Juggling Dynamite

And just like that, Canada’s growth engine implodes:   Alberta likely to enter recession this year.

Recession even at $65 a barrel?  Try current $45, or secular support in the under $30/barrel range…So goes oil and Alberta, so goes Canadian growth hopes and the federal budget, see:  Low oil prices to tip feds from surplus to budget deficit

Surprise, surprise…right when 100% of the sell side analysts were predicting record profit levels in 2015:

“Forecasts for first-quarter profits in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index have fallen by 6.4 percentage points from three months ago, the biggest decrease since 2009, according to more than 6,000 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Reductions spread across nine of 10 industry groups and energy companies saw the biggest cut.

Earnings pessimism is growing just as the best three-year rally since the technology boom pushed equity valuations to the highest level since 2010. At the same time, volatility has surged in the American stock market as oil’s 55 percent drop since June to below $49 a barrel raises speculation that companies will cancel investment and credit markets and banks will suffer from debt defaults…

Profit is forecast to have grown 2 percent in the final three months of 2014 and increase 2.8 percent for the current quarter, down from analysts’ October estimates of 8.1 percent and 9.2 percent, respectively. Without energy companies, profit gains would have been 4.7 percent and 7.8 percent, the most recent projections show.

Except for utilities, every other industry has seen reductions in estimates.” See: Oil whacks S&P 500 earnings growth

 

With West Texas Crude under $47 this morning (West Cdn Select around $35), we must keep in mind the $10 to $40 range (green band below) where oil prices traded before the consumer credit bubble billowed them to anomalous heights from 2004-2008 (see my partner’s chart here.)

We should also understand how overly concentrated and dependent many economies have become on the oil and gas sector the past decade. Mean reversion in the space now, will have a negative impact far and wide, even while lower prices are better for consumers (reducing their expenses and allowing them to pay down debt faster than they could with higher energy costs).

Fadel Gheit, analyst at Oppenheimer & Co., examines the potential impact of cheap oil over a long-term timeframe on economics and oil producers. Here is a direct video link.