Oil is the big winner today in capital markets as WTI crude rises nearly 2% on a day with most assets trading lower.
Eyes are on Russian crude as we get mixed signals. India seems to be truly cutting off Russia oil and the US continues to hammer away at European and Turkish buyers, trying to wean them off Russian crude. There are also the ongoing murmurs abotu Venezuela as that country announced a major military deployment.
In Iraq, Lukoil declared force majeure at a field it operates due to sanctions on Russian producers.
So the thinking is that's biting but at the same time there is a Reuters report citing traders saying that Russian oil exports haven't slowed down.
The rub is that speculative positioning in the crude market is very bearish and that's largely because the supply-demand balance looks really bearish. Of course, looks can be deceiving in oil as all the OPEC producers cheat. Also notable is that oil producers seem to be sniffing out a bottom in the price. Shares of Exxon are near the post-pandemic highs in a move that's tough to understand.
