ATT Bonds, Huge; Oil Sector Is Clawing Its Way Back, The Market And Energy Page, T+189 -- July 28, 2017

This is incredibly amazing, how fast things are moving.

Cup half full: Stabucks shares falling another 7% in early trading. 

Monopolies: most US counties now have only one health care insurance provider. 

0.1%: this is the amount that ObamaCare impacts GDP. All this talk for 0.1% GDP. 

Disclaimer: see welcome/disclaimer. 

Poll: oil has tended up this past week; now about $49.32. Will we see WTI touch $50 by the end of next week?

Easy money: the other day I posted my thoughts on the economy. One of the factors I mentioned was "cheap money." How prescient. This headline from Bloomberg today: ATT sells year's biggest bond deal and market wanted even more. Data points:

• $22.5 billion in bonds
• market would have bought more
• drew almost 3x as many order as there were securities
• largest investment-grade deal of the year
• 3rd-biggest in history behind offerings from Verizon and Anheuser-Busch
• likely the last funding ATT needs for its $85 billion takeover of Time Warner
• a seven-part deal
• longest: a 41-year bond; 2.4% above Treasuries, down from initial talk of 2.55%
• offers higher yields than what investors see in Europe and Japan
• T shares today: flat (slightly negative) at $39.37; currently yields 5.4%

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Oil Sector

Silk purse from a sow's ear? Exxon Mobil earnings nearly double on higher oil prices. "Oil giant's rebound continues amid recovering commodity prices." -- WSJ. This is what the oil sector has had to experience in last couple of years: crude prices fell from $114 a barrel to $27 a barrel and remain about $50 a barrel. Barely. And only most recently. Look at these numbers, from the linked article:

• profit, 2Q17: 78 cents/share vs 41 cents/share a year earlier
• profit, 2Q17: $3.35 billion ($1.70 billion a year earlier)
• profit, 1Q17: $4.01 billion ($1.81 billion a year earlier)
• revenues, 2Q17: rose 9% to $62.88 billion; $1 billion ahead of estimates

CVX. Wow. Shares are up 1.6%; pays a bit over 4%.

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