LNG: European Gas Rises On Norwegian Developments, US Cooling Needs Lower
European natural gas rose 1.9% to EUR 34.15 on Monday to be up almost 15% in May. It fell to EUR 36.60 before rising to EUR 37.36, a narrow range as the UK was closed. Prices were boosted by news of unscheduled maintenance at Norway’s major Troll field. As Europe refills storage ahead of next winter, gas remains sensitive to any unplanned outages.
- Norway has become more important as a supplier of gas to Europe since pipeline flows from Russia were cut and is likely to become more so with EU plans to phase out all Russian fossil fuels. Its gas centres are currently undergoing significant seasonal maintenance but with the focus on refilling any unplanned events are likely to move prices.
- US gas fell 2.1% to $3.26 in holiday-thinned trading as forecasts shifted lower for the eastern US reducing the likelihood of a need for cooling. Bloomberg is reporting zero cooling degree days for the week ending May 31, less than average. Gas prices are now 1.9% lower this month.
- China’s LNG imports are expected to be down around 30% y/y in May, according to Bloomberg, as it resells shipments to benefit from higher prices, increased pipeline flows from Russia and its own production. Researchers associated with China National Offshore Oil believe that its use of gas will remain robust though with it doubling by 2025.
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US TSYS: Extraordinary Measures And Cash Look Sufficient To Head Off X-Date
Treasury has about $164B in "extraordinary measures" available as of April 23 to avoid hitting the debt limit, per its regular report out Friday. That's out of a maximum total of $375B (they have used $211B).
- With Treasury cash looking healthy (around $600B), that's a fair amount of dry powder to get through the summer months to wait out the debt limit impasse. Tax receipts have looked strong with tariff revenues also starting to boost cash flows, further reducing the near-term urgency to adjust bond issuance.
- This has also helped push back analyst “x-date” expectations to later in the summer/September. We expect to hear from Treasury about its own x-date assumptions next week.
US TSYS: Treasury Market Trading Stayed Orderly In April: Fed Report
Liquidity across financial markets including the Treasury market deteriorated after President Trump's April 2 reciprocal tariffs announcement but market functioning was generally orderly, according to the Federal Reserve's semiannual report on financial stability, released Friday. (PDF link is here)
- Treasury market liquidity has been poor for years and yields were particularly volatile in early April, contributing to a deterioration in market liquidity, the Fed said.
- Nevertheless "trading remained orderly, and markets continued to function without serious disruption," according to the report, which looked at information available as of April 11.
FED: Ex-Gov Warsh: Fed Has Failed To Satisfy Price Stability Remit
From our Washington Policy Team - Some fairly sharp words today from ex-Fed Governor Warsh on the central bank (who for what it's worth is seen by betting markets as by far the frontrunner for the next Fed Chair):
- The best way for the Federal Reserve to safeguard its independence is for policymakers to avoid expanding the institution's role over time, including wading into policy areas that are outside its core mission, former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh, a leading contender to replace Jerome Powell as chair next year, said Friday.
- "I strongly believe in the operational independence of monetary policy as a wise political economy decision. And I believe that Fed independence is chiefly up to the Fed," Warsh said in a speech at a Group of Thirty event on the sidelines of the IMF meetings. "Institutional drift has coincided with the Fed’s failure to satisfy an essential part of its statutory remit, price stability. It has also contributed to an explosion of federal spending." His speech made no mention of Trump's tariffs or the appropriate monetary policy to deal with them.
- He said the ideas of data dependence and forward guidance widely adopted by Fed officials are not especially useful and might even be counterproductive.
"We should care little about two numbers to the right of the decimal point in the latest government release. Breathlessly awaiting trailing data from stale national accounts -- subject to significant, subsequent revision -- is evidence of false precision and analytic complacency," he said.
"Near-term forecasting is another distracting Fed preoccupation. Economists are not immune to the frailties of human nature. Once policymakers reveal their economic forecast, they can become prisoners of their own words. Fed leaders would be well-served to skip opportunities to share their latest musings."
