In the late-1970s, Alaska’s oil output was on the rise. The ascent was timely, coming in the wake of the Opec-engineered oil crisis of 1973, which announced to the world (and the U.S. in particular) that the days of counting on cheap, accessible supplies were gone, though not necessarily for geological reasons. By 1978, Alaskan crude production exceeded one million barrels per day on average for the first time, Energy Department numbers recount. That was roughly 14% of America’s domestic oil production in 1978. Alaska’s output eventually doubled in absolute terms, hitting slightly more than two million barrels a day in 1988.
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THE JOY OF MOMENTUM
The iShares Lehman 7-10 Year Treasury ETF (Amex: IEF) is sitting on a 10.3% total return for the 12 months through today’s close. That’s a healthy performance edge over the 1.9% rise in that stretch for the iShares Lehman 1-3 Year Treasury ETF (Amex: SHY). There’s nothing inherently peculiar about longer-term maturities outperforming shorter terms. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t. But the fact that longer-term Treasuries are besting shorter ones is more than a little out of the ordinary after the Federal Reserve has hiked interest rates for nearly a year.
WAITING FOR A SIGN
The value-stock train has had quite a run, but the momentum has to end sometime. As always, the question is when?
ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL OF WORRY
The bond market may be wrong, as so many have charged this week regarding the 10-year Treasury Note’s dip to its lowest in more than a year. But this morning’s jobs report for May isn’t making it any easier for skeptics of the recent rally in debt to deliver a knock-out punch to the forces of fixed-income optimism.
DIVORCE ITALIAN STYLE?
The news doesn’t surprise us. Or does it? In any case, a government official from Italy has suggested the formerly unthinkable in the wake of the French and Dutch rejection of the European constitution, namely: leaving the euro.
GAME THEORY
Game on, says Bob Walters, chief economist for Quicken Loans, in reaction to the latest decline in mortgage rates and the related rise in loan inquiries, reports Bankrate.com. Real estate may be a bubble, as many pundits have charged, but if so then it’s also true that ours is a bubble-friendly climate.
THE NEW NEW BULL MARKET IN BONDS
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury Note turned more than a few heads today by dipping to under 3.9%– the lowest since March 2004. The not-so-subtle message: the economy’s cooling, and so it’s safe for any and all bond bulls to come out of the closet.
RESEARCH ROOM UPDATE
Ronald McKinnon, professor of international economics, Stanford University, contests the so-called conventional wisdom on the matter of exhange rates and trade deficits in a new working paper added to the CS Research Room.
DUALISM IN EXTREMUS
France is said by some to be no friend to the United States on matters geopolitical, but when it comes to foreign exchange it’s hard to imagine a more obliging partner. Granted, the current French aid to the dollar is incidental, courtesy of Gallic independence in the form of France’s rejection of the European Union’s constitution on Sunday. But from a trader’s perspective, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
FRENCH FRIED REFERENDUM
For now, there are only questions. But Mr. Market will soon demand answers.