(Houston)
The oil market has been the story of the week for markets. The price of black gold fell to -$37 dollars on Monday. The market would technically pay you to take oil off its hands. Even at $20, most of the US oil industry is out of business, so what can the President and the government do to save the market? There are several options. For instance, the government could buy a hundred million barrels of oil for its strategic reserve, or it could create new storage space. However, the option the markets favor is for the government to buy mountains of oil while it is still in the ground, and have producers pay them back as they extract it.
FINSUM: If the government wants to save the US oil industry from a mass bankruptcy—and resulting rupture in the high yield market—it will need to take action.
