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$0 Or $40? PG&E Price Targets Reflect Uncertain Outlook On Wall Street

Wayne Duggan
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The Saudis are certain the American industry has reformed itself.If the prince is right, OPEC+ will be able to both push prices higher now and recover market share later without worrying that rivals in Texas, Oklahoma and North Dakota will flood the market. But if Riyadh has miscalculated -- and it’s got shale wrong before -- the danger will be lower prices and production down the line.The Saudis have so far convinced their allies the strategy will work. After a quick virtual meeting on Thursday, OPEC+ agreed to prolong its production cuts, defying expectations of an output hike. Russia, however, secured an exemption for itself and Kazakhstan, and will increase output marginally in April.Brent crude jumped 5% to a one-year high of almost $68 a barrel after the decision. 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From a low point of less than 7 million barrels a day in 2007, the U.S.’s total petroleum output more than doubled to hit an all-time high of almost 18 million barrels a day by early 2020, forcing the cartel to cede market share.Risky Move“This is a risky take,” Amrita Sen, chief oil analyst at consultant Energy Aspects Ltd., said Friday in a Bloomberg Television interview. While U.S. oil companies probably won’t raise output this year, in 2022 “there’s nothing really stopping them, especially the small and mid-cap producers.”Sen sees prices hitting $70 a barrel as soon as next week, $80 by the end of the year and a possible climb to $100 in 2022.For now, U.S. total oil output remains constrained, hovering at 16 million barrels due to the impact of last year’s slump, which briefly saw benchmark prices trade below zero.Under pressure from shareholders, shale producers have promised restraint, putting profits before the growth they relentlessly pursued during the boom years. Although drilling has risen from the lows of 2020, it’s well below previous levels. In addition, President Joe Biden is trying to temper the worst excesses of the industry, including the indiscriminate natural gas flaring that’s a byproduct of shale’s success.Under a different oil minister, Saudi Arabia attacked shale producers in 2014 and 2015, flooding the market and forcing prices lower -- a strategy that ultimately failed. Prince Abdulaziz is doing the opposite, because oil higher prices will eventually benefit shale producers. Yet, he’s convinced the industry won’t repeat its past excesses.“Shale companies are now more focused on dividends,” Prince Abdulaziz told Bloomberg News in an interview after the OPEC+ meeting, saying that the kingdom wished the American industry well. “We’ve never had any issue with shale oil. It’s the shale companies which are themselves changing. They have had their fair share of adventure and now they are listening to the call of their shareholders.”Shale executives agree with him -- at least for now.“A couple years ago it was ‘drill, baby, drill,’” John Hess, the head of Hess Corp., said in Houston earlier this week. “Now, it’s ‘show me the money.’”Ryan Lance, the chief executive officer of ConocoPhillips, echoed the sentiment: “I hope there’s discipline in the system. The worst thing that can happen right now is U.S. producers start growing rapidly again.”As the industry cuts spending to pay shareholders fatter dividends, there’s not much left to finance increased production. Even Big Oil is scaling down its ambitions in shale. Exxon Mobil Corp. had been running 55 oil rigs in the Permian basin that straddles West Texas and southeast New Mexico, part of an effort to boost output to 1 million barrels a day by 2025. After tightening its belt, the U.S. oil giant is running just 10 rigs, and has cut its 2025 output target by nearly a third to 700,000 barrels a day.Yet, there are also signs that higher oil prices may ultimately reactivate the U.S. shale industry. With benchmark West Texas Intermediate now changing hands above $60 a barrel, some companies believe they may be able to both grow and keep shareholders happy. EOG Resources Inc., the largest producer in the Permian, has announced a big spending increase for next year. And others are following suit.But the reaction of the stock market made Prince Abdulaziz’s case: investors punished EOG for spending more on drilling, marking down its shares relative to more disciplined rivals.(Updates with comments from Energy Aspects in 10th, 11th paragraphs.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

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Here are some of his views from an interview on Wednesday:Boom-and-Bust Cycle“My current scenario is that we go back to another boom-and-bust cycle, with interest-rate cuts in the second half of this year leading to strong credit growth in 2022, just ahead of the presidential election in 2023, and then we get another crash.”Is This Time Different?“We have seen so many times that Erdogan was persuaded that he has to do something. Each time, the cost has become higher and the gains have become more short-lived. You look at interest rates globally today and look where Turkey is. Every other mainstream emerging market has interest rates below 5% now, except Turkey.“I don’t have high trust that Erdogan has learned his lesson. His comments just a week ago again suggests that, yes, he is being responsible for now, but as soon as he gets the chance and certainly ahead of the elections in 2023, you would expect Turkey to go on the credit-growth model again.”Facing Choices“Once again Turkey has got a choice. It still has a very cheap currency; it can go down an export-led model that will support its current account and bring in the dollars and euros that can be used for investment. I’d love to see the central bank be able to take inflation under control permanently through a long period of high interest rates and at the same time a cheap currency helping exports and helping re-balance Turkey’s economy away from consumption. That would be the better long term story for Turkey, but less exciting for growth. It is kind of a growth scenario of probably 3% or 4% a year, not 6% or 7% for a few years and then a crash.”Controlling Inflation“The markets will have to see the proof in sustained positive real interest rates over time. Right now, we don’t even have positive interest rates: the central-bank rate is roughly the same as inflation. The markets can accept that inflation is going to calm down thanks to the hikes we have seen. But what the central bank has to do is to keep real rates on a forward-looking base high, and the only way they can prove to the market that they are doing that is by doing it.”Shorter Cycles“I suspect that the boom and bust cycles have to be short now, like a year or two. They can’t do a five-year boom. Yes you can borrow for a bit but you blow up yourself pretty quickly. (In the past) banks had sufficient deposits to lend out, but now they don’t. If they want to lend, a great deal of money is borrowed from abroad, and that then starts to ramp up the external debt quickly and then markets get worried (and) the lira starts to come under pressure quite quickly.”Hawkish Talk“I don’t think there is anything they can do now. There is nothing verbal they can say, and actually hiking rates too much would be a mistake because it is not necessary for the economy. I think inflation is going to come down; it would be silly to hike rates more now. The best they can do is to show over years the model has changed.”Outlook for the Lira“My guess is that the lira is going to be around 7 per dollar by June because the central bank will continue to be responsible throughout the first half of 2021, and my assumption is that by December we’ll see pressure from Erdogan to cut rates. And we will be at the beginning of the market losing faith again in the central bank’s credibility.”Developing-World Models“Egypt is still paying really high real rates today because it has taken so long to prove to the market that Egypt is changing. It has been costly for Egypt, and it will be quite costly for Turkey to prove this too. Turkey has to provide to foreign and domestic investors a good positive real return on bonds at least for two to three years before the markets will believe the model has changed.”What to Buy“For bond investors, I think it has been a decent trade since November but you put your money there for a few months. It is a bit like riding Bitcoin; a few months in you make a decent return and you get out because you can’t have that much confidence in the longer term. I think the Turkish lira bonds are good value now, but I would be selling them perhaps first half of next year. The question I would have in the second half of this year: when do I sell?”To Be Sure“I’d love to be wrong, for the sake of the Turks and their savings and their relative standing in the world. Turkey has an opportunity to change. Turkey is a well-developed industrial economy with a good, educated work force. It could be a solid -- perhaps the best -- growth story in the European time zone for the next 10 years with the right policies.”(Updates with lira and central bank comments in third paragraph)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

  • Dip Buyers Fuel Stock Rebound; Treasuries Steady: Markets Wrap

    (Bloomberg) -- Dip buyers drove a rebound in stocks after an earlier bout of selling pushed the Nasdaq 100 down 10% from a record.All major groups in the S&P 500 advanced, while the tech-heavy gauge climbed more than 1.5% as giants Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc. erased their losses. Robinhood Markets Inc., the trading platform behind the boom-and-bust swing in GameStop Corp.’s shares, has chosen the Nasdaq for its eventual initial public offering, according to a news report. Earlier Friday, equities retreated as U.S. jobs data topped estimates, fueling anxiety the economy could run too hot and kick up inflation. Benchmark 10-year yields stabilized after hitting 1.6%.Friday’s turnaround in financial markets wiped out the S&P 500’s drop for the week. The intense volatility of the past few days was a test to stock bulls who see the recent spike in Treasury yields as an indication of brighter prospects for the economy and corporate profits. While concern over equity valuations have emerged, several analysts say that as long as data continue to improve, any selloff would present dip-buying opportunities.“Many investors are going to be buying these dips here, capital continues to be pouring into equities,” said Tony Bedikian, head of global markets at Citizens Bank. Bond yields are still “incredibly low, so equity yields are still very attractive to investors,” he added.U.S. Treasury yields have been rising because of a much stronger economic outlook and are not a cause for worry -- or a call to policy action -- said Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard. His remarks follow Chairman Jerome Powell’s Thursday caution that rising yields had caught his eye and he would be “concerned by disorderly conditions in markets or persistent tightening in financial conditions.”“As a central banker I am always concerned if there is disorderly trading or something that looks panicky,” Bullard said Friday in an interview with Wharton Business Radio. “That would catch my attention. But I think we are not at that point.”These are some of the main moves in markets:StocksThe S&P 500 rose 1.9% at 4 p.m. New York time.The Stoxx Europe 600 Index slid 0.8%.The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell 0.6%.The MSCI Emerging Market Index decreased 0.6%.CurrenciesThe Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index increased 0.4%.The euro dipped 0.4% to $1.1917.The Japanese yen depreciated 0.4% to 108.36 per dollar.BondsThe yield on 10-year Treasuries rose less than one basis point to 1.57%.Germany’s 10-year yield climbed one basis point to -0.30%.Britain’s 10-year yield increased three basis points to 0.756%.CommoditiesWest Texas Intermediate crude climbed 3.9% to $66.29 a barrel.Gold rose 0.1% to $1,698.65 an ounce.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

  • Sole proprietors, contractors, and freelancers now qualify for bigger PPP loans

    Contractors, freelancers, and sole proprietors in the US can now access considerably larger loans from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), following a new rule issued by the Small Business Administration (SBA) on Wednesday. The rule allows entrepreneurs without employees to calculate their loan eligibility using gross income rather than net income, making the loans far more generous, especially for businesses with little or no profit.

  • Here comes Kanye West's Yeezy line at Gap

    It's full steam ahead for Kanye West's apparel line at Gap.

  • Stock picking rockstar Cathie Wood is the anti-Warren Buffett

    Warren Buffett and Cathie Wood are polar opposites when it comes to investing. The former is a stock-picking legend with a history of skepticism of hyped-up technology concerns, while the latter seemingly can’t get enough of them. Each have cult followings—Buffett’s flock to see him at the company’s annual meeting, while Wood’s show their adoration on Twitter and TikTok.