COVID 19
Sold on Fear
Craig Medred, April 14, 2020
Propaganda works.
This is what happens to your brain in the Age of Information. The gray matter is captured and carried along by the unstoppable power of a tide. Turn on the TV or the radio, and the programming starts to program you.
Our Take: Prediction: Americans distrust for the mainstream media will grow based on the media’s inability to provide coverage of COVID 19 without bias and without providing context when reporting facts about the impact of the virus.
FEMA ships out nearly 20 million hydroxychloroquine tablets
OIL
There’s No Market Recovery Without an Oil Rally
Robert Burgess, Bloomberg, April 13, 2020
The oil deal “serves its superficial purpose of making cooperation ‘apparent’ and keeping OPEC relevant,” the strategists at Cantor Fitzgerald wrote in a research note Monday. “It provides needed cover for what we believe remains the veiled agenda of kneecapping” U.S. energy producers. A survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City found almost 40% of oil and natural gas producers face insolvency within the year if crude prices fail to rise above $30 a barrel, and soon. The energy industry is among the biggest employers in the U.S. economy, with relatively high-paying jobs. As such, it’s going to be hard for equities to sustain any sort of rally as long as oil prices remained depressed and the threat of mass bankruptcies continues to loom.
What happened to oil and what happens next
Ed King, King Economics Group, April 13, 2020
A barrel of Alaska North Slope (ANS) crude oil was selling for $22.47 at the time this article was written. That’s down 67% from the beginning of the year. In terms of the state’s royalty oil, that price swing represents a reduction of almost $3 million per day. For the producers, it means that they are paying more money to pump and transport the oil than they can sell it for. So, what happened? And, perhaps more importantly, what is going to happen next?
GAS
Natural
Gas Supply-Demand Balance Overview and Forecast
Seeking Alpha, April 14, 2020
The U.S. Energy Information Administration has recently released their natural gas monthly statistics for January 2020. In this article, we will briefly review their consumption and exports figures, then look at our estimates for February and March, and conclude with our latest forecast for April, May, and June.
MINING
Greens
Creek’s Green Legacy
Alaska Business, April 14, 2020
Hecla’s Greens Creek Mine, located on Admiralty Island eighteen miles southwest of Juneau, is one of the largest silver mines in the world and the largest in the United States. In 2019 the underground mine processed 846,076 tons of ore to produce 9.9 million ounces of silver and more than 56,000 ounces of gold, 20,000 tons of lead, and 56,000 tons of zinc. According to the company, Greens Creek is a very low-cost silver mine and is the cash-generating engine for Hecla, which also has operating mines in Idaho; Nevada; Quebec, Canada; and Durango, Mexico.
POLITICS
Pressure grows on Congress for more small business aid as banks pump out billions
Zachary Warmbrodt, Politico, April 14, 2020
Banks are beginning to open the spigot of the $350 billion small business rescue package that has suffered constant operational breakdowns since its hurried launch by the Trump administration on April 3, increasing the sense of urgency for Congress to replenish funding in the coming days. JPMorgan Chase on Tuesday was the first of the biggest U.S. banks to disclose how much money it had gotten into the hands of small businesses under the so-called Paycheck Protection Program: $9.3 billion, which the bank said went to businesses that employed a total of 700,000 workers. The head of the American Bankers Association said lenders have disbursed “tens of billions.”