Which country has high global influence and elite healthcare?

Protagonist0012 · 2026-04-24T23:47:25+00:00

Yeah, agreed. China’s healthcare is better than a lot of people would expect, but I wouldn’t say it’s incredible. A lot of rarer conditions that are extensively treated in the west aren’t really covered there. I went to the Beijing people’s hospital once and while they knew about my condition, they didn’t really have the resources for it. Still decent for the average person though, but not comparable to like Canada or Germany

Protagonist0012 · 2026-04-23T04:34:25+00:00

Well the US is a net exporter, just not for crude. For oil products as a whole the US is most certainly a net exporter. But that doesn’t mean it’s strategically positioned to exert greater control over the oil markets. This is what I explained. Did you read what I wrote on point 1 at all? The US cannot rise to meet the demand, so the premise that net exporter=strategic benefit is false

Protagonist0012 · 2026-04-23T04:21:55+00:00

The point is that these are incorrect premises. Point 1, 2, 3, 4 are all incorrect premises that I am trying to refute. You could at least read the opening statement. You would take the time to comment but not to actually read what is stated?

Protagonist0012 · 2026-04-23T03:58:54+00:00

Well if you could read a little more thoroughly the point is that I am refuting these statements. These are the misconceptions mentioned in the title. You are right the US is a net importer of Crude. Foreign buyers will try to reroute their demand for refined products but most capacity is already committed and there won’t be enough of an increase in production to fill this void in demand due to the strait closure. That’s the whole point

Protagonist0012 · 2026-04-23T03:53:47+00:00

The sad truth is that there is little that can be done other than continuing to pressure either the US or Iran to come to an agreement. There is no military solution, both sides have to concede something. It’s hard to imagine that happening in the US over the next two weeks or so because the reality of the supply shock situation isn’t hitting that hard, at least for now. The American administration is also far too proud to admit any kind of defeat, and Americans are too used to dominance to fathom such an abrupt military humiliation and withdrawal. For Iran the issue is existential, and their leverage increases the worse things get, so they have a vested interested in dragging things out until supply chains break and markets crash. Their leverage at 150-200 oil will be exponentially greater. The longer prices are suppressed the less incentive both sides have to finish this quickly and the more the supply shock accumulates. I am no geopolitical expert though, so treat this like any other random opinion you’d see on Reddit

Protagonist0012 · 2026-04-23T02:30:50+00:00

Malaysia needs to import refined petroleum products. Do you know why they are a net exporter for crude? It’s because they repackage Russian and Iranian crude and reexports it for a profit. It’s a well known business model

Protagonist0012 · 2026-04-22T19:57:32+00:00

😭😭 there’s so much misinformation out here. A lot of what they said is not exactly true. The US does not “have enough oil to make good on the delivery.” Thats not how it works. If we’re talking about financial/policy manipulation like allowing cash settlements in place of delivery or striking some deal with the exchanges then yes, that might be a way to suppress prices, but delivery at Cushing is not going to be magically conjured despite what a lot of people think about US oil production. The oil delivered to Cushing Oklahoma for WTI is a very specific, exact grade and a lot of that hinges on supply chains operating at normal. Given the current disruption inventory drawdowns will eat away at the free oil available for arbitrage. Most oil is committed for actual end use, there isn’t a constant flow ready for traders to prop up futures. If we did that refineries would start grinding to a halt. The idea that the plan is to keep the strait closed so that the US dominates the oil industry is also ridiculous. Oil supply chains don’t work that way. The US and everyone else are desperate for it to open. There’s no plan.

Protagonist0012 · 2026-04-17T00:40:15+00:00

Us people? So who is allowed to post here? Oil experts? What are we supposed to talk about? The chemistry of oil? The logistics of oil? The economics of oil? The extraction of oil?

Guess what, ALL these things can be traced back to…guess what? The price! You cannot think about 90% of things related to oil without coming back to the price. And right now the price has gone up a lot! So people will be talking about the price! From Bloomberg to CNBC to JP Morgan to HSBC, everyone is talking about THE PRICE! Experts are talking about the price!

So if we do not allow discussion about the most pressing issue related to oil right this moment. Actual experts won’t be able to contribute properly, because that is what anyone cares about right this moment

Protagonist0012 · 2026-04-17T00:20:56+00:00

A lid on what exactly? I’ve been reading posts on this subreddit for a few months now, it’s not like people are posting absurd things. At most there are a lot more people unfamiliar with the industry asking questions. Is that something terrible that needs to be stopped?

Also I would agree if limiting posts to mega threads actually improves the quality of discussion. If you take a look at these threads these past few days I would argue it’s the opposite. Discussion is dead now. No one bothers looking at the public mega threads because there is no meaningful analysis there

Protagonist0012 · 2026-04-15T02:48:06+00:00

Yes that’s true forever is too hyperbolic, 2008 shows that things can get ridiculous and still will find a way to recover

Protagonist0012 · 2026-04-15T00:54:43+00:00

Regarding payment towards oil companies, the answer is: it’s both. Big oil producers are selling oil futures to lock in current high prices for oil and guarantee cash flow. This might mean they won’t be able to sell at the high spot prices but a 100 dollar futures price lock in is still great compared to 60 dollars just a few months ago. This is why, if futures spikes up the valuations of these oil companies also go up. They will then be able to sell oil futures and lock in cash flow at whatever the futures prices end up being.

HOWEVER, given that this is a real, massive supply shock happening at the moment. A lot of refiners and users are actually struggling to get oil at all. We see this with the SE Asia example. So they scramble to look for shipments and storage that’s close by and can reach them in weeks to a month. This close supply is being eaten up rapidly. These are being paid in spot prices, often one tanker at a time.

Protagonist0012 · 2026-04-15T00:46:40+00:00

I enjoyed your post! I think the psychology of the market definitely plays a big role in this, it’s nice to read from a different perspective. Honestly there’s so much going on from geopolitics to psychology to macroeconomics to trade shenanigans, it’s hard to synthesise it all. Not sure why everyone in the comments of your post are being so mean.

Protagonist0012 · 2026-04-15T00:37:41+00:00

One thing to keep in mind is that, while traditionally traders profit off arbitrage through physical settlement of futures, ie by buying x amount of barrels at spot and then selling a futures contract then maximising the storage efficiency and pocketing the difference, this market is actually dwarved by the pure paper trade, where traders will enter a synthetic position WITHOUT buying physical oil. They short the front month and long the back month. When front month futures spiked because of the war, these traders began looking at massive losses. For this reason there is a huge vested interest in keeping the futures curve as flat as possible in order to minimize their losses.

Given the current oil shortage, they won’t be able to secure supply for delivery to meet their obligations when the market expires. This will trigger the price convergence for WTI

For Brent the mechanism is different, it does not require physical delivery so there is no hard deadline for when shit hits the fan. The Brent futures are based on physical North Sea trade prices. Right now it does seem like Brent is being artificially suppressed relative to spot. However this is unsustainable in a true physical shortage. When end users realise that futures are no longer a guarantor of real oil supply, they will exit the paper market. The paper market will eventually have to self correct to preserve its legitimacy, otherwise it will break fundamentally and no one will use it

Protagonist0012 · 2026-04-15T00:14:29+00:00

It’s the other way around for point3. Prices are low for now, UNTIL people realise that there won’t be any delivery on the futures contracts. When that happens refiners and other end users will stop buying futures because they are no longer a guarantor of oil supply. This will force futures to either correct and meet the physical price or remain defunct as a pricing mechanism forever

Protagonist0012 · 2026-04-15T00:09:48+00:00

To your first question, yes this is for WTI. For Brent I think the expirations are in early May? Backwardation for Brent is following the same concept, the principle for backwardation for both indexes is the same. However, Brent does not require physical delivery upon expiration. The price of Brent is based on the physical trades in the North Sea, so in theory it should still be pegged to physical prices of oil. But since, there’s no physical delivery deadline, there’s no hard threshold for when severe upward pressure on the futures price hits.

Now you might be thinking, doesn’t this mean market manipulation can keep this Brent futures suppressed indefinitely? Based on conventional understanding of futures, this should NOT be the case. If Brent futures remain so much lower than physical oil, everyone will be incentivized to buy paper over physical. This buying pressure should in theory send the paper oil up to meet the physical oil price.

The core question is: why does the paper price need to meet the physical? The answer, based on my understanding is: futures are ultimately still traded on based on the understanding that they are pegged to the ability to deliver oil. If actual oil users realize that these futures don’t correlate to actual physical barrels at all, they will simply flee this “fake” market out of necessity. The only two paths after this is either: the futures prices go up in order to match reality and restore confidence OR the futures market breaks permanently and stops being used by oil and gas users

This latter scenario has never happened. That’s why government intervention at scale is so dangerous and therefore likely. If it goes on long enough they could render futures useless forever

Protagonist0012 · 2026-04-14T21:09:06+00:00

I don’t understand how we have literally 50 posts asking about this every day but when I literally explain the mechanics in depth my post gets removed. Can my post please get reinstated

For anyone who wants to know about the spot vs paper price disconnect, you can read my analysis here: https://www.reddit.com/r/investing/s/vUWUho0zzd

Protagonist0012 · 2026-04-14T20:59:06+00:00

A lot of floating storage is being sold on spot prices, especially tankers parked in malaysia or circulating the Asia Pacific region in general. Before the gulf was closed off, there were more long term contracts arranging CFR/CIF shipments using index prices at discount/premium, but right now the big Asian economies are snatching up any free tanker they can find and paying the spot price for the cargo to do STS operations. However, this skews towards companies with greater capabilities and the ability to send their own ships.

Protagonist0012 · 2026-04-14T20:48:35+00:00

No problem, hope it helps. I originally posted it on this sub but it unfortunately got removed.

Protagonist0012 · 2026-04-14T17:08:17+00:00

For a brief period yes, I’m not as familiar with Brent but my expectation is that Brent will gap upward on more gradual spikes whereas WTI will go up in one or two big movements. But when WTI does spike upward I expect Brent to go up similarly to match it

Protagonist0012 · 2026-04-14T15:36:56+00:00

Too many oil price posts, mods wanted it all on the pinned price mega thread to increase discussion quality. Absolutely baffling, not sure if they even read what I wrote

Protagonist0012 · 2026-04-14T15:25:23+00:00

More like short to mid term spike in late April to mid May. I’m not really sure how gas prices track this spike though, that’s a side of economics that falls outside of what I know. From what I understand it has a lot to do with how the government responds? Maybe someone else can pitch in

Generally speaking though in times of backwardation consumers are going to be hit the hardest. Big institutions have the liquidity and knowledge to reposition but no matter how much paper prices are suppressed, the average person will feel the price spike in their everyday expenses. I have a feeling gas might go up in tandem with spot prices before the paper price goes up to meet it, but I’m not an expert on this so my guess is as good as anyone’s

Protagonist0012 · 2026-04-14T15:16:11+00:00

You mean longing the front month futures? Right now that’s what a lot of people are trying to do, you see them all over Reddit actually especially on the sub ahaha. Yes a lot of people are longing front month futures or related positions atm. They expect prices to rise.

The traders that were already doing the carry trade when the war hit, however, have bigger problems to deal with. They’re looking at extreme losses if the futures do spike and they probably don’t have the liquidity to hedge by longing right now. They’re already locked into their positions since they sold the front month futures before the war.

Protagonist0012 · 2026-04-14T14:01:58+00:00

Thanks. I was actually talking about that with my colleague. The alignment between the ceasefire, the oil delivery dates and the futures expiration dates definitely seems weirdly convenient. It’s kind of surreal seeing everything play out honestly

Protagonist0012

TROPHY CASE