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A roundup of what The Globe and Mail's market strategist Scott Barlow is reading today on the Web

The International Energy Agency is predicting that an upcoming surge in U.S. shale oil production will be the biggest increase in fossil fuel supplies in history,

"By 2025, the growth in American oil production will equal that achieved by Saudi Arabia at the height of its expansion, and increases in natural gas will surpass those of the former Soviet Union, the agency said in its annual World Energy Outlook. The boom will turn the U.S., still among the biggest oil importers, into a net exporter of fossil fuels."

This forecast is at odds with OPEC analysis predicting higher global oil demand and a roughly balanced oil market.

"IEA Sees Shale Surge as Biggest Oil and Gas Boom in History" – Bloomberg

"Global oil demand to withstand rise of electric vehicles: IEA" – BNN

"@JavierBlas2 #Oil Watch: @IEA cuts 2017-18 demand outlook and says crude hasn't found a floor at $60 a barrel " – (research excerpt) Twitter

"@Ole_S_Hansen Diverging 2018 #oil outlooks: IEA less optimistic on demand growth. Opec less optimistic on non-Opec supply growth #oott " – (table) Twitter

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I don't really believe that the rise of ETFs and passive investing will result in a global market blowup. But, history does show that major changes to market structure can cause upheaval – the crash of '87 is most often attributed to the rise of 'portfolio insurance' that became wildly popular at the time.

The Financial Times quotes an investor as calling ETFs "a black hole,"

"Christopher Harvey, a senior analyst at Wells Fargo … argues that the impact of passive equity funds is 'beginning to resemble the footprint left by quantitative easing'... passive equity funds have "morphed into a type of black hole. Money goes in and stocks never come out." In other words, the more money goes into ETFs the fewer natural sellers there are in the market, helping buoy prices."

"Scarcity, not Trump, is fuelling market's thunderous bull run" – Wigglesworth, Financial Times

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A report from Bespoke Investment Group cites an investor survey showing a surprising degree of pessimism,

"Individual investors are now the least bullish they've been on the year ahead for stocks in the history of Yale's survey. Back in March, individuals were the most bullish they've been since January 2004. Institutional investors are more bullish than individual investors, but their reading is now all the way back down to levels seen prior to the post-Election spike at the end of 2016."

"@SBarlow_ROB

Bespoke: Investors might be more skittish than we thought" – (excerpt) Twitter

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Tweet of the day: "@NewtonGroupSM Are Junk Bonds Sending a Signal? buff.ly/2zXGxKU " – (chart) Twitter

Diversion: "An American Tries to Figure Out the Tragically Hip" – A Journal of Musical Things

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