With the oil bears growling again, I doubt the OSX will have a major correction anytime soon. I will only start to worry when the consensus accepts the idea that OPEC compliance will remain high for the forseeable future. Until then the market probably will continue to climb the proverbial "wall of worry".
Barron's columnist Alan Abelson has not been very good on the overall market, but he and his sources have been very accurate on the energy sector. And they are still bullish:
" One commodity that has been dutifully following Marc Faber's script is oil.
Crude briefly touched $19 a barrel last week, extending its remarkable rise from a hair above $10
around the turn of the year, a rise fueled by the OPEC production cutbacks.
Is it for real?
We think it is and, more to the point, so do the few stray savvy types we know like Bernie, the
Midland maverick, who bought energy stocks late last year at the absolute bottom. And, so does
Tom Petrie.
Tom, whose Denver shop is called Petrie Parkman, insisted that OPEC was dead serious about
slashing supply, when the professional energy watchers dismissed it as just a charade. Tom, of
course, was right, and the other guys weren't.
He reckons that crude might move up briefly to $20-$21 a barrel, but the powers-that-be at OPEC
figure anything higher would tempt the bad boys to revert to their cheating ways.
While demand should obviously get a lift from Asia, even more bullish, Tom says, is declining
shipments from Iraq. The amount of oil Saddam is allowed to produce for "humanitarian
purposes" is measured in dollars, not barrels. So the precipitous drop in oil prices last year,
coupled with a higher (read: more humanitarian) limit set by the U.N., enabled Iraq to produce 2.6
million barrels a day, a heck of a lot more than anybody anticipated.
In his rush to squeeze as many barrels out as possible, Saddam did terrible damage to his wells.
Now he's paying the price with a steep decline in Iraq's production. So, why can't we summon up
a drop of sympathy?" |
