Oil

Something happened today that I think is quite significant, but not for the reasons you may think.

OPEC met and decided not to boost oil production. Their stated position is that there is plenty of oil and the elevated price is due to speculation. And there may be some truth in that. Within OPEC, the battle over production quotas was between the likes of Venezula who wanted to maintain production levels to keep prices high, and Saudi Arabia who "wanted" to increase production to ease prices (the don't kill the golden goose approach).

Ok, so why is this a story? Because it's hard for me to believe that Saudi Arabia would give-in to Venezula if they really wanted to increase production. After all, the Arabs are the 300 ton elephant in OPEC. So why would the Arabs fold like a cheap tent in the face of minor OPEC players?

Because they don't have the extra production.

There's been a debate raging about whether Saudi Arabia has peaked out or not. Since other OPEC producers are already at max production, any increase would have to come from the Saudi's. I see this as evidence that Saudi's, despite their public comments, simply don't have more to produce. And that my friends is a very significant bit of news.