More Active Rigs In North Dakota Today Than One Year Ago; Surprises From 25 Years Of Covering The Economy

Update on the most recent derailment: Both tracks are now open west of Casselton, North Dakota, where the most recent derailment occurred. I am always impressed with how fast they can get these tracks back up and operational. Huge kudos to the workers in sub-zero weather. 

Active rigs:

	1/2/2014	01/02/2013	01/02/2012	01/02/2011	01/02/2010
Active Rigs	186	183	197	156	73

RBN Energy: Top 10 energy prognostications (and a look-back at last year's prognostications).

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Apple on top. Mac Rumors is reporting:

Apple's iPhone was the only smartphone to gain mobile web traffic share in North America during the holidays, according to a new report from analytics firm Chitika, suggesting that the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5c were popular with consumers over the holiday season.

The iPhone saw a 1.8 percent jump in web traffic from the period between December 20 and December 29, while other smartphone manufacturers experienced no gains or a slight loss in traffic share. Overall, the iPhone has a 54.3 percent share of total mobile web traffic, far above its closest competitor Samsung, which has a 23.7 percent share.

And Apple tablets are even farther ahead. When I read all the stories about other tablets, I assume the competition is close (which does not go along with what I observe while out and about -- it seems 99% of all tablets I see are iPads):

Despite its minor share loss, the iPad remains the most popular tablet, comprising 76.1 percent of all mobile web traffic in North America. Apple's closest competitor, Amazon, has a 9.4 percent share, while Microsoft and Samsung come in at 2.3 and 5.9 percent. 

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Unemployment, first time claims: drop 2,000 to 339,000. The much less volatile, and therefore much more meaningful four-week average actually rose 8,500 to 357,250.

Nearly 4.5 million people have received some form of unemployment benefits in the most recent week for which data is available; that's 180,000 more than the previous week.

[Incidentally, 4.5 million is almost exactly the number of folks who have had their health insurance policies canceled due to Obamacare. Obama supporters say the number is closer to 4 million; Tea Party folks say the number is closer to 4.7 million. The administration says maybe as many as 1.1 million folks enrolled in ObamaCare at the federal website. How many actually pay that first premium is the 800-pound gorilla siting in the ER waiting room this morning.]

Chicago sees greatest snowfall in 15 years. CBS Chicago is reporting:

The winter storm is the biggest to hit Chicago on New Year’s Day since 1999. As of midnight Wednesday night, 5.1 inches had fallen at O’Hare International Airport. The northern suburbs were hit hardest, with around a foot in much of Lake County — 13.8 inches in Libertyville, 12.4 in Beach Park, and 12.3 in Gurnee.

Do you all remember that headline in The (London Independent in 2000? Snowfalls are a thing of the past. Patrick Kennedy and others were concerned their children (or grandchildren or somebody's children) would never see snow in the future. Fly 'em out to Chicago (if the runways are clear.)

NYC snow warning. Boston: up to 14 inches. It looks like the Kennedy children or grandchildren won't have to go far to see snow - a "thing of the past." LOL.

Yes, had it not been for the Drudge Report, I would not have known that the ship ice-bound-and stranded-in-the-Antarctic was a research ship looking for evidence of global warming during the summer at the South Pole. The press seldom mentioned "global warming" in their reporting.

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The Wall Street Journal

Top story: ObamaCare -- an uneasy launch. Whether you want to read the story or not, there are two interactive graphics at the link that are outstanding: an immediate return of the lowest cost bronze health care plan in every county in the United States, as well as a graphic link to your state's health exchange.

A nice analysis by David Wessel on the surprises from 25 years of covering the economy.  Four surprises stand out:

• that the American middle class has not done better
• that China has done so well
• that 9/11 didn't have a longer-lasting harmful economic impact
• that the US was so vulnerable to a financial shock

If you have time to read just one story today, this might be it.

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Fight begins for US crude oil exports. Won't happen in my investing lifetime, but just the fact that the discussion has begun reminds folks how incredible the Bakken is, was, and will be. Amen.

Top story, second page: crude-oil impurities probed in recent Bakken oil rail blasts.

For US drillers, the days of easy money end. Watch for merger and acquisition activity.

Asian refiners get squeezed by US energy boom. Previously posted.

The Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles city employees get the last 5.5% raise, part of a 25% increase in pay since 2007under a contract city leaders have come to regret. (The current pay raise is one thing; how it affects future pensions is the real problem.)

Next phase of Obamacare battle: dueling personal stories. The debate could determine who controls the US Senate in 2015.

Tablets, Facebook beat smartphones, Pinterest in holiday sales.

Online sales swelled 10.3% this holiday season compared with the same period in 2012, with massive surges in mobile use, according to the IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark.

During the fourth quarter, mobile traffic made up nearly 35% of all online visits, up 40% from last year, according to IBM. Nearly 17% of digital sales originated from mobile devices, a 46% upswing year over year.

Major shopping days such as Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday all enjoyed record online sales, as shoppers were lured by increasingly attractive Internet-exclusive promotions and free shipping deals.

On Christmas Day alone, online sales surged 16.5% from the same holiday last year.
Online sales swelled 10.3% this holiday season compared with the same period in 2012, with massive surges in mobile use, according to the IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark.

During the fourth quarter, mobile traffic made up nearly 35% of all online visits, up 40% from last year, according to IBM. Nearly 17% of digital sales originated from mobile devices, a 46% upswing year over year.

Major shopping days such as Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday all enjoyed record online sales, as shoppers were lured by increasingly attractive Internet-exclusive promotions and free shipping deals.

On Christmas Day alone, online sales surged 16.5% from the same holiday last year.

Traffic to retailers from smartphones made up 21.3% of all online visits -- double tablets’ 12.8% share. But when it came to sales, orders from tablets constituted 11.5% of the total online pie, compared with 5% from smartphones.

Shoppers using tablets spent an average of $118.09 per order, according to IBM. Those on smartphones shelled out $104.72 per order.

The per-order amount from shoppers referred to retailers by Pinterest was $109.93 -- outpacing the $60.48 amount from consumers following a trail from Facebook.

But Facebook managed to successfully convert visits into sales 3.5 times more often than Pinterest did, according to IBM.

My younger daughter had to explain to me what "Pinterest" was. LOL.

 

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A Note to the Granddaughters

I've finished reading the Salinger biography by David Shields and Shane Salerno. We recently visited the Getty Museum -- perhaps our favorite museum in the Los Angeles area -- and picked up two autobiographies by (of?) J Paul Getty. It is fun to read the passage about his parents decision on where to live when they moved to southern California in February (think winter), 1905.

We left Minneapolis in February 1905. After looking over San Diego (Father thought it too small a town), La Jolla (it was remote and isolated), Santa Monica (a straggly seaside hamlet) and some other towns, my parents concluded that they liked Los Angeles best. Although we once more returned to Minneapolis ... in 1906 we moved to Los Angeles permanently.

My father bought a corner plot on Wilshire Boulevard at Kingsley Drive. He had a large Tudor-style house built. It became our new home.

It is now a business district. We drove right past it about a week ago after visiting the Petersen Automotive Museum which is about a mile west of Wilshire and Kingsley, it appears. A huge Roman Catholic Church, St Basil, sits on the northwest corner of the intersection. This would be in the area of Wilshire's Miracle Mile.