Earnings Reports On Tap For Wednesday -- November 4, 2014

According to Yahoo!Finance:
Abraxas Petroleum (AXAS), before market open; 15 cents;
Calfrac Well Services (CFW.TO), before market open; 41 cents;
CenturyPoint Energy (CNP), before market open, 30 cents;
Chesapeake Energy (CHK), before market open, 33 cents;
Denbury (DNR), before market open, 26 cents;
Duke Energy (DUK), 7:00 a.m., $1.52
Enbridge (ENB.TO), before market open, 38 cents;
NRG Energy (NRG), before market open, 52 cents;
Steris (STE), before market open, 63 cents;

CLR, after market close, 81 cents;
Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), after market close, 65 cents;
Plains All American (PAA), after market close, 52 cents;
QEP, after market close, 44 cents;
SandRidge Energy (SD), after market close, 5 cents;
Tesla (TSLA), after market close, loss of one penny;

This is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here. Do not make any travel plans based on what you read here. Most of my posts are done quickly; there are factual and typographical errors. If this information is important to you, go to the source. 

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Musings 

The 2014 Mid-Term Elections

We had out-of-town guests arrive tonight. They will be with us for a week which will put a crimp on my blogging.

I was most disappointed in not catching MSNBC analysis of the election results. I have only seen limited coverage on the internet. The big story is the GOP will control the Senate by two votes. Maybe three votes. Maybe four votes. That's the MSNBC headline story, I suppose.

But I have not seen any mention of the real story. This is the real story. The GOP may have a two vote margin (51 - 49) on paper, but in fact the delta is going to be much, much bigger. Of the 49 in Mr Obama's party, some of them will be up for re-election in 2016. One can assume that very few, if any of them, will want to cast any vote in support of any Obama initiative. Dems running for re-election this past month refused to admit they even voted for President Obama in 2014; you think they are going to vote with him during the next two years? And you know that no GOP senator up for re-election in 2016 is going to step out of line. McConnell will have the easiest job in the world.

Yes, on paper the tally may be 51 - 49 but in reality it's going to be 56 ayes; 3 nays; and 41 "present." The record will show that the vote was 56 - 3.

Oh, the other big story. With a 51 - 49 mix, Mr Biden won't be asked to make any tie-breaking votes. 

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Musings 

MDU 3Q14 Earnings Call

Based on comments on the message boards, there are a lot of smart folks out there when it comes to energy. I'm not one of them.  I'm simply learning as I go along. And trying to get a better understanding of the Bakken.

Based on the MDU transcript, and comments elsewhere, it appears that MDU is "cutting its losses" by selling Fidelity.

They have a lot of growth potential elsewhere; MDU was really starting to look like an E&P company.

MDU made mistakes in E&P /Bakken years ago and never recovered. Compounding this problem, I folks were starting to look at MDU as an E&P company. But it appears MDU doesn't have the expertise, experience, corporate culture, to go head-to-head with guys like Harold Hamm, the previous EOG CEO (Mark Papa), the previous CHK CEO (Aubrey McClendon).

MDU needs to get back to doing what they were doing before they got caught up in the Bakken (had they done that right in the beginning, things might have been different, but they didn't, and now they are cutting their losses [cutting Fidelity] before it becomes an even bigger albatross).

[If the can't find a suitable buyer, and the price of oil recovers, could Fidelity be spun off as a stand-alone company? A wholly-owned subsidiary? An MLP?]

By the way, this may be the start of consolidation in the US tight oil industry. There are just too many players. If there are 100 drillers, they are all drilling like their hair is on fire just to keep investors happy. And we end up with a huge glut.

Get down to 10 drillers and there is more latitude to slow down drilling, and quickly change the supply and demand equation.

These are initial thoughts; subject to change; thoughts/opinions may change as the dust settles. I'm learning as I go along.

Have I ever mentioned this is not an investment site? Well, it isn't. It isn't an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, or relationship decision based on what you read here or think you may have read here. Do not make any travel plans based on what you read here. If this is important to you, go elsewhere for better analysis. This is simply idle chatter (see welcome/disclaimer).