WTI Down Almost 4% Today -- July 13, 2016; On The Origin Of Pretzels

Active rigs in North Dakota back up to 30:

	7/13/2016	07/13/2015	07/13/2014	07/13/2013	07/13/2012
Active Rigs	30	72	190	186	215

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The Market At Midday 

At midday, the market is fairly flat (slightly negative) and WTI is down almost 4%. The crude oil and gasoline stocks continue to build.

On the NYSE, there are 184 new highs, including:

• Baxter (it hit a new high yesterday also)
• ONEOK Partners (OKS)

On the NYSE, there are only two issues hitting new lows:

• AGRIA ADR (GRO)
• CVR Refining (CVRR)

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From "The History Of Little Things" Department

The other day I mentioned Dot's Pretzels.  A bit of cocktail trivia that will make you the life of any party. From catholicculture.com:

The pretzel has a deep spiritual meaning for Lent. In fact, it was the ancient Christian Lenten bread as far back as the fourth century. In the old Roman Empire, the faithful kept a very strict fast all through Lent: no milk, no butter, no cheese, no eggs, no cream and no meat.

They made small breads of water, flour and salt, to remind themselves that Lent was a time of prayer. They shaped these breads in the form of crossed arms for in those days they crossed their arms over the breast while praying. Therefore they called the breads "little arms" (bracellae). From this Latin word, the Germanic people later coined the term "pretzel." 

I would not have come across that had I not been reading a most delightful history of science book by Owen Gingerich on Copernicus: The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus, c. 2004, from page 51:

Pretzels had their origin in southern Germany -- Kepler territory -- as Lenten favors for children.

That is not exactly correct. "Pretzels" had been around a lot longer than that, but it was the Germans who coined the word that we use today.