Thursday Data -- September 24, 2015; Natural Gas Fill Inject Huge -- Close To Surpassing 5-Year Maximum

Market

Dow drops below 16,000; in new trading range.

First-Time Claims For Unemployment Benefits; Other Data points

Econoday: increase by 3,000 to 267,000. Four-week average down slightly to 271,750. Bloomberg reports here. Background noise.

Gasoline demand: up slightly (dynamic link); this time last year was still falling;

Natural gas fill-rate: huge inject -- up 106 (dynamic link); close to exceeding 5-year max. In the East Region, stocks were 30 Bcf below the 5-year average following net injections of 62 Bcf.

Durable goods orders down 2%. 

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Other Stories

Caterpillar to cut up to 10,000 jobs through 2016; most of the cuts will be front-loaded, in 2015.

Well, duh. The EIA "energy cookie":

Low oil prices, if sustained, could mark the beginning of a long-term drop in upstream oil and natural gas investment. Oil prices reflect supply and demand balances, with increasing prices often suggesting a need for greater supply. Greater supply, in turn, typically requires increased investment in exploration and production (E&P) activities. Lower prices reduce investment activity...Given the fall in oil prices that began in mid-2014 and the relationship between oil prices and upstream investment, it is possible that investment levels over the next several years will be significantly lower than the previous 10-year annual avera. --- EIA

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Two Revolutions In Crude Oil History

The first revolution resulting in saving the whales. Had Rockefeller not standardized gasoline and kerosene from crude oil, the whales would have gone extinct. The world was probably a few decades away from extinction of whales when Rockefeller saved them.

The second revolution: technology that opened up decades of more crude oil. I'm thinking of the one-trillion Piceance reservoir. The Bakken is estimated at 500 billion bbls, though Harold Hamm once estimated as much as 903 billion bbls.

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Papo-Critical

For someone concerned about the starving, it doesn't look like the Pope has missed many meals.