Sky High GDP Forecasts Coming down to Earth – Ep. 367

 Dow Ending a Down Week on a Positive Note

The Dow managed to finish a down week on a positive note; the Dow Jones was up about 55 points – 24,270-ish is where we closed.  Although intra-day, we were up better than 250 points, so most fo the losses came toward the end of the day, as the Dow was not able to hold on to all those gains.  It held on to some of the gains, but Russell 2000, not as lucky. That index ended up finishing a down week down on the day. Probably the difference is the oil stocks, which are really helping out the Dow, to a lesser extent maybe the S&P 500 and that also closed positive on the day, but just barely, and well off the intra-day highs.

I Predicted Oil Would Be Heading Toward $80/Barrel

While we’re talking about crude oil, we were up again today, in fact, we haven’t even finished trading as I’m recording this, but as I am looking at it, it is at 74.40, up .$.95 – right near the high of the day. I think so far that was $74.46, so, almost 74.50.  Oil is just a powerhouse.  For those of you who say, “Hey Peter Schiff, you haven’t gotten anything right since 2008!”, I beg to differ.  I’ve gotten some things right; I’ve gotten some things wrong, but one of the things I nailed this year is the oil market. I was very bullish on oil early in the year.  I was saying that oil prices were headed up to $80-$100/barrel at the beginning of the year.  When the year started, we were barely above $60, so $80 still looked like it was far away, but I was pretty sure we were going there. And, obviously, we’re not there yet, but the year is only half over, and we’re a lot closer to $80 than half way. I don’t think we’re going to stop at $80.  I think it will be somewhere between $80 and $100/barrel.

What is Driving Crude Oil Right Now?

The question is, what is driving crude oil right now, because the dollar is rising. Today, it did not rise.  Today the dollar index got smoked.   Some of that had to do with political news announced last night in the Eurozone regarding immigration, but the dollar wasn’t just weak against the euro today, it was across the board.  All the currencies scored big gains.  The dollar index is back down below 95 – 94.63.  Remember I said on my last podcast I did not think there was much room above 95 for the dollar index to rise. So far I’m right about that.