The Market, Energy, And Political Page, Part 2, T+8 -- November 14, 2018

WTI?  It was classic bait and switch.

1. Iran sanctions announced six months before they were to go into effect.

2, Iran produces at max level to sell as much as they can before sanctions go into effect.

3. Likewise, Russia and Saudi max out production -- were ready to make up for Iranian shortfall.

4. So, now we had more oil on the market than ever before.

4a. China buying as much oil as fast as they; as much storage as they have.

4a. Canada hit really, really hard.

5. Sanctions go into effect.

6. Once any country has a piece of paper that has "waiver" on it, it opens the door wide open. No one can keep track of how much oil is coming in; exceeding Iran sanctions or not.

7. Bottom line: no Iranian sanctions on oil.

7a. Classic bait and switch.

7b. Trump is smart enough to know exactly what was going to happen.

7c. Obama had his war on coal; I'm convinced that Trump has his war on oil -- in the sense that he wants to drive prices down to lowest in many, many years. That will be a great headline going into 2020.

7d. Low, low oil prices, by the way, kill the renewable industry.

8. Mideast Arabs are the greatest traders in the world -- I learned that when stationed in Turkey. They played this very, very well.

9. It will take at least six months to turn this around and only if Saudi and Russia cut significantly. Russia won't cut. Saudi might cut. Saudi is in deep doo-doo.

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Notes For The Granddaughters

This morning I was the driver for all three granddaughters. First two to middle school and then high school. Then back to the house to get Sophia ready for TutorTime (day care). Everything -- just like clockwork.

Sophia's letter of the day: "s". We came up with all the "s" words we could think of on the way to school. She had a "scarecrow" for "show and tell."

With the older granddaughters our discussion:

• the weather; coldest day since last February (2018)
• biome of the day: the riparian biome
• significance of "high water" and "low water" mark
• origin of "East of Eden" -- from Genesis; the phrase is mentioned twice
• "beyond the pale" -- Irish; Dublin

I really wanted to talk about ionic bonding and covalent bonding with the oldest, but I don't think she was ready for it, and we probably needed a bit more time -- maybe a good  subject for our longer ride to water polo Thursday evening.