Solana Hits ATH; Oil’s Choppy Trading Amid Hurricane Ida: Markets Wrap

Hurricane Ida made landfall this weekend along the Louisiana coast, potentially shaking up the energy markets for the days to follow. 

On the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the category four storm arrived with winds above 150 mph, resulting in over one million people without power as of Monday morning. Ida also struck a key energy hub Port Fourchon, a docking site that helps to support roughly 90% of the gulf’s oil rigs. 

Oil futures in New York fell 1.6% in the morning, reacting to news of the impact of the natural disaster. However, WTI Crude Oil later advanced 0.65% to $69.18 a barrel on Monday. Brent fell to $72.31 then made gains of 0.72% to $73.22. NYMEX Natural Gas was the highest performing financial instrument, up 13.48% last week.

Investors look toward Wednesday’s OPEC+ output meeting for future supply changes.

Elsewhere, aluminum prices are nearing 10-year highs as China clamps down on energy usage. As a part of the country’s carbon emissions goal, smelters cannot keep up with the demand for the element, whose price has shot up 80% since May 2020.

Commodities

• Brent crude jumped to $73.22 per barrel, up 0.72%.
• Gold declined -0.36% to $1,812.9.

Insight

“The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement reported on Sunday that around 1.74 million barrels, or 95.7% of US Gulf of Mexico production is shut in from Hurricane Ida, with 93.8% of natural gas production shut in. The Gulf is home to 16% of US crude oil production and 2% of natural gas output,” said Robert Yawger, director of energy futures at Mizuho Securities. “Around 2.11 million barrels of refining capacity, approximately 12% of the US total, was shut in or operating at reduced rates at plants along the Mississippi River. Around 48% of US refinery capacity is situated along the Gulf Coast from Mississippi to Texas.”  

CFDs on WTI Crude Oil and Brent Oil trading on Monday. Source: TradingView

A Never-Ending Solana Summer

Solana (SOL) hit record highs on Monday, heading into another week of gains for the altcoin. SOL touched an all-time high of $114.19 in the afternoon, according to Messari. The token hiked 18.5%, trading at $111.60, as of press time.

Solana’s recent surge in prices follows increasing demand for non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Solana’s network was used to help create NFTs such as the “Degenerate Ape Academy” in recent weeks. OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace, hit over $3 billion in monthly trading volumes this week, Blockworks reported. The benchmark-high follows the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT drop on Saturday night, which generated over $95 million in sales in a single day. The digital collectible project has made $320 million since being launched back in April.

The apes, which live on Ethereum’s blockchain, may have caused ETH’s Monday uptick. The second-largest crypto by market cap was trading around $3,100 on-day, advancing 3%, according to Messari.

DeFi

• Uniswap (UNI) is trading at $27.88 with a total value locked of $4,861,382,455 advancing 4.3% in 24 hours at 4:00 pm ET. 
• Luna (TERRA) is trading at $35.72, up 5.6% with trading volume at $1,375,224,161 in 24 hours at 4:00 pm ET.
• DeFi:ETH is 32.9% at 4:00 pm ET.

Crypto

• Bitcoin is trading around $48,456.63, down -0.61% in 24 hours at 4:00 pm ET.
• Ether is trading around $3,313.09, advancing 3.05% in 24 hours at 4:00 pm ET.
• ETH:BTC is at 0.068, up 3.86% at 4:00 pm ET.

Equities

• The Dow declined -0.16% to 35,399.
• S&P 500 climbed 0.43% to 4,528.
• Nasdaq increased 0.9% to 15,265.
• VIX fell -2.44% to 15.99 at 4:00 pm ET.

Currencies

• The US dollar fell -0.01%, according to the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index.

Fixed Income

• US 10-year treasury yields 1.278% as of 4:00 pm ET.

In other news…

Billionaire hedge fund manager John Paulson called cryptocurrencies “a bubble” with “a limited supply of nothing” during an interview on Bloomberg Wealth. Paulson, who founded investment management firm Paulson & Co. said he prefers investing in gold when inflation levels are high, Blockworks reported.

We are looking out for

• The US plans to pull out nearly all troops from Afghanistan on Tuesday
• OPEC+ meeting will be on Wednesday

That’s it for today’s markets wrap. I’ll see you back here tomorrow.

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