The Declining Trade Deficit: Not As Rosy As You Would Think

The trade deficit numbers are out for June 2013 and have been very positive. Due to an oil boom, the trade deficit shrank 22% from around $44 billion in January 2013 to $34 billion in June 2013.

As you can see on Chart 1, the decrease in deficit was due to an increase in exports (red chart) and a decrease in imports (blue chart). This looks very promising, but I want to show that not all is well if you look into the details.

Chart 1: Import Vs. Export

Let's look deeper into these import and export numbers. Chart 2 gives the breakdown of the export numbers. The largest segments are "machinery and transport equipment", "chemicals and related products" "mineral fuels and lubricants" and "re-exports".

Chart 2: Exports January 2013

Chart 3 gives the breakdown of the import numbers. The largest segments are 'machinery and transport equipment", "mineral fuels and lubricants", "miscellaneous manufactured articles".

Chart 3: Imports January 2013

From these numbers we can deduct that the oil industry is indeed a very important segment that will influence the import and export numbers.

If we then further look at how these numbers evolve in time from January 2013 till June 2013 we have charts 4 and 5.

Chart 4: Exports (billion USD)

Chart 5: Imports (billion USD)

When analyzing the trends on charts 4 and 5, there is one segment that is worth noting. We see that exports of petroleum products (which are incorporated in the segment "mineral fuels and lubricants") have been going up, while imports of the same have been going down. The reason for this can be found in the divergence of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil and Brent crude oil.

To continue reading this analysis: go here.

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Consumer Price Index: The effect of a rise in oil prices

With crude oil going back over $106/barrel (which is a 20% increase from $90/barrel), let's see how the CPI would do.

As you know, the consumer price index consists mostly of housing (42%), then second comes transportation (17%) and last comes food (15%).

The crude oil is part of the transportation segment. One third of the transportation segment is motor fuel or 5% of the CPI.

So if oil prices go up 20%, the CPI will only go up 20% x 5% = 1%. 

More importantly, housing determines a major part of the CPI.  Half of the housing segment consists of Owners’ equivalent rent of residences which is basically the amount of rent you would pay for staying in the house. This depends on the housing prices. 10% of the housing segment is fuel and utilities. So if oil goes up 20%, the housing segment will go up 10% x 20% = 2%. And the CPI would go up 2% x 40% = 1%.

CPI

So basically, if oil prices go up 20%, the CPI at least goes up 2% from the fuel in the housing and transportation segments (if all else stays equal). The other segments will of course be influenced too by rising oil prices, but to a lesser extent.

So that's the significance of the oil price on the CPI.

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Brent Vs. Crude Divergence

If you hadn't noticed, Brent and WTI crude oil were pretty correlated historically, but since 2011 something weird happened.

Brent crude oil started to move up, while WTI crude oil was flat (Chart 1). This is mainly caused by the increased oil supply in North Dakota due to the applied technique called "fracking". This increased oil supply drove down the WTI crude oil price, while Brent crude oil (tied to the Gulf Coast) has increased.

Chart 1: Brent VS. Crude

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The Marginal Production Cost of Oil

There is a theorem about the marginal production cost of oil. The price of the commodity in question should always be slightly higher than the marginal production cost of oil. If not, then many companies that produce the commodity will start going bankrupt.

Wikipedia has this definition for marginal cost of production:
The change in total cost that comes from making or producing one additional item. The purpose of analyzing marginal cost is to determine at what point an organization can achieve economies of scale. The calculation is most often used among manufacturers as a means of isolating an optimum production level.

In the case of oil, it would take over $100 now to produce an additional barrel of crude oil. The oil production cost was only $85/barrel in 2009. So, if we see a crude oil price of $85/barrel today at a marginal cost of production around $100/barrel, a light should spark in every investor's mind. Especially when we hear news that Iran is threatening to stop exporting crude oil.

I'm going to bet on this by buying stocks like USO and UCO.

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Oil Price Dip is a Buying Opportunity

On 17 September 2012, talk about a possible release of oil from the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve was put on the table. Since that announcement, the oil price has dropped 10% from $100/barrel to $90/barrel. These strategic petroleum reserves are only to be used during emergencies defined as follows:

1. an emergency situation exists and there is a significant reduction in supply which is of significant scope and duration;
2. a severe increase in the price of petroleum products has resulted from such emergency situation; and
3. such price increase is likely to cause a major adverse impact on the national economy.

The biggest reason for this release of the SPR is obviously the turmoil in the Middle-East of which I talked about here. Other reasons are said to be because of the presidential election. The question is, how long can this release of the SPR put a lid on rising oil prices?

The strategic petroleum reserves are currently standing at 695 million barrels, while the U.S. uses 20 million barrels a day according to the Department of Energy. This means that when all of the reserves were to be released, we will have 695/20 = 35 days of extra emergency supply. So basically, oil prices would only drop for a month and then quickly rise again afterwards. Moreover, the U.S. wouldn't release all of its SPR at once, but is likely to release a small part of it. The U.S. has only released its SPR a few times in history, the first time it released its SPR was on January 1991 and the last time was on 23 June 2011. All of these releases were on average in the amount of 30 million barrels. Which is about 1.5 days of supply, too few to have any significant long-term effect on the oil price.

Figure 1: Releases of SPR (Source: Bianco Research)

The first release of SPR was on January 1991 under the Bush administration due to the war in Iraq. The U.S. released 17.3 billion barrels from its oil reserves. Oil prices had spiked from an average of $25/barrel to $50/barrel due to the Gulf War. After the release of SPR, the oil price returned to its average of $25/barrel. Last year on 23 June 2011, due to the Libyan crisis, the International Energy Agency (IEA) once again released 60 million barrels of oil, of which the U.S. contributed half of it. The effect was a 10% drop in oil prices. But the oil price quickly recovered a few months later.

Chart 1: Light Crude to Gold Ratio

Conclusion:
I believe the recent 10% drop in oil prices is overdone and should be a buying opportunity for investors, especially in terms of gold (Chart 1). The reason behind this logic is found in the amount of supply of the SPR, which is only 35 days maximum and probably 1.5 days if we look at history. Additionally QE3 was announced a few weeks ago and it should be very beneficial to the price of oil going forward. Investors can bet on a rebound in the price of oil by buying iPath Crude Oil ETN (OIL) or United States Oil Fund (USO).

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Baltic Dry Index Reacting to Iran Oil Embargo

Since Europe banned crude oil imports from Iran on 1 July 2012, the Baltic Dry Index has shot up 10% already from 1000 to 1103 (Chart 1). The reason for this spike isn't because Europe is banning crude oil imports from Iran, but rather the consequence of it. Due to this ban, Iran has renewed its threat to close the Strait of Hormuz. Approximately 20% of the world's oil, which is about 35% of seaborne traded oil, passes through this strait. As this strait is closed down, commodity transport vessels need to make a detour, which will increase the price of oil and increase the tanker rates. The availability of tankers will go down due to this forced rechartering of routes, which will decrease oil supply. As a consequence oil tankers will store oil in anticipation of rising oil prices and this will be beneficiary to the tanker industry. On 4 July 2012, the situation even got worse, with Iran threatening to strike 35 U.S. military bases within minutes. We will see that these events will be beneficial to the Baltic Dry Index and oil prices in general.

To read the full analysis go to my article here: Frontline: How to Profit from the Iranian Oil Embargo.

Chart 1: Baltic Dry Index

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An Analysis on the Oil Price

Since May, the price of crude oil (OIL) has fallen from $US 106/barrel to $US 78/barrel (Chart 1). It is very likely that the price of crude oil will continue to decline because for the first time in a decade, supply is exceeding demand.

In this article I will give advice to investors on how to play the oil price and I will give critical information on when to buy the dip in crude oil based on a fundamental analysis of crude oil production costs.

Chart 1: Crude Oil Price

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How Gold Mines Will Benefit From the Second Great Depression

During the Great Depression in 1932, gold went up while utilities (energy, oil) went down. Oil companies were almost all going bankrupt. What happened to gold mines then?

Every company has revenue and costs. Revenue from a gold mine comes from the gold they mine and sell. This asset was very precious to people, so gold mines benefitted from the gold price going up. Costs were going down as oil went down due to the worsening economic outlook during the Great Depression.

So, when revenue goes up and costs go down, margins start to increase a lot. This is what happened during the Great Depression and this will happen once again now.

To find out, go to: How Gold Mines will Benefit from the Coming Depression

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Rising U.S. Trade Deficit for March 2012

The U.S. trade deficit has widened to $US 50 billion in March 2012. The trendline since 2009 up till now has been pointing to widening trade deficits (Chart 1).

Imports were probably higher due to more expensive oil imports, while exports have slumped (Chart 2).

Chart 1: U.S. Balance of Trade

Chart 2: U.S. exports

Incidentally, the U.S. dollar cash index is again pointing down just recently (Chart 3), despite problems in Europe. The dollar index spot (DXY) is currently at 79.5. If this index continues to fall, I predict that imports will go up even more in the future as the U.S. dollar loses purchasing power. Accompanied by the devaluation of the U.S. dollar, will be an ever more rising trade deficit.

Chart 3: Dollar Cash Index

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