Oil Prices Already Rising
With Summer beginning Yesterday here in the US, Gas prices are already averaging around $2.70 a gallon. Oil Prices have doubled since their lows only a few months ago. If Mousavi does in fact called for a national strike, how high could that make prices go? Technically, the other nations should make up for any production stoppages in Iran, but just the mental impact of the Iran mess could very well send prices back to $90 - $100 by August in my opinion. As you can see Below in the world map of the largest Oil Producing Nations, although tiny geographically, Iran has the third largest oil reserves and currently is responsible for about 8% of all Oil production in the world, with 3.7 million barrels of production per day.
With the economy seemingly getting better, we could be in for another oil price jump. I do not see it getting to $150 a barrel like last year though. Investors will be too hesitant to carry prices over the $100 mark in my opinion for fear of another collapse like we had int he last 12 months.
Once again we have hit the end of the week, and that can mean only one thing. Our traditional end of week look ahead. This week has been pretty flat in terms of the stock market. We did get some more encouraging news when we found that new unemployment forms were not as high as expected. In addition to the whole array of economic news we expect next week, we should also get results from Iran on their National election. Right now it looks as though, Mir Hossein Moussavi, who is friendlier to the West, may beat out the President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Although the Nuclear ambitions of Iran may not change with either candidate, a victory for Moussavi could affect the markets a bit positively. Below is the list of data that we will be receiving next week: