For Investors Only -- May 8, 2014; Chinese Car Sales

Companies reporting Thursday:

• Abraxas AXAS (6 cents): misses by a penny, 5 cents/share;
• Calfrac CFW.TO (34 cents): huge miss? 23 cents;
• Crescent Point CPG.TO (32 cents): net income, 8 cents; operating income, 52 cents; raises production gidance;
• Windstream WIN (9 cents): big miss, only 4 cents;
• Clean Energy CLNE (30 cents): in line
• NOG (24 cents): misses by a nickel; 19 cents;
• Nuverra Environmental Services NES (45 cents): beats by a penny
• Bonanza Creek Energy

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. 

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Chinese Auto Sales

Right now there are really only three or four or five economically viable types of cars and trucks, based on energy source:

• diesel
• gasoline
• electricity
• LNG
• CNG

I might have missed one or two but I do know that algae-based fuel for commercial vehicles and private automobiles are not yet viable. Assuming electricity in China comes predominantly from coal, all five of the fuels listed above suggest that fossil fuels will fuel Chinese automobiles for quite some time, at least through the end of my investing lifetime, which when I awoke this morning, was one day less than it was yesterday at the same time.

So, assuming that most Chinese cars will run on diesel, gasoline, or coal for the foreseeable future, what does the future hold? Yahoo!News posted this press release:

Ford China sold 96,829 wholesale vehicles last month, up 29 percent from the 75,315 sold in April 2013. Strong April performance pushed year-to-date sales up to 368,150 vehicles, an increase of 41 percent from 261,859 during the same period last year. 

April sales of imported Ford vehicles—which include the Ford Explorer, Ford Edge, Ford Focus ST and the Ford Fiesta ST—increased 72 percent compared to April 2013 with 3,251 vehicles sold. Year-to-date sales more than tripled, with 12,249 vehicles, up 202 percent compared to the same period last year.

Changan Ford Automobile, Ford's passenger car joint venture, sold 68,119 vehicles in April, an increase of 29 percent compared to April 2013. Year-to-date sales reached 263,317 vehicles, up 46 percent. 

I assume other car manufacturers will do as well, unless Ford has some special secret for selling cars in China.

Wow, I wish we had a president who woke up every day and said, "it's morning in America. I wonder what I can do to help the economy?" And really mean it.

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The Real Concern

From a reader:

If warmists really cared about their kids, instead of worrying about the horror of CO2 having gone from 0.03% to 0.04% of the atmosphere in the last 100 years,  they should worry about the US debt going from $1.5 trillion in 1984 to $17.5 trillion in 2014.