Here is all you need to know. About 40 minutes ago, the Energy Department reported that oil stocks were up another 900,000 barrels. Inventories currently stand at 4.2% higher than last year, which if I recall were higher than the year before that. Prices are rallying, because the move is “less than expected”. That’s great, but this is just the beginning.

At the same time, gasoline demand has fallen through the floor. Recession is setting in in Europe. China has been disappointing. And US exports are set to get hit in unison.

My expectation is that May – August will be horrible; an exact repeat of the last three years. I’ll revisit these assumptions midway through any selloff, or if one fails to materialize. As for the Fall; I’ve been caught off guard plenty of times over the last few years, thinking “this is the end”. And each time, trillion dollar money balls and hope manage to squeeze me – this year was the exception to the rule.

Well, I’m sick of the rule, and much preferred the exception. So I will likely consider buying into the Fall. But we need to monitor everything and be very careful. This year is exceptional in its uniqueness; a number of very unusual motions will set in starting 2014, including Obamacare and the end of the line for pension gap coverage is looming. Throw in tax hikes and the waves of retiring Baby Boomers leaping every year for the next decade, and I’m not happy.

But I can be crazy if I need to be. Surely, the Fed is aware of all of these problems, and monetary easing is the preferred course of action over letting panic set in. So even though I’m afraid for what’s coming, sometimes you need to let go of reason and embrace the lunatic’s way out.

I’m busy, and have been for a week. So I thought I’d leave you with some light reading:

The rental vacancy rates for the nation declined from 8.4 percent in 2009 to 7.4 percent in 2011, according to one of two American Community Survey briefs covering the housing market released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. Approximately four times as many metro areas experienced declines in rental vacancy rates as those that experienced increases. The share of U.S. households that rent rather than own increased from 34.1 percent in 2009 to 35.4 percent in 2011. Nearly a quarter of the nation’s metro areas saw a rise in renting households, while less than 3.0 percent of the nation’s metro areas saw a decline.

Rental Housing Market Condition Measures: A Comparison of US Metropolitan Areas examines four characteristics of the rental housing stock using American Community Survey data collected in 2009 and 2011. The characteristics are gross rent, gross rent as a percentage of household income, rental vacancy rates, and renter share of total households and describe changes comparing 2009 with 2011.

The brief found that more renters are spending a high percentage of their household income on rent. Policymakers use gross rent as a percentage of income as a measure of housing affordability, and it is often used to determine eligibility for housing programs. In this report, renters spending 35 percent or more of household income on rent and utilities are considered to have high rental costs.

The share of renters with high housing costs in the United States rose from 42.5 percent in 2009 to 44.3 percent in 2011. However, average rental rates in the United States declined from 2009 to 2011.

“While we saw a decrease in rental vacancy rates and pricing in some areas, the burden of rental costs on households increased across many parts of the nation,” said Arthur Cresce, assistant division chief for housing characteristics at the Census Bureau. “Factors such as supply and demand for rental housing and local economic conditions play an important role in helping to explain these relationships.”

Nationwide, only 11 metro areas reduced their shares of renters with high housing costs, while 62 metro areas increased their shares.

Among the 50 most populous metro areas, some of the heaviest rental costs were borne by renters in metro areas in Florida, California and Louisiana in 2011, despite rent declines between 2009 and 2011. These include Miami with 55.7 percent of renters experiencing heavy rental costs. Orlando, Fla. (52.9 percent); Riverside, Calif. (52.2 percent); and New Orleans (51.3 percent), whose shares did not differ significantly from one another, followed closely.

Among the 50 most populous metro areas, only two became affordable for more renters — Richmond, Va., with a decline of 3.2 percentage points in the share of renters with high rental costs from 42.7 percent to 39.5 percent between 2009 and 2011, and Buffalo, N.Y., with a decline of 3.0 percentage points from 45.6 percent to 42.6.

$AEC and $CLP and the renting class are still in effect.

Uranium prices continue to get compressed towards $0, as a few week hiatus of the blood was met this morning with the first real print in weeks – and it was an ugly one.

My impression is that the uranium market has been dead for months now, while the major players of nuclear utilities and uranium cake producers play a game of chicken with one another. And unfortunately, because nuclear reactors can run so long without refueling, this game can go for a long, long time.

I’ll take a moment to remind you of advice I’ve given before; every now and again it needs to be repeated.

Stay out of the small uranium miners.

Just because I like CCJ does NOT mean I like CCJ’s half-starved siblings. CCJ has a war chest and controls 20%+ of the market. CCJ’s competition sometimes isn’t even producing uranium. If you’re not playing the waiting game with a billion dollar budget, at minimum, I hate to tell you this pal…but you’re prey.

I’m in CCJ from the onset because I know how this ends; countries are not going to diversify away from nuclear power. That would be stupid. However, that doesn’t mean Japan wouldn’t like very much to see its public utilities able to load up on fuel contracts at dirt cheap prices. Or that every other reactor globally wouldn’t like to devour Japan’s reactor fuel should they be forced to market.

In the meanwhile, without a price recovery, CCJ’s stock is going to be horrible. $13 is not out of the question. But they’ll survive, and if you think they have pricing leverage at 20% market share, well…it’s only going to get more ridiculous.

I will buy my next batch of $CCJ if it hits $15.

Would someone care to explain how a guy who’s sitting on 35% cash, short oil and the euro, can possibly be getting torched to the tune of 3% in one day?

I’ll tell you how. Silver. That’s how.

“EEEUUUGHGHH-BBBBLEEEEBLLUUUGH”

That’s the sound I just made; I encourage you to tap into its phonetic discourse and let it reverberate throughout your physical space.

How the hell is physical silver off 10%?? Good God, I mean, I understand why gold could bust a move like that, but silver? How many speculators were in the silver market? Clearly more than I thought.

The basic theme here is: own stuff, get beaten.

My salvation is that silver cannot possibly have 10% implosions for months on end (crosses self). It just has to find a bottom – even if that bottom is at $20, the pain will stop.

A very disappointing Spring is upon us folks, just like I warned you all it would be. That being said, I certainly didn’t expect I’d be a casualty.

I cleaned AGQ off my books for a high teens hit. It was a supplemental position to my physical silver – about 5% of the account when I bought it. 1% net loss, roughly, and now my positions should flow much nicer.

SCO is screaming higher as oil implodes. I reduced some of that hedging the other day for profits, but am retaining a position to help give me more neutrality. EUO is also pushing up, but not as fast or hard.

Mixed day so far. I’m expecting a big selloff. Defensive plays are the name of the game.

My favorite position right now: Cash

RGR prices spiked this morning back above $50, and I have to say my buy from $48 is looking good. I have made big money on every single dip, purchase, accumulation, or wild guess I have made so far in this stock, starting in December.

Then just before noon, the Senate announced cloture of the background check deal and around that time RGR began to settle back down again.

Look, I’m going to be very straight with you. This measure means nothing. N-O-T-H-I-N-G.

Look where we’re at; this whole debate began with Dianne Feinstein so coked up on how many different makes and models of weapons she’d have free reign to ban, there was almost too many to decide. There was no limit to the damage to be done to gun manufacturers. Private gun ownership was in check.

Where are we now? Record sales and surging background checks later, and they’re trying to decide if they even have the ability to mandate closing loopholes that largely don’t exist on the State level; it remains to be seen whether that’s on every purchase (a measure as damn near a plurality of this country has ever supported), or just a tiny fraction of all gun sales – you know, weapons you buy between 3-6am while standing on your left foot in a gymnasium…or something

This is over. The likes of Piers Morgan are now scraping the bottom of the barrel, desperate not to look like total fools. Because they’re ultimately advocating authoritarian controls here. And the only thing worse than an authoritarian…is an ineffectual authoritarian.

I told you months ago that B. Obama would hang himself in his own eagerness. The man who began his first term parading historians in front of himself, pridefully seaking to cement his legacy for the ages, has now managed to choke off his second term before accomplishing anything. He made the cardinal error. Democrats have zero leeway to get dragged into the gun debate, because more than half the country doesn’t trust them with it.

Game. Match.