November hasn’t been that much better than October – at what point do we start to see major shutdowns? Almost any levered fund has to be near the event horizon, and many of their individual investors, who took on personal debt to buy into more of them, have to be completely tapped out. I am less surprised by the selloff to S&P 750 than by the fact that you don’t hear of funds closing up left and right.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f743863a-b736-11dd-8e01-0000779fd18c,s01=1.html?nclick_check=1
Also, after all of my emails about peak oil, it was with some interest that I watched it cross below $50/bbl today. Strange thing: I still believe the peak oil guys. Demand may have dropped significantly – auto miles are down, aviation demand is down, winter has not kicked in – but I have to believe that the production levels we saw in the spring were about all the planet has to offer. The expensive stuff – the oil sands, some deepwater exploration – might come in and out of the market, but it seems to me that people have short memories and will soon be back to wasting the oil we have. Not sure what that means for an investment – the oil stocks are actually still up a bit from early October – but I hope our various policy nerds don’t lose sight of this as the Michigan congressional delegation stomps its feet to buy everyone an Escalade Hybrid.
