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Old 12-19-2014, 08:01 AM  
RummyBoy
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Join Date: Dec 2009
Posts: 2,157
Well it's too early I think to make a judgement here. The oil price is fundamental and sure every $10 drop knocks a couple % off Russian GDP.

As global growth is slowing, there's a massive mismatch of supply and demand but a lot of this is the work of traders and markets jumping on the negative momentum. Bottom line markets always overshoot (in both directions) to upside and downside.

Russia's economy is not in such bad shape and actually Russia has a decent chunk of foreign currency reserves ($400 Bn) and debt is manageable. Russia debt/gdp is like 13% and the US debt/gdp is like over 105% (not include state debt and unfunded liabilities).

Putin still has 80% approval rating and China is offering support:

China steps into U.S. currency war against Russia and offers Putin major support - National Finance Examiner | Examiner.com

I guess it depends how long this persists.... with oil at sub $60 or even lower. I don't have an opinion on this but most major analysts and investors seem to think oil is back in the $70 - $80 range next year.

A lot blame is going to OPEC for trying to kill the US shale oil boom but actually if you look carefully, its mainly Russia and Iran that get hit the worst - co-incidence? Now, I'm not one of those who think the US is helping to manipulate the oil price lower (which can easily be done by the way).

Rather, global growth is slowing drastically and demand for the major commodities oil, gas, coal, iron ore, copper is actually proving this out. You need all those higher to demonstrate global growth and all are substantially lower. It looks like the deflation which is being talked about in the media.

China is slowing and of course China the main, major singular driver for demand on energy and industrial commodities. So it should be clearer in early 2016 how things are going to move forward but there's no easy answer because its complex.
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