Why Re-Balancing Is Taking Longer Than Expected -- John Kemp; Apple's App Store Setting Stunning Records - August 3, 2016

I can't recall if I posted this as a stand-alone post, a comment, or in an e-mail....oh, now I recall... it was in an e-mail to a reader:

I'm in the group that reads the tea leaves that suggest we are in a trading range of $40 to $50 for quite some time. I was impressed that the price held at $39 today. The real question is whether all the cutbacks in CAPEX will really mean that much in 2018. The consensus is that with all the cutbacks in exploration and development, we could see a relative shortage in a year or two. I'm not so sure. The technology just keeps getting better and better, and conservation in the western world may or may not be offsetting growth in China and India.

That was a response to a link to an article he sent me: why oil bears shouldn't count on US shale rebound.

Now, from a source I trust even more, John Kemp: why is the oil market taking so long to re-balance? Kemp has a very, very unusual perspective. He notes:

Oil-exporting countries accounted for more than one-third of the global increase in oil consumption outside the United States between 2004 and 2014, as rising oil revenues fuelled a boom in their domestic economies.

From that he concludes:

Once prices start rising significantly, however, the market is likely to tighten faster than many analysts expect because oil consumption in emerging markets is likely to accelerate again with the extra oil revenues.

In biology, that's called a "positive feedback loop." Just the opposite of a "death spiral."

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to connect this story with the story of the Middle East and North Africa importing more natural gas, posted within the last hour.

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The Apple Page

From Macrumors:

Apple CEO Tim Cook today announced on Twitter that a new App Store record was set last month, with July seeing Apple's highest ever monthly billings for the App Store and the largest amount of money paid out to developers.

According to Cook, Apple has now paid out more than $50 billion to developers over the lifetime of the App Store, which first launched for the iPhone in 2008, a year after the iPhone was released to the public.

App Store revenue has been growing rapidly over the past several years, with Apple citing its success as the reason behind its steadily increasing services category.

During Apple's most recent earnings call, Cook also said that Apple saw its highest quarterly App Store revenue ever, with a 27 percent growth rate year over year.

Apple also set a new record for customers making purchases through the App Store, with the average amount spent per customer reaching the highest level the company has ever seen.

Cook expects that over the course of the next 12 months, revenue from Apple's services category (consisting of the App Store, iTunes Store, Apple Music, iCloud, and AppleCare) will "be the size of a Fortune 100 company."