The Market And Energy Page, T+346 -- January 3, 2018; Lost Decades Coming To An End? US Manufacturing Best Year Since 2004 -- 13 Years Of Wandering In The Desert

Updates

Later, 9:19 p.m. CT: Weatherford sells US fracking business to Schlumberger instead of forming joint venture as originally announced.


Later, 1:11 p.m CT: GDP Now estimate jumps to 3.2 percent for 4Q17. 

The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the fourth quarter of 2017 is 3.2 percent on January 3, up from 2.8 percent on December 22. 

The forecast of real consumer spending growth increased from 2.9 percent to 3.3 percent after this morning's Manufacturing ISM Report On Business from the Institute for Supply Management, while the forecast of real private fixed-investment growth increased from 7.9 percent to 8.9 percent after the ISM report and this morning's construction spending release from the U.S. Census Bureau. 

The model's estimate of the dynamic factor for December—normalized to have mean 0 and standard deviation 1 and used to forecast the yet-to-be released monthly GDP source data—increased from 0.44 to 1.50 after the ISM report. The forecast of the contribution of net exports to fourth-quarter real GDP growth fell from -0.46 percentage points to -0.60 percentage points after the Census Bureau's Advance Economic Indicators release on December 28.

Later, 1:00 p.m. CT: S&P hit 2,700 for the first time ever. 

Later,  12:42 p.m. CT: wow, a talking head on CNBC suggests Tesla Model 3 units delivered will be closer to 2,250 than 3,000.

Later, 12:42 p.m. CT: WTI now up over 2%. WTI at $61.59.

Later, 10:48 a.m. CT: for more background on what's going on in New England -- see comments --

The fact that New England power generators are now importing fuel oil from Europe should come as no surprise as the LNG facility in Everitt, MA, gets its gas from Trinidad.

(Owner of Everitt facility - Engie - was staunch pipeline foe. In addition, Engie was technical advisor to MA Attorney General Healy who backed a soon-to-be-infamous report claiming new gas pipelines were unnecessary. Hmmm ...)

Wanna hear the craziest news of the day?

Source of the coal used in Bridgeport comes from Indonesia/Philippines from mining company Adaro who touts product as "EnviroCoal".

So, we have the Marcellus nearby, huge coal sources in Pennsylvania, US exporting LNG worldwide, and the New England policy makers have brought about a situation where their residents need to bring in fuel from Asia, the Caribbean, and now Europe to stay warm and keep the lights on for their families.

If this does not spur the wider population up there to become enraged and forcefully engage in this process which is - quite literally - destroying lives, then shame on them.

Original Post 

Top story going into the weekend: energy issues on the US east coast due to huge winter storm. See this post and see update below on this page. The US east coast, with temperatures hitting zero degrees, may have power/electric grid issues. North Dakota, with lowest global temperatures this week (- 45 degrees), apparently has no energy issues.

This story is shaping up to be the big story for the week. From twitter this morning, rare tankers of heating oil from Europe headed to the land of banned fracking and no pipelines:

Epic storm: Boston's epic cold snap ties a century-old record. It hasn't been this cold since 1918.


Ice: the Great Lakes have 9x the ice coverage of last year at this time. 

Strain: America's power grid is showing signs of strain during brutal cold -- Bloomberg. Gee, I wonder how that happened? Area of greatest concern is also where majority of CAVE dwellers seem to live.

Markets: all three major indices hit new highs.

WTI: solidly over $61 and up over 1% today.

Forties: that didn't take long. Forties Pipeline system now fully operational.

Presidential tweets; love 'em.

Lost decades coming to an end. US economy, another record, making American great again: manufacturing in US accelerates to cap best year since 2004 -- Bloomberg. President Trump is not mentioned in the article. That's why he needs to tweet. The mainstream media certainly isn't going to mention his economic policies actually might be working. Tags: lost decade; and, second lost decade.

Auto sales surprise, remain strong: auto sales, believe to have dropped in 2017, remain strong.

The U.S. auto industry's historic growth streak may be ending, but demand for new cars and trucks remains healthy as the new year begins.

U.S. sales of new vehicles are expected to fall 2 percent to 17.1 million in 2017, according to Kelley Blue Book. That would be the first year-over-year decline since 2009, ending an unprecedented seven-year expansion.

General Motors and Ford both reported a 1 percent decline in sales last year compared with 2016. Automakers are releasing monthly and annual sales numbers Wednesday.

While sales are likely to fall short of 2016's record of 17.55 million, 2017 is still expected to be the fourth-best sales year in U.S. history. Low unemployment and rising consumer confidence are expected to boost demand this year.

Auto sales -- it's all about the mix, not the absolute numbers. Financial Times reports that "vehicle sales in 2017 shaped up to be the worst year for the US auto industry since the financial crisis. But, as noted above, 2017 might be the fourth-best sales year in US history. But total sales mean less than what is selling.

Ford, from their press release:

• Ford brand sales: 8th consecutive year as America's best-selling vehicle brand
• full-year F-series sales increased 9.3%; best performance since 2005; marks 41 consecutive years for F-Series as America's best-selling pickup
• Ford-brand SUV sales set an all-time record
• trucks up 4.3%; SUVs up 4.3%; cars were down over 15%

Global warming: apparently the current winter storm will be at its worse starting at midnight tonight on the east coast. Thursday (tomorrow) will be bad, but Friday and Saturday will be horrendous -- and it's possible that there may be power outages -- reporting by CNBC. It will be interesting to follow ISO New England. Wind farms will shut down during the high winds. 

All eyes on North Korea. But it looks like Iran is imploding.