Monday, August 28, 2017

The Market And Energy Page, T+220 -- August 28, 2017

Not surprising: FERC approves "controversial" pipeline.  Data points:
  • NEXUS Gas Transmission pipeline; held up by activists across Ohio
  • $2 billion
  • capacity: 1.5 billion cf/d from the Utica/Marcellsu
  • will carry natural gas into Michigan and Ontario, Canada
  • joint venture between Detroit-based DTE Energy and Spectra Energy
  • Spectra Energy: merged with Enbridge earlier this year
  • lead lawyer of the CAVE dwellers said "it is bad news. It is utterly expected. But the fight is not over." Of course not, for CAVE dwellers, it never is. 
  • previous posts on the Nexus pipeline
Surprising: coal! From The Wall Street Journal -- the big name in coal’s resurgence: China. American coal producers filling voids created by overseas producers shifting exports to China. China is going to need a lot of coal to power all those coal-powered cars, pretty much being mandated by China. 

Surprising: despite huge economic disaster in Houston --
  • WTI: flat to negative
  • gasoline: up a percent? depends on whom you believe; where you live
  • Dow futures: up nicely 
Surprising: how fast the Amazon-Whole Foods merger was completed. Even my wife who does not follow "this stuff" was surprised to see how fast this happened. It's her experience that such a merger would take months if not a year to be completed; this time, in three months. Reminder: FTC has five seats; only two are occupied right now. I seem to remember reading that somewhere.

Fastest merger ever? What now?

Credit cards: speaking of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, who plans on booking trips to Mars, did not buy Whole Foods to get into the grocery business. It's all about credit cards. Grocery chains are generally not "national." Credit cards are. Quick, name the top publicly traded US grocery chains. Now, name the credit cards: Discover, M/C, Visa, Chase. That's the top tier. Amazon Prime (Chase) is the one to watch. It's all about credit cards. And yes, to some extent, mini-distribution centers and logistics. 

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Yada, yada, yada.

Share price: on Friday, Amazon closed down less than 1% (about 0.75%); today, in pre-market trading, Amazon is flat to up slightly, trading at $946.50. Mid-morning, up about one-half percent, to $949.73.

BRK: according to Jim Cramer, insureres and re-insurers are the biggest beneficiaries of Hurricane Harvey (excepting perhaps refiners, home building suppliers, etc). Berkshire is the nation's biggest re-insurer. Pre-market; up slightly, but at the opening, absolutely flat. Down one cent at $179.59.
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