For Investors Only; KOG Trading At New Highs; ObamaCare Math -- Double-Counting; No Idea Who Paid; Breaking News! German Economic Growth Forecast Raised to 1.8% From 1.7%, Citing Strong Domestic Demand

Breaking News! Stop The Presses. From The Wall Street Journal. I can't make this stuff up. Germany's economics ministry increased its 2014 economic growth forecast to 1.8% from 1.7%, citing strong domestic demand. That will get the market moving.

Mar natural gas pops to new session highs following inventory data; now up 3.5% at $4.99 :  
Natural gas inventory data: Natural gas inventory showed a draw of 237 bcf vs expectations for a draw of 228-233 bcf.

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Trading at new highs: KOG, EPD, MDU, XLNX, ARII, ERF, NFLX,

Skirting with new highs, but not quite there: WMB, UNP,

Nine companies announced increased dividends or distributions. Alaska Air increases quarterly dividend by 25%.


Comcast will buy Time Warner Cable. CMCSA down 3%.

EnCana beats by 12 cents.

Apache misses by $0.20, misses on revs: Reports Q4 (Dec) adj. earnings of $1.57 per share, $0.20 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.77; revenues fell 18.6% year/year to $3.58 bln vs the $3.68 bln consensus. 

Phillips 66 Partners announces first asset acquisition: to acquire $700 mln in assets from Phillips 66: Co announces that its first post-IPO acquisition will include Phillips 66's Gold Product Pipeline System, also known as the "Gold Line System," and the Medford Spheres, two newly constructed refinery-grade propylene storage spheres, for a total consideration of $700 million. The dropdown from Phillips 66, which is targeted to occur March 1, 2014, is expected to be immediately accretive to the earnings and distributable cash flow of the partnership. The partnership will finance the $700 million acquisition with cash on hand of $400 million, the issuance of additional units valued at $140 million, and a 5-year, $160 million note payable to a subsidiary of Phillips 66. The number of additional units will be based on the average daily closing price of the partnership's common units for the 10 trading days prior to February 13, 2014 or $38.86 per unit, with 98 percent issued as common units and 2 percent issued as general partner units. 

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ObamaCare Math

Yesterday there were mainstream media links that said ObamaCare enrollments continued at a fast pace in January. That seemed a bit unlikely. The reporters, yesterday, liberal media, were looking at the raw numbers -- something like a million signed up -- compare that to the tens of millions of iPhones that Apple will sell in one month -- but the mainstream reporters were not looking at denominators or rate of growth. Today, a better analysis from a conservative source, and even if they are exaggerating, it's probably a bit closer to the truth. From The Weekly Standard:

On Wednesday, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that enrollment in the Obamacare private exchanges increased by 1,146,071 in January. In December, HHS reported 1,788,000 enrollees in the month of December. That suggests a drop-off of approximately 500,000, or 29 percent. 

Yes, there it is. My memory is pretty accurate despite not even paying attention to the reports yesterday, but enrollments were barely over a million in January. That's a 29% drop since Decembe
I would assume with the announcement earlier this week that the corporate mandate has been delayed through 2016, the push for individual enrollment will fade, and the numbers will correspondingly fall. I assume some of the 1 million that signed up in January were part of the cost-shifting due to the corporate mandate. That is now off the table.

Trainwreck: some 3.3 million people signed up for health coverage via insurance exchanges through January, but enrollment from young Americans remained tepid, new Obama adminstration figures showed. So: a) not enough healthy folks enrolling; b) the plan needed 7 million (minimum) and they are barely at 3 million; and, c) the word on the street is that ObamaCare will be delayed thorugh 2016, and maybe longer. D.E.A.D.

Of course, even worse: no one knows how many of the 3.3 million actually paid their first premium. My hunch: perhaps not even 50%. The vast majority probably thought ObamaCare was like an ObamaPhone: free. Breitbart says the same thing:

The administration continues to say it cannot estimate how many people who have selected plans have actually paid a first month's premium since the payment system has not been built. Experts and journalists who have spoken to insurers say the total percentage who have not paid is around 20 percent. This means it's possible HHS is now double counting some people who were dropped after failing to meet a mid-January deadline but are now applying again.

HHS also highlighted the fact that the percentage of young people 18-34 enrolling was 27 percent in January compared to just 24 percent in October through December. That's an improvement obviously but it's not nearly enough to bring Obamacare to the overall 38 percent level that was anticipated prior to launch. Once the new figures are averaged in with the rest, we can see how little difference they make. The cumulative percentage of young people for all four months of enrollment now stands at 25 percent, an increase of just one percent from where it stood at the end of December.