ELAM: Man of the year, make that the decade

He was dealt a weak hand. His country’s population is shrinking. There is no consumer economy only one natural resource for export. No one wants to live there. Did I mention the lousy weather?

But Vladimir Putin has managed to turn all this around. He has a warm water port in Syria on the Mediterranean. He got Team Biden to approve the Nordstrom natural gas pipeline to Germany. PM Merkel closed the nuclear and coal plants giving Vlad a monopoly on German energy. He has amassed 100,000 troops on the Ukraine border and Team Biden promises there will be no military action on our part. With Ukraine talks breaking down, he now threatens sending troops to Venezuela. Russians in the Western Hemisphere will be a first since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

And all of that has to be good for the price of natural gas and oil. Should any conflict occur, Russia will surely restrict EU energy supplies. He re-built the Russian Military while the US was frittering around in the Middle East. He is making laying claim to the Arctic. For these reasons he is our Man of the Decade in terms of achieving his goals while leaving the EU and USA off balance.

Last week we promised a test of the previous $84 high in crude prices and we are getting just that. Natural gas futures gapped up Wednesday to over $4.75. Then on Thursday dropped back to $14.27 filling that gap. Natural gas looks good to a new high of $5 or more. And if an actual conflict breaks out, higher prices are in store for the energy sector.

The DJIA has been hanging around 36,000 without much conviction. The NASD has dropped from the November high of 15,900 to 14,788. If it takes out the January low of 14,600 the bloom may well be off the tech sector. Only 24% of NASD stocks are over their 50-day moving average. As previously noted breadth is in a state of collapse. Amazon has dropped 550 points since its November high. Netflix has dropped from its November high of 700to 520.

Public dissatisfaction with Team Biden hit another new low in the low 30s for approval rating. This all looks more and more like the start of 1973 which led to a 50% drop in the markets.

And inflation is the highest in 40 years. New highs in energy prices can only goose that statistic higher. It is not 1981 the height of inflation. It is 1971, the start of inflation.