Unemployment Claims Surge; Hiring Remains Robust -- The AP; Thursday, February 5, 2015

Wow, I love the spin. I've been blogging since about 6:00 a.m. this morning. This is being posted about 8:35 a.m. I've already talked about the horrendous job report, and predicted that mainstream media would see the silver lining. Here it is. Despite a horrendous job report yesterday and then again today, the AP is able to post this headline: US jobless applications rise, but levels point to job growth.

I think they've been using some version of that headline ever since January 20, 2009.

So, let's see the lede at that story... break, break .. even before the lede, the "sub"-headline in which the AP actually said the unemployment numbers suggest robust hiring. Obviously Josh Boak is a huge Barack Obama supporte. LOL.

Okay, here's the lede:

More people sought unemployment benefits last week, but the number of applicants remained near historic lows in a positive sign for job growth.

The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly applications rose 11,000 to a seasonally adjusted 278,000. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, fell 6,500 to 292,750. That average has plunged 15 percent over the past 12 months.

Wow, plunged 15 percent over the past 12 months -- and after a gazillion dollars in stimulus. 

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See disclaimer.

Pfizer to buy Hospira for $16 billion. 

Pfizer Inc. agreed to buy Hospira Inc., a maker of injectable drugs and infusion technologies, for about $16 billion, putting its cash to work as it deals with billions lost in sales from drugs losing patent protection.

Hospira shareholders will receive $90 a share in cash, a 39% premium to Wednesday’s close. Shares surged 36% to $88.10 premarket. The stock’s previous high, set earlier this year, was $66.56 a share. Pfizer, meanwhile, edged up nearly 2% premarket.

Pfizer noted both sterile injectables and biosimilars are large and growing categories. The global marketplace value for generic sterile injectables is estimated to be $70 billion in 2020, while the marketplace for biosimilars is estimated to be about $20 billion by that time.

Futures continue to rise. Greece losing it's welcome. Someone must have finally done the math. Reuters is reporting:

Greek borrowing costs leapt and bank shares were hit hard on Thursday after the European Central Bank abruptly pulled the plug on its funding for the country's financial sector in what Athens labelled an act of coercion.

The ECB decision to stop accepting Greek bonds in return for funds shifts the burden onto Athens' central bank to finance its lenders and marks a big setback for the leftist-led government's attempt to negotiate a new debt deal with its euro zone peers.

The Athens Stock Exchange plunged 22.6 percent at the open before recovering somewhat. Three-year government borrowing costs leapt more than three percentage points to nearly 20 percent, leaving Greece utterly shut out of the markets.

About 25 US states have a "GDP" greater than Greece's GDP.  And it the GDP of Greece is dropping while the GDP in the US states is generally increasing.

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Jobless claims: again, the numbers today seem "fishy." More on this later.

Active rigs:

	2/5/2015	02/05/2014	02/05/2013	02/05/2012	02/05/2011
Active Rigs	139	191	182	202	165

RBN Energy: Prospects for LNG exports.

There were—and still are—reasons to be optimistic about the potential for U.S. LNG exports. Worldwide demand for LNG is rising, the U.S. has vast reserves of cheap natural gas, and Asian LNG buyers in particular have been looking to diversify their sources and shift away from oil-indexed LNG pricing. But the collapse in oil prices has shaken the LNG world and undermined confidence in the U.S.’s LNG-exporting future. Today we continue our look at what’s ahead for liquefaction/export projects, given the topsy-turvy nature of today’s energy markets.

By this time next year, the first liquefaction “train” at Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass facility in southwestern Louisiana is likely to be supercooling natural gas and loading LNG onto ships for export to Asia and other markets. Three more trains at Sabine Pass will start operating later in 2016 and in 2017, and soon thereafter the Cameron LNG, Freeport LNG and Cove Point LNG liquefaction/export facilities (a total of six more trains) are expected to join the fray. All have long-term, take-or-pay off-take agreements for almost all of their capacity. As we said in Episode 1, the LNG production capacity of the First Four (four trains at Sabine Pass, three at Cameron, two at Freeport and one at Cove Point) totals 45 million tons per annum (MTPA)—enough to consume a total of just over 6 Bcf/d of U.S.-sourced natural gas, or about one-twelfth of current U.S. gas production.

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Jobs

Link here. 

• Forecast, range: 280K to 310K
• Actual: 278K, up 11,000
• Four-week average: 292,750
• Prior week: 265K revised upward to 267
• Prior, four-week average revised upward to 299,250K

This is what makes these numbers "fishy":

• yesterday's "new jobs" number was lower than expected; failed to meet expectations
• the prior week's drop was described as "shocking" and completely unexpected; dropping by largest amount in recent history
• the drop last week was completely unexplained; mainstream media hardly commented on it
• consensus forecast for today suggested a much great swing
• the four-week average, which is designed to smooth out the swings, is, in fact, as volatile as the weekly number because of the wide weekly swings (again, without explanation for the swings)
• the first time claims do not mesh with what we are seeing in the oil and gas sector and what has been forecast for weeks

One almost gets the feeling someone is working very, very hard to keep the 4-week average below that "dreaded" 300,000 number.