Goldman was pounding the table with their "Oil to $200" drivel. It didn't quite get there, top-tick was $147.27 on July 11, 2008 when the decline to US$30.28 on December 23, 2008 began.
Here's an August 2008 post:
Inside baseball. Oil was recently up $2.22 at $115.09.So they were still touting higher despite the $32 drop in the previous 38 days.
A Goldman Sachs research note from July 31st has been keeping me awake at night, and it appears I am several hours late in passing along my take....
... July 31st
Negative gamma issues pose near-term downside risk, but we maintain a year-end forecast of $149/bbl
And we were just 12 days from posting Albert Edwards' incredible market/econ call on September 5:
Having extracted as much as they could from their "Long-only Index Investors" (CalPERS et al) here are a few more posts on Goldman and oil coming into that Dec. 23 bottom:
October 7, 2008: Goldman: We Got Our Shorts On, Oil not Going to $200.00
October 27, 2008: The Goldman Commodities U-turn, again
November 20, 2008: It’s official, Goldman capitulates on oil
Did I mention the index was the oil-dominated GSCI?
Oil bottomed and the big traders rented any ship that would hold the gunk and four months later, April 24, 2009 WTI hit $51.55.
As I say, that was a trade.
Not seeing it this time. They are going to have to go solely with the contango.
From Reuters via gCaptain, April 1, 2020:
Oil traders are storing as much as 80 million barrels of oil on tankers at sea, with further ships being sought as land storage sites fill up fast due to a global glut of stocks, shipping industry sources say.
Traders rushed for storage after global oil demand collapsed by a third due to the coronavirus outbreak, and as top producers Saudi Arabia and Russia have refused to curb output so far, creating what is believed to be the biggest oil glut in history.
The last time floating storage reached similar levels was in 2009, when traders stored over 100 million barrels at sea before offloading stocks.
There are over 770 supertankers in the world – each carrying a maximum of 2 million barrels – and shipping sources estimate that between 25 to 40 are currently being used for floating storage.
Locations typically include the U.S. Gulf and Singapore, where major oil hubs are situated.....MUCH MORE
This compares with fewer than 10 such vessels – known as very large crude carriers (VLCCs) – in February....
