Screwball

Markets are happy happy today. Crude (WTI) trading at the $81-82 dollar range.

Now from the what to believe or not file about the Strait;

Iran to allow only Chinese vessels through Strait of Hormuz amid escalating conflict - MSN

Iran sells lots of oil to China.

Then there is this.

Statement from Maersk;

15 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

My FIL used to buy shares of well outputs. Mostly little spit things out west that did a few bbl/d/. IIRC they were a pain to unwind after he passed. 🛢️🛢️🛢️

I would have to dig, but I have a stock certificate from the early 1900s of some energy company in West Virginia. Might have been coal. I searched and couldn't find anything. You never know...

Like I said up-thread, there were small pumps around here. Only needed maybe 500 sq/ft. close to the road. The farmer loved it too. I thought they smelled neat. 

7 minutes ago, Deleterious said:

I'm skeptical.  I don't think tossing a little money at some out of the money calls would be the worst idea.

Not at all.

It probably depends on who you (or anyone) follow and believe. Then again, who DO you believe? Like my point above, all this on headlines? Things are fixed? What to believe? I don't know. Wish I did. We are not alone. From WolfStreet:

Crude Oil WTI Plunged by 24%, Back Below $88, from $116 Overnight. Gasoline Futures -16%. Manic Speculation Unwinds by Wolf Richter • Mar 9, 2026 • 8 Comments The Futures Market is where the Imbeciles go nuts.

I was hoping he had something about where all this might go from here, but he doesn't unless I missed it. But his point is valid.

On 3/7/2026 at 5:51 PM, Biff Mayhem said:

We have two Samsung tvs and they both have the MLB app.  Currently we have ATT air and it does a fine job of streaming while we’re on devices. It’s a little glitchy with the MLB app (it evens out after a bit usually). However, because I think this will be a historic season, I ordered starlink which purportedly has speeds three times faster. 

I would be curious of what Mbps you get.

The popular ETFs are for the most part pretty good if you are an active trader. Stay away from the levered ones. I read a thing the other day when crude was up big, the levered ETF was getting about 60% return on the price of crude itself (we can't buy crude). Another way those things **** you over along with overnight re-balancing. 

Any ETF will have shrinkage. But so does everything else. We are up against the pigmen of wall street who live for separating us from our money, and are very good at doing so.

What a wild day (and night). This is not how a normal market should trade. Moves like this are nuts.

Some made a killing, some went broke. Imagine the margin calls. The retail guys holding levered crude ETFs probably have a gun to their head.

Did headlines move the markets this much, or did we un-blow up ****?

G7 to take 'necessary measures' to support energy supplies - BBC

This has calmed the oil markets. We'll see how long it lasts. WTI back down to $92 and change.

2 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

This called having no elastic in the 'Elasticity of Demand'

Blowing **** up doesn't help.

It reminds me of John McCain singing bomb bomb Iran. Be careful of what you wish for. Go back to the PNAC people, and their imperialist view of the world. This is nothing new. It's about oil, minerals, money, and greed, but I repeat myself.

Elastic has nothing to do with ****.

No chart porn, but this is wild. Crude futures over $118 at 10:30ish.

24 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

an oil barrel is 42 gallons. assume yield to valuable product from the barrel is 90%. Normal refinery mark-up is about $10/bbl processed. For $110 crude barrel that's a base cost of $3.20 before retail markup and taxes. MI gas tax is $0.52 - so make it $3.75 before retail markup of about 10% which gets you to $4.10. Add the reality is if supplies get tight, refineries will jack up margins by another $10 barrel or so, and you are near $4.50.

I wonder where they came up with the 42 as the standard for a barrel? Not counting the barrel we're talking 300 lbs. Two guys could pick that up. Now there are billions of barrels traded. Kinda wild when you think about it.

I can't remember a time when the price of crude, no matter WTI or Brent, that it didn't hit our pumps.

36 minutes ago, Hongbit said:

 

4 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

and quite possibly recession. If the market goes into a funk - even if it only flattens out for an extended term, 1%er spending will slow, and that's been driving a lot of economic activity.

No. This is not the same, this time it IS different...

The "Market" is no reflection of what we the people are dealing with. The 1%ers will continue to do what they do. We will pay the price. As usual. Rising inflation punishes the people who can least afford it the most, and it's not even their fault. 

The economy is already too fragile and unable to absorb this oil and supply chain shock. This could get really ugly. 2008 - July - crude $147. March 2009 S&P 500 at 666, from 1552 not long before. That was a riot. Chart porn below. Notice the two peaks around that level, the first hump goes back to the dot-com bubble in 2000ish.

Then notice how it looks since - up and to the right - NASA would be proud.

The pigmen of Wall Street along along with the Fed, and the puppets in DC, have blown the biggest bubble known to mankind. We are 39 trillion in debt. Debt is money. Paul Krugman told us so.

The problem with bubbles is there is eventually a pin. We might have just found one - like a bar room steel tipped dart thrown at the most efficient energy source (at this point anyway) we have on the planet. Brilliant...

Buckle up kids, this could be a bitch. And don't forget where your food comes from.

1 minute ago, Deleterious said:

The summer of inflation

The only question left is how bad?

I made sure I could watch the oil futures open at 6 tonight. I didn't know how spectacular it might be. 🙂

I wasn't disappointed. WTI futures closed Friday at around 91/92. Once the bell went off at 6, it spiked and eventually hit 111.24 at 6:09 pm Has now settled in a range.

You have to go back to late 22 into 23 to see prices this high.

The green bubble on the right was the price when I took the screenshot. What a move over the last week or so. The grey bubble at the bottom 54.98 is from Dec 16, 2025. What a rip in less than 4 months. The pigmen of Wall Street are laughing.

1 minute ago, Deleterious said:

That video is pretty crazy

 

And the oil markets aren't open. 

We are not going to engineer or bull**** our way out of energy deficiencies. When it becomes too expensive we have demand destruction. 

Which is related to efficiency, waste, and how they relate to each other.

5 hours ago, LaceyLou said:

Sadly, I've mostly witnessed cases like this being swept under the rug-or worse, children are blamed for their own abuse. It wasn't even until the 1980s that such things as child abuse (including sexual abuse), domestic abuse, and spousal rape were put into legislation as being crimes. 

I can remember becoming glued to the tv set in the 80s, when Paula Hawkins sponsored a child abuse bill and revealed that she herself was a survivor and that it was one of her missions to fight sexual abuse. This was the type of thing that a child used to carry in silence and shame-often until death. It was the first time I realized that what had been done to me was a crime against me-and not something shameful I did. 

And yet.... most victims still will watch their abusers go free-just not as often as before.

I still hope beyond hope that this time the abusers get punished. One child abused is one too many.

Thank you for this. Very brave as well. Bravo!

I'm old, I've watched a lot. This country is a mess right now. Too many people hate each other. If there was one topic they could all get behind, it should be the Epstein list (I would hope). If only a fraction of what we hear and read is true, there are still a whole bunch of sick disgusting animals who abused who knows how many people. They need exposed and punished, and others can resign in disgrace.

We have been given a gift - The Epstein files. Summer is coming. Marches, rallies, etc. Focus on this topic. This is the Big Club. The best blue light special we will ever get. 

The first, the last, and everyone in between. Nothing less is acceptable.

You can't have growth without energy. How you do that depends on EROEI. Energy returned on energy invested.

Out here in Cornhole years ago there were bunches of small oil derricks sprinkled in the countryside pumping away all day and night. Filled up a tank with some flavor of oil. Truck comes by every once in a while and empty's the tank. Then they didn't. Cost more money to drive the truck around that what they got from the oil.

No different now. Gotta pump oil (or gas). Just a bunch more expensive. Energy resources (and critical minerals) are what wars are fought over.

5 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

I was half expecting to see a rush for the door at about 3:45 today but nothing really materialized - a little attempt at a rally actually but it fizzled. I guess it's good news if people aren't panicking.....so far.

Crude is really overbought as they say in the market. Been a rocket. Crude was $55 bucks middle December 2025, but has went exponential lately. I expected a sell off late as well, due to some not wanting to be long over the weekend. It didn't sell off, but stayed in the low 90 range for the last few hours. That might tell us something.

As the charts show, crude has been this high before. Usually when we, or somebody, is blowing **** up. Some not all that long ago. The difference this time, is they are blowing up a bunch more important ****, and more of it, best I can tell. That kinda matters. 

Crude oil - energy - Texas Tea as Jed used to say. Bad things happen when the price of energy goes goofy.

Why do they always say "unexpected?"

We live in the biggest Ponzi scheme ever funded.

How about some mid-day chart porn. First today's action in WTI crude oil. Above I said the charts show the next stop in the 92ish range. Not there yet, but what a ride today. Up over 12%. Looking back it's around 93.5. 1 day by minute chart.

We have to go back to the first part of 2022 to find the next support/resistance level. Wonder what was going on then? Hint; blowing **** up. 3 year by week chart for clarity. the 93.46 is from Jan/Feb 22.

The S&P is just banging around the 6762 level after a big gap down at open, and can't seem to figure out which direction it wants to go. Given the price of oil and the February employment report, it's holding up quite well. 1 day 1 minute chart.

Today's employment report from the BLS; Employment Situation Summary - embargoed until  8:30 a.m. (ET) Friday, March 6, 2026

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

going to be interesting to see if the S&P closes below ~6800 tomorrow. Trend says yes, but that's been a support point for all of the dips in '26 so far.

The S&P is holding up pretty well considering what's going on. More concerned with the 6762 level that, if breeched, would take us back into the channel from the huge sell-off in October, which puts 6550 in play as the next stop.

Incoming chart porn warning.

Reminder, the yellow arrows were Fed rate cuts.

On to the story of the day - energy, and the price of crude. It was fun to watch today. Got as high as $82.16. Little under $80 as I type this. For perspective, a 6 month chart of crude and what it looks like in the last week.

This isn't new, when you look back in history - given the price of crude right now. There are some parallels. Look around Jan 15, and later what they call the 12 day war. Blowing **** up is directly proportional to the price of crude it appears. 

There is an old saying. This time is different. Seems like some **** is getting blown up. Next stop according to the charts is around 92. 

Crude is at $79 and change as I type this. Was as high as $79.97. Dow down 780ish, S&P down 48, and the NASDAQ only -77

Here are two very long and sobering reads on the Iran/oil situation.

Systemic Risk: A 12-Order Cascading Analysis of a Zero-Flow Strait of Hormuz Closure

The Invisible Siege: How Insurance Markets, Not Missiles, Closed the Strait of Hormuz

What counts is what they blow up, or incapacitate. Some things are more penal than others.

It's not only about what might, or could, get blown up, but what does it do to the supply chain.

This has all been war gamed and they all know the score. It all depends on how ugly it gets.