Monday 29 June 2009

Short the Bear

Whilst (Prime Minister) Putin has been making great hay on the world stage about resilient Russia and the need for a new currency to replace the Dollar, the truth is also out there.

Russia's economy is collapsing at 7.6% a year; it is a performance worthy of Newcastle United.

Now, only two years after trying on the game of resource nationalisation, it seems Russia is retreating by inviting Shell back in.

Desperate Shell will take the bait; but the bear is very wounded right now. Any further collapse in commodity prices will utterly wreck the economy. I fully expect commods to re-trench later this year after their current spike. Industrial demand is just no there right now.

Russia is in for a tough time. Sadly this means more diversionary foreign wars and intervention to distract Mother Russia's masses.

6 comments:

wonderfulforhisage said...

One wonders on what terms Shell could be tempted back. The phrase 'good money after bad' comes to mind.

Nick Drew said...

Shell and all the rest are eternally suckers for this game, they never, ever learn (E.on is the worst, Shell, Statoil, ENI, BP et al close behind, even the mighty Exxon has had its arrogant nose tweaked painfully)

CU is absolutely right, times are hard for the Bear who is running his usual low-cost tactical ploys to keep spirits up - more on this later in the week

Old BE said...

As someone who no doubt has money invested in Shell through my pension I object to their corporate stupidity!

James Higham said...

Yes, I don't think I'll be going back there in the near future.

Letters From A Tory said...

Strange that some of Russia's political opponents are not shouting from the rooftops about this - or are they still afraid of Russia turning off the EU gas taps?

Anonymous said...

A 7.6% decline in GDP is currently an excellent performance compared to say, Germany, or even the UK.