BoA Merrill Lynch - OPEC: Brothers in arms… or not?
Resource nationalism, not economics is driving oil markets. As expected, OPEC decided this week to leave crude production quotas unchanged for the third time, but emphasized both the need for compliance among cartel members and co-operation with non-OPEC producers. Of course, price stability has come mainly thanks to cuts implemented by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE. With limited global spare crude productive capacity outside Saudi Arabia, it has been relatively easy to prop up prices into a $65-$75/bbl band. By contrast, in the absence of a cartel ready to reduce volumes in other energy markets like US natural gas, prices have continued to spiral down, desperately looking for a supply-rationing point.
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BoA - Merrill Lynch: Encuesta de gestores de fondos - Julio 2009
Merrill Lynch Fund Manager Survey Finds Investors Heading for Cover as Falling Equities Test Nerves. Respondents keep rock-solid faith in emerging markets
Investors have responded to a fall in world equity markets by scaling back their risk taking and returning to recession-proof stocks, according to the Merrill Lynch Survey of Fund Managers for July.
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BoA - Merrill Lynch: A more optimistic GDP forecast
2010 global real GDP forecast hiked from 3.2% to 3.7% Downward pressures on economic activity remain strong, particularly with respect to falling employment and credit growth, as well as weak consumer spending in the advanced economies. However, the leading indicators for the supply side of the economy keep improving, the process of de-stocking cannot go on for ever, additional fiscal stimulus has been deployed in the US, and central banks continue to pump liquidity into the banking system.
Our forecast for global real GDP growth in 2009 remains at -1.0%. US and Asian projections raised, Europe largely unchanged The US forecast improves from -2.6% in 2009 and +1.7% in 2010, to -2.1% in 2009 and +2.6% in 2010. The forecast for emerging economies also improves significantly, especially in the case of Asia, where China is now expected to post a 9.6% growth rate in 2010, up from 8.3% previously, and India is projected to grow7.3% versus the old forecast of 7.1%. The outlook for the smaller Asian economies also improves significantly, with the Korean forecast rising form 3.0% to 4.0%, and Taiwan from 3.5% to 4.5%.
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BoA - Merrill Lynch: Commodity returns flat in June
Energy and metals support total commodity returns in JuneOn aggregate, commodity returns were flat in June, with the energy and metals sectors delivering a positive performance while precious metals and agricultural commodities posted losses. Overall, the MLCX TR index was flat at 0.01% for June, while the DJ-UBS TR index posted -1.90% and the S&P GSCI TR advanced 0.57%. Equities also experienced a flat month, with S&P 500 TR index at 0.20%, while the ML US Broad Bond index returned 0.61% in June.
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BoA - Merrill Lynch: Desperately looking for leadership in energy
Gasoline has led energy prices higher in recent months
With energy markets starting to look beyond the US driving season, it remains unclear where the next pocket of support for petroleum prices will come from. Gasoline stocks in the US came off to very low levels on a seasonal basis in early June, providing support to RBOB gasoline crack spreads. In turn, the relative strength in US gasoline contributed to push energy prices higher, helping WTI crude oil prices break through $70/bbl, up from $46/bbl at the start of the year.
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