Egyptian Commercial Airliner, 66 On Board, Crashes; May 19, 2016

Commercial Egyptian airliner, 66 on board, crashes over Mediterranean Sea -- about 3 hours 20 minutes into 4-hour flight. Headline: "swerved and plunged." [Later: "terrorism suspected."] Those long US TSA lines? DFW hit by "TSA flu."

Question of the day: if the raise President Obama just gave mid-level managers across the US is such a great deal, why did he wait seven years to do it?

Wal-Mart profit, revenue beat expectations; US sales up more than expected. Shares rose more than 9% in pre-market trading. Is Wal-Mart profiting at Target's expense? Target points to weakening sales; retailer says decline due to consumer caution and wet weather in latest quarter. Anecdotally this seems to be one of the wetter springs we've had in north Texas. Pouring rain today means they aren't pouring cement.

Retail Gap open to selling on Amazon; to ignore rise of Web-based rival would be delusional -- CEO.

• Later, May 20, 2016: Gap to close 75 stores.

All that talk about Apple's commitment to "high-end" phones? Microsoft apparently agrees. Microsoft will unload its low-end phone business acquired from Nokia.

Price of gasoline, all things being equal, won't be going down. President Obama's EPA ready to propose increased mandates for ethanol-laced gasoline.

That oil glut / rebalancing discussion? Not so fast. Crude oil futures, the "WTI crawler," down over 2%. Otherwise futures show a flat market; oil down 2.5%. Oil said to be down talk of Fed talk to raise "rates." "Oil outages" not living up to hype. [Later: this article pops up -- Total CEO: oil demand is strong, but year-end is too early for re-balancing.]

National polls: Trump, 42%; Clinton, 37%. Las Vegas DEM convention will be "must-see" TV. In politics, like sports, it's all about mojo, the trend, peaking too soon. 

***************************************

Back to the Bakken

Active rigs:

	5/19/2016	05/19/2015	05/19/2014	05/19/2013	05/19/2012
Active Rigs	26	82	191	189	209

RBN Energy: market impact of 2016 Northeast natural gas production trends.