From ZeroHedge:
With West Texas Intermediate crude oil trading with an $80 handle, near two year lows, while stocks remain within a few percent of their four-year highs, one has to question just what it is that stocks believe about our bright new future of growth and demand that the all-important energy markets do not. Between Europe's recession, last night's dismal China PMI, and a significantly trending rise in US unemployment claims, it seems more likely that the global demand picture painted by the oil market is a better reflection of reality than the earnings/multiple picture painted by the nominal price of US equities. We know that bad is good when it comes to the front-running of Bernanke's print button but wouldn't bad being good raise the USD-nominal price of oil also?
And from Foreign Policy:
The Coming Oil Crash
...Good news! Gas prices could go down to $2 a gallon by autumn -- and that's bad news for Vladimir Putin.
To understand why your average oil king is right to be worried at the moment, grab your calculator. The price of U.S.-traded oil fell to $83.27 a barrel on Monday, and global benchmark Brent crude to $96.05 a barrel; now juxtapose that against the state budgets of Iran, Russia, and Venezuela, which require more than $110-a-barrel Brent prices to break even, according to generally accepted estimates, and you'll see the problem.HT: FT Alphaville
Given this already-existing revenue gap, one might fairly wonder what would happen if, as Citigroup's Edward Morse says is possible, prices drop another $20 a barrel for an extended length of time. Oil economist Philip Verleger's forecast is even gloomier -- a plunge to $40 a barrel by November. Or finally, what Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez fears -- $35-a-barrel prices, near the lows last seen in 2008. In Russia, for instance, "$35 or $40, or even $60 a barrel, would be devastating fiscally," says Andrew Kuchins of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. That could damage the standing of President Vladimir Putin, since his "popularity and authority are closely correlated with economic growth," Kuchins told me in an email exchange....MORE
See also the FTA link in yesterday's "Crude Oil Inventories Rise to Record Levels But Futures Remain in Backwardation (WTF)", there is a lot of oil sloshing around.
