NG Fill Rate -- Plummets To 40 -- November 14, 2014

Natural gas fill rate (see this post for background):

The number today: 40.

I don't think the polar vortex had yet arrived the week for this reporting; if it had, it was just beginning. The east, with 8, and the west, with 4, had incredibly paltry "fill" rates. Winter is still a month away. EIA comments:

Stocks were 220 Bcf less than last year at this time and 237 Bcf below the 5-year average of 3,848 Bcf. In the East Region, stocks were 102 Bcf below the 5-year average following net injections of 8 Bcf. Stocks in the Producing Region were 106 Bcf below the 5-year average of 1,251 Bcf after a net injection of 28 Bcf. Stocks in the West Region were 29 Bcf below the 5-year average after a net addition of 4 Bcf. At 3,611 Bcf, total working gas is below the 5-year historical range.

It is interesting the EIA did not provide "percent" below the 5-year historical range which they have done in the past. The overall/national storage appears to be about 7% below the 5-year historical average. The good news: the gap between this year's storage and the historical average seems to be narrowing (see graph at the link).  Next week's number, after a full week of the polar vortex, should be very interesting. For me, the number I am watching is the delta between the year's numbers and the historical average.

Apparently traders are not concerned; Bloomberg shows natural gas down a bit today (a dynamic link) and below $4.00 for a million Btu.

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Active rigs:

	11/14/2014	11/14/2013	11/14/2012	11/14/2011	11/14/2010
Active Rigs	186	185	189	200	158

RBN Energy: the spread between Western Canadian Select (WCS) and Gulf Coast equivalent heavy crude Maya has narrowed significantly, from $35/bbl last November to less than $12/bbl today. Great article on how Canadian oil is reaching US markets; you might be surprised.

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Speaking of WCS, this is interesting. There is a headline out there somewhere that says despite action in the House and the Senate, POTUS has not changed his mind on the Keystone. That's interesting. I thought he had not made a decision; it is clear he will not approve the Keystone. He will not throw Tom under the bus. On the other hand, Landrieu is toast. She would have been toast anyway. I suppose the toast is just a bit more burned.

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While waiting for data to be reported, this is kind of cool: yesterday I posted "tea leaves suggest that the wage growth (read: inflation) data is just not there for the Fed to raise interest rates."

This morning, this headline over at Fox Business, "Wage Growth Is The New Inflation Rate."

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For Investors Only

I've noticed the same thing: some funds are trailing badly; probably due to being overweighted in energy. It should keep the bull market intact. Funds are said to be chasing performance. Yahoo!Finance is reporting:

For Thomas Lee, founder of Fundstrat Global Advisors, this underperformance is a signal that stocks have a lot of firepower left. “Historically when fund managers trail - and this is really one of the three worst years in twenty - the October to year-end move is even bigger.” Lee notes that fund managers will be forced to chase the top-performing stocks. “Whatever has been working this year basically gets turbocharged and people pile into those names.”

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Trading at new highs, but most of these highs were probably at the start of the day and have since pulled back: AAPL, BRK.A, BRK.B, MSFT, TGT, WMT.