Your Money

Perhaps the craziest headline of the last week, if not the last year, was when the price of oil closed at -$37/barrel (a barrel is 42 gallons.)  Surely oil producers weren't going to pay customers to take their commodity out of the ground, were they?

In a nutshell, novice speculators and retail investors looking for a way to play the sudden drop in oil prices got burned.  When they bought the "front month" futures contract for May 2020 which expired last week, they had to sell it again or receiving physical delivery of the commodity in Cushing, Oklahoma.

That wouldn't have been so bad if there was storage available. But this time:

1. Global oil demand has dropped by 30% this month in the face of the economic shutdown and producers have barely cut production
2. The world is awash in oil that nobody wants – to the tune of about 30 million barrels/day – and storage is filling up
3. Storage is at such a premium now that people who owned contracts were literally paying buyers who did not want any more oil to take theirs

After May's contract settled, prices returned to positive levels with the June WTI (West Texas Intermediate) contract in the teens.

Traders describe oil’s wild week and negative price
by Pippa Stevens

Your Life

This era of quarantine has been referred to as “The Great Pause.”  It is a (hopefully) once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see what life looks like and how it feels to opt out of the rat race.  We finally have society’s permission to say no.

That experience is something wholly unfamiliar to most of us, but there are some that are finding it surprisingly enjoyable. For those people, they are using this Pause as an opportunity to try new things; to spend quality time with family; to really see and hear the world around them; to lower stress and exercise regularly; to catch up on reading and communicating with friends & family; and even to reassess life's direction and make plans to go a different way.

Whatever you do, try to own your Great Pause.  Don’t let it own you. 
 
Quarantine doesn't suck for everyone, apparently
by Tracey Anne Duncan

Complexity Simplified

Last week, I mentioned FREE shows on YouTube by big entertainers.  There’s one more I failed to mention (because I just discovered it).  Check out John Krasinksi’s Some Good News (SGN) Network on YouTube.  Each episode is about 20 minutes or so and guaranteed to put a smile on your face…and maybe even a heartwarming tear or two.  If you’re a big fan of the Broadway show, Hamilton, you’ll be particularly happy for Episode 2.  Enjoy!
 

Trivia