Bummer -- 2.6% -- The Market And Energy Page, T+5 -- January 26, 2018

Bummer: 4Q17 GDP at 2.6%. If GDP had been 3% or greater, it would have made it the first time since 2005 that growth had been reported at 3% or better for three quarters in a row (or in other words, the first year of Trump's presidency). But it didn't happen. GDPNow forecast wrong (again -- and by a large margin).

Latest forecast: 3.4 percent — January 25, 2018.

The final GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the fourth quarter of 2017 is 3.4 percent on January 25, unchanged from January 18. The forecast of fourth-quarter real residential investment growth decreased from 10.2 percent to 9.5 percent after yesterday's existing-home sales release from the National Association of Realtors and this morning's housing market releases from the U.S. Census Bureau. This morning's Advance Economic Indicators release from the Census Bureau has been rescheduled for Friday morning due to the federal government shutdown.

Futures unchanged: perhaps slightly up following GDP numbers.


Bakken economy: 1,900 jobs available in Williston.

“Think of 1,900 jobs in a city this size; that’s pretty incredible. That’s more than what Watford City’s population used to be when I was mayor. It’s an incredible, incredible amount of people needed to bring in there — 1,900 jobs. That means families, that means spouses and everything,” 

XTO: adds 20 employees to Williston field office.

Walmart: to re-model their stores in Williston, ND, and Wahpeton, ND -- only two Walmart stores in ND to announce facelifts.

Amazon HQ2: a few days ago I ranked Amazon's HQ2 list. Now, The WSJ provides their ranking. Apparently, for some reason, The WSJ only ranked US cities, did not include the one non-US city in its ranking.

• First tier: Dallas; DC proper; Montgomery County, MD; northern Virginia
• Second tier: Atlanta; Miami; Boston; Seattle
• Third tier: Raleigh, NC; LA; Indianapolis; Denver
• Fourth tier: Chicago, Austin, TX; Columbus, OH; NYC
• Fifth tier: Philadelphia; Pittsburgh; Nashville, TN; Newark, NJ

Based on this list, and thinking about this again, my final three, based on this single question, of the cities listed, where would Jeff Bezos most like to spend six months of every year?

• Washington, DC
• Raleigh, NC
• northern Virginia

Soros: the one name that no mentions at Davos.

Phoenix rising: Saudi Aramco refining.

Over the past five years, Saudi Arabian Oil Co., known as Aramco, has boosted its global refining capacity by more than a third to 5.4 million barrels a day, helped by new facilities along the kingdom’s Red Sea and Persian Gulf coasts. The kingdom also has commissioned an additional refinery in the southwest of the country, set to come online in 2019.

These moves and others including taking full control of the biggest U.S. refinery, in Port Arthur, Texas, have vaulted Aramco’s global refining capacity beyond Western rivals such as Exxon Mobil Corp. , Royal Dutch Shell RDS.B, and BP BP. But unlike Aramco, the international oil majors already had strong downstream businesses to bolster their earnings when crude prices plummeted just over three years ago.

Saudi Arabia is now one of the top three exporters of diesel to Europe—the world’s largest diesel market for passenger vehicles—grabbing market share from the continent’s two longtime suppliers, Russia and the U.S. Saudi diesel sales to Europe in October rose more than 50% year-over-year, while European imports of American diesel fell by 34% during the same period, according to the International Energy Agency.

Russia has passed Saudi Arabia as the world’s biggest producer, and the U.S. is set to overtake Saudi crude output for the first time in a generation. At the same time, the kingdom is fighting off threats to its market share in China from Russia, the U.S. and fellow OPEC members like Iraq.

Near-Arctic: China declares itself a "near-Arctic state."  Ironically, Obama had planned to pull out of the Arctic. From the linked article:

In its first policy paper on the Arctic, Beijing acknowledges Chinese territory doesn’t touch the Arctic Circle. Still, the paper declares China a “Near-Arctic State” with an interest in developing shipping, carrying out scientific research and exploiting the region’s oil, gas, minerals, fisheries and other natural resources.

The report puts a policy gloss on China’s increasing activities in the polar region, from sailing cargo vessels through its seas in the warmer months to a multibillion-dollar investment in a liquefied natural gas project on Russia’s Yamal peninsula. The strategy also fits with China’s efforts to invest in new frontiers, such as space and deep-sea research, in a bid to surpass the U.S. and other powers.

“China is really good at long-term planning,” said Malte Humpert, founder of Washington, D.C.-based think tank The Arctic Institute. He said China’s plans amount to a low-risk bet with a payoff that may not come for decades. “They are ahead of the curve.”