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The clash between Russia and Saudi Arabia over an oil price strategy appears to pit the two nations against each other in a vicious battle for market share, but analysts say they are really at war with the U.S. oil industry. Intentional or not, the open price war has sucker punched the U.S. oil industry with a  massive decline in oil prices since Friday.  The downturn could damage the U.S. economy, result in a smaller American energy industry, and knock the U.S. from its position as the world’s largest oil producer, analysts say. Tensions between Saudi Arabia and Russia have been rising since Russia failed to agree to deepen an existing  production cut of 1.8 million barrels a day in response to a sharp decline in demand. The drop in demand was caused by the fall-off in travel worldwide, and the quarantine of millions of people due to the coronavirus. The rift between Saudi Arabia and Russia appeared to have widened more Friday after OPEC and Russi...

Nobel-prize winning economist Robert Shiller warns the market meltdown is far from over. According to Shiller, stocks and the economy are extremely vulnerable right now because coronavirus panic has not peaked yet. “This disease is contagious even before it shows obvious symptoms. So, it’s going to be harder to quarantine people in this epidemic. That’s the narrative, and we haven’t gotten very far into it yet,” the Yale University professor told CNBC’s “ Trading Nation ” on Monday. “So, the potential for market disruption because of a scary narrative is quite high.” Shiller is an authority on behavioral economics — which studies how our emotions drive financial decisions. His latest book “ Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events ” is timely as the coronavirus outbreak rattles everyone from Wall Street to Main Street. ‘It’s a dangerous time’ “What we have now is really two epidemics. We have an epidemic of the coronavirus, but...

Monday blues: The stock market marked its worst day since the 2008 financial crisis. Can it bounce back? It was a brutal Monday for stocks, prompted by growing fears of coronavirus and an unexpected price cut by major oil producer Saudi Arabia over the weekend. It resulted in a so-called  Black Monday , associated with historically bad performance on that day. But according to data by one analytic firm, this may be the storm before the calm, if history is any guide. Data compiled by Bespoke Investment Group strategists show that the S&P 500 has put in brutal declines of 5% or worse on 10 other Mondays backdated to 1952 for the index that came to be the S&P 500, with today’s drop representing the 11th time. The good news, however, is that on average, the S&P 500 index  SPX,  -7.59%  has returned 12.75% in the six months after the daily 5%+ drop, and gains are also higher in the following day, up 4.2% on average, as well the next week and month, ...

Expect bankruptcies among highly leveraged U.S. shale-oil producers Investors shocked at Saudi Arabia’s decision to lower oil prices and increase production sent financial markets reeling. A concern now for the oil and gas industry is which players can survive a prolonged market imbalance. West Texas crude oil for April delivery  CLJ20,  7.453%  fell as much as 34% to $27.34 a barrel Monday. That action followed Saudi Arabia’s announcement Saturday that after failed negotiations between OPEC and Russia to cut production in an attempt balance supply with reduced demand as the coronavirus spread,  it would actually lower its own prices while increasing production . “Now the question is, what is the Russian response?” said Philip Orlando, chief equity market strategist for Federated Hermes, in an interview. “Do they hold their breath until they turn blue? Or do they say, ‘You have the market weight here, why don’t we sit down to cut and stabilize the market?...