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Global markets are soaring on anticipation of the return of President Trump but also on the possibility of peace between Russia and Ukraine. The quagmire between Russia and the Ukraine has cost US taxpayers at least 178 billion dollars and until Donald Trump became President-elect there was little hope that the killing would be coming to an end.

Both President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are ready to discuss Ukraine and while the talks will be difficult, there is a ray of hope for peace that seemed non-existent under the current administration. The Associated Press reported Putin on Trump said, “His behavior at the moment of an attempt on his life left an impression on me. He turned out to be a brave man. Putin said that Trump’s desire to restore relations with Russia and to help end the Ukrainian crisis, “in my opinion, deserves attention at least.”

The Wall Street Journal on the other hand is signaling that President Trump will reinstate the successful maximum pressure campaign on Iran. The Journal writes that Donald Trump plans to drastically increase sanctions on Iran and throttle its oil sales as part of an aggressive strategy to undercut Tehran’s support of violent Mideast proxies and its nuclear program.

This is welcome news and good for world peace. As we know the Biden administration’s policies of easing pressure on Iran had disastrous consequences for peace. Iran saw their revenues increase by billions of dollars under Biden and that meant of course that they were able to fund terror groups such as Hezbollah Hamas and the Houthi rebels. A lot of the tension in the Middle East can be directly tied to the fact that Iran was able to use its influence to cause the war between Hamas and Iran and allowed the Hothi rebels to disrupt shipping in the Red Sea and for Hezbollah to continue their terrors in Lebanon.

The stock market rally is also because of the threat of raising the corporate tax and taxing unrealized gains is off the table.

Yet oil is down a bit on concerns that China is not doing enough to inspire oil demand. Downward price pressure also came from data showing crude imports in China, the world’s largest oil importer, fell 9% in October – the sixth consecutive month to show a year-on-year decline. Reuters reported that, “Investors hoping China would announce extra fiscal buffers for an economy girding for another Donald Trump presidency were disappointed on Friday. China’s top legislative body, the standing committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), did as was expected, approving bills to allow local governments to allocate 10 trillion yuan ($1.40 trillion) towards reducing off-balance sheet, or “hidden”, debt.

Wind Swept! Bloomberg News reports in a must read that, “Europe’s power prices soared to levels last seen during the energy crisis this week. Only it wasn’t a war or other geopolitical events that caused it, but the dark, windless weather that is all too common during winter. The continent has rapidly expanded its capacity to generate wind and solar power, but still relies on costly hydrocarbons as a back up. For instance, while Germany gets more than 49 gigawatts of wind power on the gustiest days, only around 1% of  that record was being generated on Wednesday, with expensive  fossil fuels plugging the gap. The “Dunkelflaute” phenomenon — known in power markets by the German word for periods when little to no solar or wind energy can be produced — poses a significant issue for energy infrastructure that relies on renewables.’  Did Gavin Newsome read this?

Natural gas is up as Hurricane Rakel still is impacting production. The BSEE reports that BSEE estimates that approximately 22.36% of the current daily oil production and 9.73% of the current daily natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico has been shut-in. The production percentages are calculated using information submitted by offshore operators in daily reports. Fox Weather reports that, “Powerful Hurricane Rafael has strengthened in the Gulf of Mexico after slamming into Cuba as a major hurricane on Wednesday and continues to crawl westward slowly. Rafael is currently a Category 3 hurricane with some fluctuations in intensity possible on Friday, the National Hurricane Center said. By the evening, a steady weakening trend is forecast and should continue through the weekend.

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