OPEC + and Oil Surplus, Omicron's Six Zeros in the US

5 янв. 2022 г.

The main event of yesterday was the OPEC + meeting. But this time there was very little intrigue. Unlike a couple of previous meetings, when the markets were not sure about an increase in production by 400K (either because of the fall in oil prices, or because of the pandemic), this week everything went very casual. An additional 400K b / d will appear on the oil market in February.

Recall that, according to many experts, including OPEC, at the start of 2022 the oil market will go into a surplus (according to OPEC, in the first three months of the year, production will exceed world demand by 1.4 million barrels per day).

But the participants in the financial markets are not particularly worried about this and are in no hurry to sell oil. Rather, on the contrary, neither risky assets continue to buy oil amid growing demand. The US stock market closed mixed yesterday. On the one hand, going against a furious bull is a bad idea. But, on the other hand, buying at current prices is still crazy. In general, Buffett, with his strategy of sitting on a bag of cash and waiting for a crash, looks like a kind of "golden" and risk-free mean.

Even the 6-zeros figure for the number of new coronavirus cases in the United States could not shake faith in the bright future of the markets. The United States reported a record number of new Covid cases on Monday, with more than 1 million new infections, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Yesterday was published data on the number of open vacancies in the United States. More than 10.5 million jobs are waiting to be filled. So there is a shortage of labor. The fact that people do not really want to work is evidenced by the fact that in November a record 4.5 million Americans quit their jobs. Today, with the help of ADP, it will be possible to see how the supply is able to meet the existing demand.