1) The Exxon Mobil oil giant agreed to sell its Norwegian oil and gas assets for as much as $4 billion dollars. The U.S. firm is exiting from production in the country after more than a century doing business there. In 2017, Exxon produced 170,000 barrels of oil per day from its Norwegian operations. The shares in Exxon, the world’s biggest publicly traded oil company, rose 1.7% on the news.
2) The announcement that China and America would resume trade talks pushed the price of oil up from optimism of an improving world economy. Chinese trade negotiators will come to Washington in early October for talks. Gasoline and distillate supplies fell, as well as stockpiles in storage.
3) Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve Chairman, forecast that negative rates will soon spread to the U.S. Negative rates are now in Belgium, Germany, France and Japan with $16 trillion dollars in negative yielding debt instruments around the world. Ten year sovereign bonds are trading with a negative rate. The thirty year U.S. rate is trading at 1.95% reaching an all time low.
4) Stock market closings for – 5 SEP 19:
Dow 26,728.15 up 372.68
Nasdaq 8,116.83 up 139.95
S&P 500 2,976.00 up 38.22
10 Year Yield: up at 1.56%
Oil: down at $56.17