Eye on the Prize

The Credit Strategist Blog

Market risk is tilting further to the downside as we enter a challenging earnings season against a backdrop of rising global bond market dislocations, intensifying fighting in Ukraine, and OPEC’s decision to tighten oil supplies. (OPEC, by the way, wasn’t trying to kick sand in anyone’s face. It was acting rationally by anticipating lower demand for its product as the global economy slows. That’s what a cartel does. We don’t have to like it, but we need to understand it and not over-dramatize or politicize it. Calls from politicians to punish Saudi Arabia are suicidal, but then again most politicians are suicidally stupid. The most important thing the U.S. can do is protect the U.S. dollar-oil link. That may be too difficult for politicians to understand but they better get up to speed quickly and pull their heads out of their rear ends before they make an economically and geopolitically catastrophic mistake.)