Notes From All Over -- The Late Sunday Night Edition -- May 17, 2020

From oilprice this evening, link here. I wouldn't have bothered with the first banner headline but I have a link at the sidebar at the right, near the top, which links to a question I had when this all started: whether the Bakken or the Permian would be hit harder.

First item:

The second item is very, very interesting. Note the oil price rally (banner below). At least for now the price rally continues. It's fascinating but meaningless. It's meaningless because it's not predictable; it doesn't make sense; and, there is no way one can model it.

What interests me is the relative prices: comparing the various crude oils.

But what really, really interests me is the "OPEC Basket." This is the third time in about five days that I've brought this up. I assumed it was a mistake. Oilprice very, very, very rarely makes a mistake on their banner oil prices but it does happen. But if this was an error, certainly after 24 hours, or 48 hours, or even 72 hours, this error would have been corrected. But it hasn't changed. I don't get it. I still think that even if it's an error, it reflects "reality," whatever "reality" is these days.

Second item:

I checked the official OPEC site, and they show "OPEC Basket" rising but still below WTI. The OPEC site lags a bit; the most recent date is May 14, 2020 (I'm writing this on May 17, 2020), and the OPEC Basket is $24.93.

I still think things are too quiet in the Mideast which I first mentioned May 7, 2020 -- that's ten days ago. Wow, time flies.

How is the president doing with regard to the pandemic? Link here. Most recent results from the Rasmussen daily presidential poll:

Once folks get their next $2,000 check -- thank you, Ms Pelosi -- his polling numbers should rise again. What a great country.