inflation to “peak” so they could declare inflation over and pour back into tech and crypto, and that’s exactly what they did.
- Is inflation over? No, not even a little. Do not follow the normies back into tech stocks and crypto, you’re going to get massacred. We’re still in the middle of a recession (technically) and the drop in energy prices was ENTIRELY due to fears of “muh recession! Muh demand destruction!” but . . . there isn’t a recession, and there is no demand destruction. We’re in a bull market again (according to the normies), so what is keeping energy prices down? Absolutely fucking nothing.
- WTI rose to $91.54 and Brent rose to $96.96. Natural gas gained a lot and back above $8 and is sitting at $8.20.
- In “what demand destruction?” news: US refiners are seeing demand holding strong through the end of the year.
source: https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/US-Refiners-See-Demand-Holding-Strong-Through-Year-End.html
- In “you’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy” news: Europe has outlined a radical (and not in the cool 90s way) plan to reduce oil demand by 33% which would involve periodic lockdowns and “car-free” days to keep people from driving and pushing them into public transport. Other suggestions include lowering speed limits and reducing corporate air travel by 50% and replacing business trips with “virtual collaboration” (i.e. Zoom meetings). You have to admire the stubborn confidence of the Europeans in pushing forward with their agenda. I haven’t heard any new updates about the Dutch Farmer protests for a week, but I assume they’re still going on. The plan is just to make things worse until something (or someone) snaps.
source: https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/A-Radical-Plan-To-Reduce-Europes-Oil-Demand-By-33.html , https://time.com/6201951/dutch-farmers-protests-climate-action/ , https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2022-08-10/wef-playbook-collapse-sri-lanka-today-west-tomorrow
- So the market sentiment is bullish with tech and crypto leading the charge as all the normies are celebrating one month where inflation didn’t get worse due to massive energy manipulation. Ironically, inflation would have “peaked” even if the month-over-month inflation wasn’t flat and prices went up a bit because the expectation was 8.7% year over year, with month-over-month going up 0.2%, and it turned out the energy manipulation was enough to eliminate that 0.2% rise and push the inflation to 0% for the month. The actual drop from 9.1% to 8.5% is due ENTIRELY to the fact that inflation picked up during the second half of 2021, so the year-over-year comparisons are going to go down over the rest of the year, even if prices continue to go up. The normies are happy though, so there’s that.
source: https://finance.yahoo.com/m/c7873eda-d78a-3cd4-94ad-ff41f3f68fca/stocks-rally-like-it%E2%80%99s.html
- With the normies no longer panicking, and energy not dumping, I doubt we’ll see $85 WTI. It will probably creep up along with stocks. What I think is funny is just how much this rally proves the FED’s rate hikes are meaningless theater. Disney just posted positive quarterly profits driven surprisingly by strong Disney theme park sales, beating expectations by $740M for earnings of $7.39B. I think that as the narrative for “muh recession! Muh demand destruction!” fades, people are going to wonder why energy is so cheap during a global energy crisis where Europeans are being told not to shower. It just doesn’t make sense.
source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/disney-earnings-what-to-expect-as-big-strategic-questions-loom-for-media-giant-182433503.html
- So here is the bottom line: normies finally got their “peak inflation” and are doing their victory lap. Lumber prices surged 8% on the day (22% on the week) in a sign that the bull market is back baby! If you remember back in 2021 when we were still in stocks, the normie mini-cycle always followed a predictable pattern:
o Normies buy tech and crypto
o Energy, Materials, and Industrials follow later
o Normies panic and run to bonds (or cash)
- If you recall, back in 2021, Energy outperformed tech over the year, and while we’re not in energy stocks, I think that we’ll be catching the rise in commodities going forward. Since there is no FOMC meeting and the CPI is behind us, I don’t see anything happening until September that would disrupt this rally, and if there is a prolonged rally, I don’t see how the narrative of “muh recession! Muh demand destruction!” can be maintained. However, we’ll see. I’m not worried.

The Morning Constitutional: 8/10/2022

Monkey’s Market Minute: 8/10/2022

Disclaimer: Never take investment advice from strangers on the internet, especially monkeys.

Monkey’s Market Minute: 8/9/2022
Disclaimer: Never take investment advice from strangers on the internet, especially monkeys.

Monkey's Market Minute: 8/8/2022
I'm going to publish the MMM in the evenings this week. Let me know if you prefer things this way, or if you prefer me do the newsletter in the morning? If there is a major update overnight, I'll post an update comment in the morning, and I will still be active in the comment section and answer questions either way.

Disclaimer: Never take investment advice from strangers on the internet, especially monkeys.

Celestina lip-syncing September's "Cry For You" via Wombo AI.

Monkey's Market Minute: 8/5/2022
Disclaimer: Never take investment advice from strangers on the internet, especially monkeys.

Monkey's Market Minute: 8/4/2022
Disclaimer: Never take investment advice from strangers on the internet, especially monkeys.

The Morning Constitutional: 8/3/2022

Monkey's Market Minute: 8/3/2022
Note: I publish the Wednesday MMM on Tuesday evening so that I can use the morning to prepare for the Morning Constitutional. If there is a major update in the morning that's worth mentioning, I'll leave a comment update.

Welcome to Subscribestar to all my old Patron from Patreon. Since Patreon didn't kick me off until after you were already charged for August, they didn't keep the money. They sent me my final payment for August before closing my account. Unfortunately, I can't refund you your payments on Patreon since my account was closed. Also, if you signed up for an annual membership and paid in advance, you're SOL as well. It wasn't my choice to get kicked off of Patreon. A masculine-presenting transgender lesbian just can't catch a break these days.

Disclaimer: Never take investment advice from strangers on the internet, especially monkeys.

Monkey's Market Minute: 8/2/2022
NOTE: I've finally been banned from Patreon. We had a good run, and I lasted far longer than I expected, but all good things must come to an end.

Disclaimer: Never take investment advice from strangers on the internet, especially monkeys.

Monkey's Market Minute: 8/1/2022
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Monkey's Market Minute: 7/29/2022
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Monkey's Market Minute: 7/28/2022
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The Morning Constitutional: 7/27/2022

Monkey's Market Minute: 7/27/2022
Note: I publish the MMM for Wednesday on Tuesday evenings so that I can give my full attention to preparing for the Morning Constitutional on Wednesday morning.
Disclaimer: Never take investment advice from strangers on the internet, especially monkeys.

Monkey's Market Minute: 7/26/2022
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Monkey's Market Minute: 7/25/2022
Disclaimer: Never take investment advice from strangers on the internet, especially monkeys.

Monkey's Market Minute: 7/22/2022
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Monkey's Market Minute: 7/21/2022
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The Morning Constitutional: 7/20/2022

Monkey's Market Minute: 7/20/2022
Since I do the Morning Constitutional on Wednesday mornings, it's always a rush to do the newsletter and prepare for the stream in the mornings, and as the newsletter has become more involved, it's become too hard to balance both, so I'm going to be doing the Wednesday Monkey's Market Minute on Tuesday evening so that I can focus on preparing for the stream in the morning. I'll still do the MMM in the morning for other days of the week so that I can catch overnight developments and get you the latest analysis as the markets open.
Disclaimer: Never take investment advice from strangers on the internet, especially monkeys.

Monkey's Market Minute: 7/19/2022
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How to Stonk (Draft)
This is a rough draft regarding how I establish the fair price range. It's always struck me as obvious common sense, but a lot of people ask me for my "method" as if it was magic, so maybe I'm assuming too much.

Let me know if this is confusing or if there is a way I can improve this and make me easier to understand. Thank you.

Monkey's Market Minute: 7/18/2022
Disclaimer: Never take investment advice from strangers on the internet, especially monkeys.

Monkey's Market Minute: 7/15/2022
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Monkey's Market Minute: 7/14/2022

The Morning Constitutional: 7/13/2022

Monkey's Market Minute: 7/13/2022