OPEC+ failing to cut production Friday was bad, but things are about to get oh so much worse. The Saudis announced today that they are increasing production and entering an all-out price war with Russia. We may soon see US oil prices head toward $20 per barrel.
There's broad speculation among analysts that Russia is deliberately trying to collapse oil and gas prices in order to trigger a mass default on the huge amount of leveraged debt in the US oil and gas sector. Corporate junk bonds are widely expected to be the subprime mortgages of the next recession. Trump may be able to stave that off this year through bailouts, but not if Russia triggers a crisis before the US government can do anything about it. (Fun fact: Russia has net zero public debt, because Putin lived through the 1990s and is well aware how debt can collapse a political and financial system. Possibly he has been waiting for this opportunity to weaponize US debt.)
Also look for collapsing oil prices to cause deflationary pressure in the US dollar, a continued climb in long-term bond prices, and a continued collapse of US stocks (especially banks like JP Morgan with high exposure to leveraged lending).
There's broad speculation among analysts that Russia is deliberately trying to collapse oil and gas prices in order to trigger a mass default on the huge amount of leveraged debt in the US oil and gas sector. Corporate junk bonds are widely expected to be the subprime mortgages of the next recession. Trump may be able to stave that off this year through bailouts, but not if Russia triggers a crisis before the US government can do anything about it. (Fun fact: Russia has net zero public debt, because Putin lived through the 1990s and is well aware how debt can collapse a political and financial system. Possibly he has been waiting for this opportunity to weaponize US debt.)
Also look for collapsing oil prices to cause deflationary pressure in the US dollar, a continued climb in long-term bond prices, and a continued collapse of US stocks (especially banks like JP Morgan with high exposure to leveraged lending).
