What Will Trigger The Next Oil Price Crash?
Are we nearing another financial crisis?
The supply-side story for oil prices is heavily skewed to the upside, with production losses from Iran and Venezuela causing a rapid tightening of the market. But the demand side of the equation is much more complex and harder to pin down.
Economists and investment banks are increasingly sounding the alarm on the global economy, raising red flags about the potential dangers ahead. Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase recently suggested that a full-scale trade war would lead the steep corporate losses and a bear market for stocks.
The Trump administration just took its trade war with China to a new level, adding $200 billion worth of tariffs on imported Chinese goods. That was met with swift retaliation. Trump promised another $267 billion in tariffs are in the offing.
JPMorgan said that after scanning through more than 7,000 earnings transcripts, the topic of tariffs was widely discussed and feared. Around 35 percent of companies said tariffs were a threat to their business, JPMorgan said, as reported by Bloomberg.
But the risks don’t stop there. The Federal Reserve is steadily hiking interest rates, making borrowing more expensive around the world and upsetting a long line of currencies. The strength of the U.S. dollar has led to havoc in Argentina and Turkey, with slightly less but still significant currency turmoil in India, Indonesia, South Africa, Russia and an array of other emerging markets. Currency problems could morph into bigger debt crises, as governments struggle to repay debt, and companies and individuals get crushed by dollar-denominated liabilities.
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