First Time Unemployment Claims Drop 10,000 -- December 29, 2016

Updates

Later, 2:42 p.m. Central Time: how lame is this lame duck? The president closes two "Russian compounds" (euphemism for spy operations) and expels 35 Russian "diplomats" (euphemism for spies), and the market's reaction: meh. Russia's reaction: psssh. And the media's reaction? They're all waiting for a PEOTUS tweet. It should be noted that the current administration noted that these two "compounds" and these 35 diplomats were "doing this" for ten years. So, I guess it took President Obama a lost election to finally make a decision.

Later, 12:08 p.m. Central Time: in the original post, I noted that first time unemployment claims dropped significantly. All things being equal, one would assume that if unemployment claims drop, the demand for gasoline should increase. So, let's look. Gasoline demand for the same period:

Original Post

Natural gas: huge draw in natural gas; 5x the normal. At 237 billion cubic feet did not quite break the record of 240 bcf (dynamic link here).

Active rigs:

	12/29/2016	12/29/2015	12/29/2014	12/29/2013	12/29/2012
Active Rigs	38	60	172	187	187

RBN Energy: Production headed higher in the latest EIA drilling productivity report.

Crude oil and natural gas production growth stalled in 2015 and has declined this year in some of the big shale basins.   But we may be seeing a turnaround.  The latest EIA Drilling Productivity Report, released on December 12, 2016, included upward revisions to its recent shale production estimates and also projects an increase in its one-month outlook for the first time in 21 months (since its March 2015 report).

DUCs by region. Slightly more than 800.

Jobs: First time unemployment claims -- down 10,000 to 265,000. At The WSJ: partly reversed the jump in the previous week. So, we should see gasoline demand up later today when the numbers are posted.

GDP now, 4Q16: latest forecast, December 22, 2016 -- 2.5%.

The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the fourth quarter of 2016 is 2.5 percent on December 22, down from 2.6 percent on December 16.

The forecasts of fourth-quarter real personal consumption expenditures and real intellectual property products investment growth increased modestly after this morning's GDP and personal income outlays reports from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).

These were offset by modest declines in the forecasted contributions to growth from residential, nonresidential equipment and inventory investment after the aforementioned BEA releases, this morning's advance manufacturing report from the U.S. Census Bureau, and yesterday's existing-home sales release from the National Association of Realtors.

The next GDP Now forecast is scheduled for January 3, 2017. See you next year.

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Salt, A World History

Mark Kurlansky

c. 2002

The Welsh Jungian psychologist Ernest Jones, friend of Sigmund Freud and a leading force in bringing psychoanalysis to Britain and the United States, argues that the human obsession with salt was a fixation he found irrational and subconsciously sexual, and from there had many, many examples to support his case. One example:

The Romans, Jones pointed out, called a man in love salax, in a salted state, which is the origin of the word salacious.

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Taurus, the Bull

The first time I ever came across the word "aurochs" was in Kurlansky's book on the history of salt. 

From wiki:

Taurine cattle (Bos taurus taurus), also called European cattle, are a subspecies of domesticated cattle originating in the Near East.

Both taurine cattle and indicine cattle (zebus) are descended from the aurochs.

Taurine cattle were originally considered a distinct species, but are now typically grouped with zebus and aurochs into one species, Bos taurus.

Most modern breeds of cattle are taurine cattle. Genetic research suggests the entire modern stock of taurine cattle may have arisen from as few as 80 aurochs tamed in the upper reaches of Mesopotamia about 10,500 years ago near the villages of Çayönü in southeastern Turkey and Dja'de el Mughara in northern Iraq.

The genome sequence of the Hereford breed of taurine cattle was published by the Bovine Genome Sequencing and Analysis Consortium in 2009.

Update, 7:14 p.m. Central Time: I posted the note about aurochs about 1:00 p.m. earlier today. I had never heard of aurochs. Now, I see Drudge links a story on aurochs.