The Dow Hits An All-Time High?

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on what you read here or what you think you may have read here. 

30-second sound bite: the Dow closes at 15,680.35; apparently this is a new all-time high, or during the day the Dow traded at a new all-time high. Something like that. Whatever. The new Fed nominee will print more money; said to be more dovish than Mr Bernanke. Oil was down about 75 cents today, but here was an earlier RBN Energy analysis posted today talking about WTI and Bakken rail netbacks.
 

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Disclaimer: the numbers are from Yahoo!Finance. I notice that occasionally Yahoo!Finance seems to have errors reporting 52-week highs.

KOG  is at a new high, $13.41.

HK is in a trading range, up half a percent, to $5.44.

Oasis is below its all-time high of $57, but was up a bit today, to $54.47.

WLL traded at a new high today, just slightly above $70.

CLR is in a trading range; up about half a percent today, but off its high.

CVX, COP, XOM: COP hits a new high. The other two in a trading range. All three up today.

EOG: off its 52-week high, but up 1.5% today.

Except for SRE, none of the following were updated due to time constraints.

CHK 

SD 

AMZG 

TPLM

UNP

I don't follow BNSF (BRK) much any more; BRK follows the market in general.

ENB, EEP

SRE: at a new high, $92.19.

TransCanada

SLB

Hess, Natural Gas Pipeline, Processing Plant

The Dickinson Press is reporting that the Alliance pipeline is completed.

The 80-mile-long Tioga Lateral Pipeline will move natural gas from Hess Corp.’s gas processing plant near Tioga and tie in to the existing Alliance mainline near Sherwood, just south of the Canadian border in Renville County. From there, the gas will make its way to processing facilities and other market connections in the Chicago area.

However, while the pipeline was ready for service on Sept. 1, gas won’t move through it until Hess Corp., which has contracted with Alliance to use about 50 percent of the pipeline’s capacity, finishes doubling the processing capacity of its Tioga plant to 250 million cubic feet per day. Steve McNally, Hess Corp’s general manager for North Dakota, said the expanded plant will open soon, but he wouldn’t say exactly when, saying more details would be available in the company’s quarterly report due out Wednesday.

There are several story lines here. Regular readers will know which story most interests me. Click here for the original post on the Alliance pipeline.

I track pipelines of interest here.

Seven Wells Coming Off Confidential List Tuesday; Several Whiting Pronghorn Prospect Wells

CNBC, 2nd from the top, headline story: serial entrepreneur finds gold in North Dakota oil boom. It's just a repeat of stories posted earlier regarding CNBC's recent visit to North Dakota. Link is here:

Sometimes serendipity happens in the strangest places. Case in point: Williston, N.D.

We flew into the Bakken boomtown and needed a place to do our TV show the next day. We found a hot new restaurant and asked if we could film there. They were more than happy to oblige, and the coolest thing was that the owner was a guy we probably should have heard of before.His name is Marcus Jundt, CEO of Williston Holding Co., which owns the Williston Brewing Co.--the spot we did the show from--and three other restaurants in town.

Of course, the rest of the story is at the link.

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Active rigs: 182

Wells coming off the confidential list Wednesday: 

• 21090, 468, Whiting, Pronghorn Federal 34-9PH, Park, t5/13; cum 17K 8/13;
• 23849, 572, Whiting, Pronghorn Federal 44-9PH, Park, t5/13; cum 13K 8/13;
• 23850, 508, Whiting, Pronghorn State Federal 41-16PH, Park, t5/13; cum 17K 8/13;
• 24675, 694, CLR, Jerol 4-27H1, Lindahl, t9/13; cum --
• 25035, 1,356, Whiting, Berry 14-11-1H, Cartwright, t5/13; cum 34K 8/13;
• 25186, drl, QEP, Bert 1-2-11BH, Grail, no production data,
• 25436, 280, Samson Resources, Stingray 1819-1H, Ambrose, t8/13; cum 5K 8/13;

The Gap Widens

This is the top link at Yahoo!Finance at the moment: how Americans will adapt to lower living standards.

Tyler Cowen, author of Average Is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation, creates a stark image of a future U.S. economy in which most people either rocket toward the top or drift toward the bottom.

For me the "great stagnation" is the "Lost Decade: which is a tag at the bottom of the blog. I haven't added much to the "Lost Decade" in a long time.  The "Lost Decade," by the way, has become the two lost decades: first, 2000 - 2007 (not quite ten years), and now 2008 - 2018 (slightly longer than one ten-year period. 

Americans may adapt to lower living standards (like the Brits have done) but at least "we" will have the specter of "free" healthcare for all, whereas the Brits actually have it.

I don't quite agree that "most" people will "rocket" toward the top or drift toward the bottom. I think about 20% of educated, investing Americans -- many employed by the US government, including the military -- will "rocket" toward the top; another 47% will remain among the lower-middle class, lower class, and the "homeless"; another 40% (which we used to call the working middle class) will actually drift toward the bottom.

The upper-middle class (the 20% noted above) will disappear ( most will become rich, but not super-rich, who in turn will be different than the hyper-rich). The middle-middle class (the 40% noted above) will drift toward the lower middle class.

The upper-middle class will be those who have incomes that match those in Congress who were voted in before they were "rich." If that makes sense.

The remaining 3% (super-rich and mega-rich) will be the John Kerry-s and the Warren Buffett-s of America.

I don't see the "47%" number changing much, but I do see the quality of life improving immensely for about half of this group; deteriorating for the other half.

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A Note To The Granddaughters

I picked up The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and The Battle of the Little Bighorn, by Nathaniel Philbrick, c. 2010, at the museum / bookstore at the Chief Crazy Horse Memorial just north of Custer, South Dakota, in the Black Hills.

Absolutely fascinating book. I will write about it when I have time over at my literature blog. 

Increasing Energy Costs In Great Britain

Regular readers know about the renewable energy debacle in Europe (Europe at a tipping point) and the energy challenge facing Great Britain (Will Great Britain be prepared this year? ) which I follow with the other "Big Stories."

So, this article sent to me by Don was just a bit more than interesting, reported by BBC:

British Gas said prices for its dual-fuel customers would go up by 9.2% on 23 November. That includes an 8.4% increase in gas prices and a 10.4% rise in electricity prices. 

Regular readers also know that Great Britain could probably be energy independent or nearly energy independent if they wanted. But their actions have consequences, as noted by the BBC.

Meanwhile, our "own" South Dakota, MDU was granted a 2% rate increase vs the 3.3% it had requested.

By the way, I've not yet had time to find out how Britain's Thames Estuary off-shore wind farm during the recent storm, said to be the worse storm in the last five years (this time of year?) in Great Britain.

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A Note To The Granddaughters

Regular readers know that one of my pet peeves is that McDonald's -- which is so good about offering free wi-fi across the country -- tries very, very hard to prevent folks from "plugging in." This is incredible. At the McDonald's on the north side of Salina, Kansas, just off US Highway 81, and just south of the I-70, the manager has installed a long bank of outlets. One other individual was plugged in when I walked in. She was in the booth on the other side of the bank of outlets; I took the large semi-circular table that sat four in permanently fixed seats. I am very, very impressed. And no "PlayRoom" -- something else I've talked about with regard to McDonald's.

Hodge Podge While Traveling; Minimal Updates While Traveling

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on what you read here or what you think you may have read here.

OXY USA 3Q13 profit rises 15% on US output growth. -- Reuters.

SM Energy will report after the market closes today.

Valero Energy beats by 16 cents.  Reports earnings of $0.57 per share, $0.16 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.41; revenues rose 4.1% year/year to $36.14 bln vs the $31.02 bln consensus.

The decrease in operating income was due to lower refining throughput margins caused by lower gasoline and diesel margins as well as lower light sweet and sour crude oil discounts. Also contributing to the decline in operating income were higher costs for Renewable Identification Numbers to comply with the U.S. federal Renewable Fuel Standard. Strong performance in the ethanol business partially offset the decline in operating income. -- Yahoo!In-Play

Apple Inc: Apple's net profit drops but earnings beat forecasts. Apple's (AAPL) FQ4 net profit fell to $7.5B from $8.2B a year earlier, although revenue rose 4% to $37.5B and beat consensus, as did EPS of $8.26. iPhone volumes rose sharply following the introduction of new models in September, although iPad shipments were flat and those for the Mac fell. On the earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company will announce any changes to its capital allocation early next year. The comments come as Carl Icahn clamors for a new $150B buyback. Shares were +0.2% premarket after slipping late yesterday. -- SeekingAlpha, October 29, 2013; earnings transcript;

BP's profit falls 26% but shares jump 5%. BP's (BP) shares gushed 5% higher in premarket trading after Q3 underlying replacement profit dropped to $3.7B from $5B a year earlier but exceeded forecasts of $3.4B. BP raised its dividend by 5.6% to 9.5 cents a share, and said it intends to sell another $10B in assets within two years and use the money for payouts to shareholders. -- same link as above, SeekingAlpha, October 29, 2013

Examining the links between earthquakes and fracking -- at Rigzone. 

Six companies announce increased dividend/distributions including American Midstream Ptrs lP, Holly Energy Partners, and Tesoro Logistics LP.

The driving range of a Tesla. I believe my cross-country trip is about 1,600 miles each way.

COP must be doing something right. Most oil companies have been in a trading range the last few days, most slightly negative, but COP keeps hitting new highs. At one time Warren Buffett owned a huge amount of COP but I've long lost the bubble with regard to how much, if any, he still holds.