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Perspective: Morning Commentary for March 20
By: Arlan Suderman, Chief Commodities Economist
Guest Commentary by Mike Castle
Lead Market Intelligence Project Manager
March 20 – Stock futures are again pointing to a lower open this morning as they continue to flirt with their November lows. It will be very interesting to watch trade today to see if stocks find support at these November lows, or if they slip below them. The VIX is slightly in the green this morning, hovering around 24.7 after touching a fresh one-week high above 27.5 yesterday. The dollar is attempting a rebound to end the week after a sharp drop yesterday, up 0.35% at the time of writing to sit right around the 99.5 mark. Treasuries are adding to yesterday’s strength and posting fresh highs, with 10-year yields hovering near their high since August at 4.32% this morning and 2-year yields near their high since late July at 3.885%. Crude oil futures have traded both sides of unchanged overnight in expectedly volatile trade, but nearby WTI is slightly in the green (near $95.40/barrel) and Brent slightly in the red (near $108.10/barrel) at the time of writing. The ags are widely lower to start the session, with the wheat complex leading the way down.
President Trump said yesterday he had told Israel not to repeat its attacks on Iranian gas infrastructure after their strike on a range of sites in the South Pars field, the world’s largest, that prompted Iran to retaliate against major facilities in neighboring countries, with the most notable being Qatar’s Ras Laffan complex, which processes nearly 20% of the world’s LNG. In a press conference yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that Israel acted alone in this attack and that Trump had indeed asked them to hold off on additional targeting of energy infrastructure in the future. These statements appear to have appeased traders to some extent for now, as energy prices cooled a bit from yesterday’s spike, but the sector remains on edge. Unfortunately, not just the natural gas sector, but all its downstream dependents, however, the damage at Ras Laffan is done potentially taking as long as three to five years to fully repair. As for the damage in Iran, initial reports suggest two refineries with a combined capacity of 100 million cubic meters per day have been taken offline, but we’re unlikely to know the full extent for some time amid the ongoing fog of war. The country already faced significant infrastructure problems prior to this war, and that’s only likely to get worse. This week’s escalation serves as a reminder of just how high the stakes are in this region and why markets have priced in such risk premium in response.
Iran doesn’t appear to have gotten the memo, however, carrying out a fresh attack on a neighbor’s energy infrastructure today, this time the Mina al-Ahmadi oil refinery in Kuwait. State-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) said the attack caused a fire at several units of the refinery and that a number were shut down as a precaution, but no injuries were reported. While Iran has said publicly that their attacks on regional energy infrastructure were only in response to the attack on their own, the reality is that this has been their strategy since day one. Traders know that, and that’s likely to keep markets on edge for as long as this conflict drags on.
Japan and a handful of European nations (France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, United Kingdom) issued a joint statement yesterday condemning Iranian attacks on unarmed commercial vessels, regional energy infrastructure, and the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz while also expressing their “readiness to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait.” All of these nations, and Europe/east Asia more broadly, are among the most highly exposed economically to this conflict given their reliance on energy imports, much of which comes from behind the Strait. It was clear this language was deliberately focused on freedom of navigation and broader global economic impacts rather than suggesting any willingness for direct military intervention.
The U.S. further eased sanctions on Russian ally Belarus yesterday in exchange for the release of an additional 250 political prisoners. Specifically, yesterday’s measures eased sanctions on two of the country’s major banks, their Finance Ministry, and their potash producers. If you’ve seen anyone stating this move will help “ease fertilizer prices,” don’t listen to them. This sanctions relief is specifically for the country’s potash sector—that is by far the world’s best supplied nutrient, with very little exposure to the Middle East conflict and prices already rather cheap, as shown below. The problem, and potentially now a longer-term one following this week’s damage to gas infrastructure, is in the nitrogen and phosphate markets. The dropping of U.S. sanctions won’t materially change anything about potash flows from landlocked Belarus either, as existing E.U. sanctions keep them cut off from their traditional top export route through Lithuania and Ukraine will obviously have no interest in reopening access to their ports given Belarus helping Russia invade them. Potash from Belarus will still flow primarily through Russia, whether via Russian ports or via rail connections to their main buyer, China. All this does is help them get paid more legitimately. As with its windfall in the energy sector, Russia has also been one of the main economic beneficiaries of the Middle East conflict in the fertilizer sector so far.
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