(Houston)

Unprecedented freezing temperatures across the south have wrangled most news headlines this week. This is causing a not so surprising collapse in production from the major U.S. manufacturers in the state most affected, Texas. But the lack of demand from refineries is creating a negative pull on oil prices as they are slower to adjust to changing conditions. Sluggish oil prices will be expected to continue despite a 3.5 million barrel shortfall in production because the refineries aren’t in high demand. On top of this demand shortfall, OPEC has announced plans to ramp up production. These combining factors have produced about a 2% decline in WTI crude futures after declining 1% in trading last Thursday. Finally, the Biden administration has set the course to re-engage with the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, however, Trump-era oil sanctions have not been reversed.

FINSUM: The run-up in oil prices over the last two weeks was driven by inclement weather in the U.S. but look to the finer details of global production in the next couple of weeks to push oil prices back down. Examine related sectors, like the airline industry, to capitalize on these fluctuations.

January and early February offered some rough times for investors. The two-week meme stock debacle had most investors’ hearts skip a beat...view the full story on our partner Magnifi's site

Two junk bond indices, Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Corporate High Yield Index and ICE BofA US High Index Yield, hit record lows both dipping to about 4%...view the full story on our partner Magnifi's site

(Chicago)

Municipal bond market returns remain low, but nonetheless investors seem willing to keep demanding low yield munis. This rise in demand...view the full story on our partner Magnifi's site.

(Washington)

In what comes as a surprise to the entire industry, President Biden’s administration has just let the Trump-era version of the Fiduciary Rule go into effect. Almost everyone in wealth management thought Biden would surely use his administrations powers to stop the rule’s enactment, but they elected to let it go into effect as of this Tuesday, accompanying the announcement with positive and supportive language. The industry’s reaction was immediate and positive, while consumer advocates were disappointed as they were hoping for a more stringent rule from the Democratic administration.

FINSUM: Frankly, we take this as an incredibly positive sign for the wealth management business. This is a big signal to us that the Biden administration is not going to be as onerous and impractical on the regulatory front as many might have feared.