Jeff Currie thinks we are sleepwalking into one of the biggest commodity shocks since Covid and the market is still pricing it like a headline risk instead of a physical crisis (Save this).
He calls it molecular contagion and last week, jet fuel shortages were concentrated in Singapore, where prices spiked to roughly 230 dollars a barrel.
This week the same pattern has shown up in Rotterdam at around 220 dollars and in Thailand, the Philippines, New Zealand, and Australia which means the dislocation has gone intercontinental.
In his words, there is no longer any meaningful spread between Singapore and Rotterdam, no spare barrels to re route, and no policy lever that can solve the problem in the short term.
Currie’s core point is brutally simple, you can print money, but you cannot print molecules.
The futures curve, the paper market is still trading around 100 dollars a barrel.
The physical market on the other side of the Strait of Hormuz is telling a completely different story, with Oman crude spiking to 173 dollars and Asia bound blends effectively clearing around 130 dollars a barrel.
Refined products like jet fuel and diesel are already spiraling north of 200 dollars a barrel in multiple hubs.
That is the tale of two markets he is talking about.
On one side you have screen prices that look volatile but manageable, helped by algorithmic trading, cross commodity hedging and the lingering belief that high prices fix high prices before anything breaks.
On the other side you have physical supply chains that are already breaking, tankers being diverted, refineries bidding against each other for the last uncommitted barrels, and regional shortages that cannot be solved with central bank liquidity.
Jeff Currie thinks we are sleepwalking into one of the biggest commodity shocks since Covid and the market is still pricing it like a headline risk instead of a physical crisis (Save this).
He calls it molecular contagion and last week, jet fuel shortages were concentrated in… pic.twitter.com/fJ9rFuMk9u
— StockMarket.News (@_Investinq) June 6, 2026
Currie is a voice of broad knowledge and common sense, and helps non economist types understand the situation. Russ paraphrases:
“Currie’s core point is brutally simple, you can print money, but you cannot print molecules.”
On a related note, assuming the whole global economy does not completely crash into smithereens, Eric Striker points out in a peice warning of huge clashes of ideological kinetics between the West vs Russia & China et. al. :
“Japan and South Korea…are remilitarizing at a breakneck speed in preparation for a potential war with China.”
https://www.unz.com/estriker/the-end-of-pax-judaica-or-the-beginning-of-world-war-iii/
I wondered lately when I brought up the issue of China to Japanese of all ages (I am very chatty with strangers) the males always say China is “bad”. They are not sure why other than Chinese tourists can behave pushy and rudely (fair enough) but regarding geopolitics I think it is just anti-China media political brainwashing. Tis’ a shame they don’t have better relations as a meaningful co-economic sphere could take form but the human nature of bickering and rivalries has always existed.
As Roseanna Roseannadanna used to say, Never Mind.