Thursday -- November 2, 2017 -- Confusion Reigns On The Blog -- You May Want To Skip The Blog Today And Come Back Tomorrow

TSLA: Wow, wow, wow -- in pre-market trading, TSLA just dropped below $300/share -- recovered a bit. Waiting for the opening bid: $301.55, down $19.53 from yesterday's close, down 6.08% from yesterday's close. "Tesla watch" at this post: link here. One can never predict these things, but if a year from now TSLA is trading at $50, we might look back on November 2, 2017, as the day everything came to an end. They are piling on at CNBC and this is the headline story above the fold on the second page of The WSJ today: "Tesla rolls back goal on sedan amid loss." I haven't read the story yet but it will be interesting if they even mention the huge cost of the new gigafactory planned for China. And then this: Elon Musk clearly stated that profits and profit margins on the S and X were keeping Tesla afloat. Yesterday we learn that the lowly Chevrolet Bolt, this past month (October, 2017) outsold both S and X combined. On initial reports (when Elon Musk did report S and X deliveries) Tesla did not even report Model 3 deliveries for the month of October. Update: Model 3 deliveries for October just reported: 145. Holy guacamole, Batman. What next?]

We lost internet service last night -- still down this morning -- blogging from McDonald's -- will be awhile before I get caught up -- November 2, 2017 -- 7:06 a.m.

Because the internet was down all night (and still it at home), my blogs today will be more difficult to follow -- I will be updating each page throughout the next few hours. 

Lots of energy and economic news on the first Thursday of the month. It will take time to wade through it.

Big stories I'm looking for today:

• Tesla: I think the information we are getting is much worse than some expected -- updated; but still more to follow when the market opens
• Saudi import data has been posted
• Saudi foreign reserves has been posted
• unemployment data has been posted
• gasoline demand graph posted
• RDS earnings
• Venezuela to sell refinery assets to China, Russia to cover bonds 

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Most Important Graph So Far Today -- Gasoline Demand

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Jobs Report

Amazing how hard it is to find this data on the net immediately after the report. Under the Obama administration, it came out immediately. But under Trump, it seems it takes forever to get the headlines on the internet. Whatever. Data points:

• first-time claims for unemployment benefits fell last week, numbers better than expected
• 229,000 for week ended October 28, 2017, below the 235,000 expected
• this is almost 2% below the previous week 
• previous week: revised to 234,000 

From the WSJ today: huge jump in jobs --- according to ADP, US private sector added 235,000 jobs in October. Huge beat. Economists had expected the addition of 190,000 jobs. Truly amazing.

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Saudi Arabia in Deep Doo-Doo

Saudi import data: I believe Saudi import data is second lowest in history -- at least since 1989 -- one has to go all the way back to August, 2009, to see a lower import number.

Asian market: On top of this, OPEC/Saudi Arabia will lose battle in trying to corner Asian market.

Early in October, OPEC’s chief, Mohammed Barkindo, appeared to be unfazed by growing U.S. crude oil shipments to OPEC’s key market, Asia. The official said he expected OPEC exports bound for the East will continue to expand in the coming years, eventually hitting 22 million bpd in 2040, up from 14.5 million bpd in 2016.

Yet underneath the confidence, there seems to be growing worry about these U.S. shipments because they’re growing too, and nobody is tying U.S. shale producers’ hands with any production-cutting arrangements aimed to stimulate prices.

In fact, the threat to OPEC from U.S. shale oil just got more serious as it became clear that the cartel and its partners are planning to extend their own agreement until the end of 2018. This means that until the end of next year, OPEC, Russia, and their partners will continue to supply 1.8 million fewer barrels of oil per day to global markets—or at least a figure in that vicinity, as compliance is still far from 100 percent across the group.

Saudi cash, first, from last month, at that time, the most recent data was from July, 2017, tradingeconomics:

Saudi cash, now, today, the data from August, 2017, a further drop, again from tradingeconomics:

Bottom line: Saudi Arabia is in deep, deep trouble.

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Tesla

"Tesla watch" at this post: link here.

Headlines at CNBC crawler earlier this morning:

• largest quarterly loss reported yesterday
• will cut back production of Model 3
• Other headlines elsewhere

Chevrolet Bolt outsold Tesla's Model S and Model X.

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Papa John Is Mad As Hell --

-- And Red As A Beet

Loses $70 million in hours -- blames NFL.

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Royal Dutch Shell -- 3Q17 Earnings Beat

Zacks.

EPS: $1.00 -- breezing past the consensus estimate of 83 cents, and the year-ago adjusted profit of 70 cents

• revenues: almost 25% higher than same quarter one year ago
• revenues: almost $78 billion vs $63 billion a year ago -- just imagine -- almost $100 billion revenue in one quarter -- staggering

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Venezuela - Tick, Tick, Tick

Keeps its head above water ... for now:

Venezuelan state-owned oil company PdV looks to have stepped back from the brink yet again on its latest debt payment, after an $842mn principal payment on a 2020 bond due on 27 October finally started reaching bondholders overnight.

The stakes were especially high this time, because the 2020 bond is backed by a 50.1pc stake in PdV's US downstream subsidiary Citgo.

The nail-biting delay, financial executives say, probably had less to do with PdV´s dwindling cash position and novice financial team than with nervous calls by US intermediary banks to the US Office of Foreign Assets Control to make sure they were not running afoul of US financial sanctions on the Opec country.

Now the clock is ticking for PdV to pay $1.1bn in principal due today on a PdV 2017 bond.