Hi Reader, here's what you need to know for July 7th in 3:10 minutes.

🌎 We’re six months into the year, so now seems as good a time as any to look ahead to the next six. Join BlackRock’s Karim Chedid for The Mid-Year Outlook 2021 on Thursday, and get the skinny on the major investment trends to keep on top of. Get your free ticket here

Today's big stories

Oil's price hit a six-year high on the back of disagreements between the world’s biggest oil-producing nations
One overlooked market has already doubled over the last year, and hedge funds think it could do again by January – Read Now
The global chip shortage claimed a couple more carmaking victims

Fighting Talk

What’s Going On Here?

The oil price hit a six-year high on Tuesday, after discussions between the world’s biggest oil-producing nations and their allies – known as OPEC+ – heated up and broke down.

What Does This Mean?

OPEC+ first rolled out a host of production cuts during the pandemic in an effort to boost the oil price, and it met again last week to discuss finally dialing them back. But the talks were scuppered by a disagreement between Saudi Arabia – the group’s de facto leader – and the United Arab Emirates.

Short of a change of heart, that means current production limits will stay in place for at least another month. That’s not ideal: this tiff is depriving pandemic-battered economies of the oil they need to get back on their feet. The prospect of a major imbalance of supply and demand, then, sent oil’s price to almost $80 a barrel – its highest since 2014 (tweet this).

Why Should I Care?

For markets: A man’s word is his – never mind.
Production limits are more of a gentleman’s agreement than anything: OPEC+ members don’t have to stick to them. And with prices soaring and profits up for grabs, they might be tempted to get back to pumping. That’s raising the specter of last year’s price war, when they went flat out and sent prices crashing. Investors, for their part, seem wary of exactly that: the prices of oil futures contracts are lower than the current price of oil, suggesting they think the dusky nectar will be worth less down the line.

The bigger picture: The ECB shakes things up.
Higher oil prices – which increase the costs of energy and gas – tend to lead to higher inflation, so the world’s central banks will be keeping a close eye on how the situation gets resolved. None more so than the European Central Bank, which is meeting this week to discuss tweaking its inflation target – a shift in strategy that’d be one of its most significant in two decades.

You might also like: How to profit from rising oil prices.

Copy to share story: https://www.finimize.com/wp/news/fighting-talk-2/

🙋 Ask a question

2. Analyst Take

Is This The Most Resilient Trade Of 2021?

What’s Going On Here?

Stocks, bonds, and commodities: all these investor favorites are at risk if the economic recovery doesn’t pan out as expected.

Traditional investments, after all, are vulnerable to the whims of central banks, governments, and faltering economic growth.

But there’s one market whose investment rationale doesn’t have anything to do with any of those factors.

Its price has already doubled in the last year, and some hedge funds think it could do the same again before this year’s up – no matter what central banks do.

So that’s today’s Insight: what the market is, and how you can benefit from its potential year-end surge.

Read or listen to the Insight here

Know your options

We’ll say it if no one else will: options can be baffling.

But there’s no doubt they can be a seriously effective tool in any investor’s arsenal, and a great way to hedge your positions.

Thing is, there aren’t many smart, easy-to-understand resources to learn more about them. Cue Simpler Trading, whose team is made up of 18 of the brightest and boldest traders out there.

In Simpler’s eBook, you’ll learn the fundamentals of options, managing your position at expiration, the different types of settlement, all the key terms you need to know, and on, and on.

Oh, and Simpler will share the most important factor to your options trading success too. That’s pretty neat.

Get your free eBook today, and know your options.

Get Your Free eBook