Interesting, Interesting Day -- The Market, Energy, And Political Page, T+47 -- April 16, 2018

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Wow, I'm in a good mood. For those paying attention, this has been an incredibly good weekend from my point of view. I'm probably in the minority but wow! it's been incredible.

There is simply too much to write, so maybe some quick "one-liners."

Trucking: anyone paying attention probably not surprised by JB Hunt today -- shares are up 6% today.

Bank of America: look at this -- BAC's earnings up 51%. This company was specifically mentioned by one of the CNBC guys a few weeks ago -- when the question of banks came up -- he was very, very bullish on BAC -- saying that this was "the one bank" in which to invest.

Netflix: earnings huge; beat expectations. Netflix up almost 7% intra-day. My hunch: will go even higher tomorrow. Netflix US net adds rise 1.96 million, more than expected; on top of that, the first quarter is usually soft for "new adds." "The Next Big Thing" was based on Netflix -- that was back in 2013. Wow. How prescient. Netflix market cap could match the market cap for Disney. Wow.

Schwab: huge day; up 4%.

Overall market: imagine what the market would have done today if the missile barrage on Syria had occurred at 10:30 a.m. EDT this morning (Monday, April 16). In fact, for the archives, the missile barrage, which lasted all of 15 minutes, was late Friday night. Price of oil up significantly in anticipation of "war" in the Mideast. Today, price of oil is down a bit more than 1%. If one wants to "understand" how the Mideast is playing out, follow the price oil. With price of oil down a bit more than 1% today, it tells me that, for now, traders think this is the end of "this issue" this time around. There is war of words and war of bullets: the war of bullets is over -- "mission accomplished" -- and the war of words .... the amazing thing -- the markets have completely ignored the missile barrage -- the talk shows tonight (and during the rest of the week) will talk ad nauseum about events in Syria -- but the markets are telling me --- a big "yawn."

Comey: the best news for Trump supporters -- the Friday night barrage speaks volumes about all that talk about Russian collusion -- Rush Limbaugh has this figured out.

Jobs: I don't know if WSJ was writing this story from a positive, neutral, or negative point of view -- I read the headliney; haven't read the article yet. But for teenagers, this is incredibly good news and exactly what Trump was hoping for. "Facing history labor shortages, companies snap up teenagers." And the teenagers today are technologically very, very savvy. 

Tesla: this might be the big investment story of the day -- on a day that the market did very, very nicely, Tesla had a bad day:

Kinder Morgan: Canadian pipeline, Trans Mountain pipeline -- I find this story most interesting on so many levels -- PM Justin Trudeau says the pipeline will be built.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is pledging financial backing and legislation to ensure that the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is completed, after B.C. Premier John Horgan gave no ground at a hastily called meeting in Ottawa on Sunday.

Emerging from a two-hour session on Parliament Hill, Mr. Trudeau and Alberta Premier Rachel Notley made it clear that their respective governments are determined to see construction proceed this summer, despite legal and political challenges from B.C. and protests on the ground.

Read this closely:

On Sunday, Mr. Horgan continued to insist that he has an obligation to protect B.C. coasts from oil spills and said his government will pursue a reference in federal court to clarify his government’s authority to regulate transportation of oil-sands bitumen through the province.

“We continue to disagree on the question of moving diluted bitumen from Alberta to the port of Vancouver,” he said.

He added, however, that he will stand down if the court rules against his government. The B.C. Premier said the tone of the meeting was cordial, noting that Mr. Trudeau assured him Ottawa would not pursue measures to punish B.C. over its pipeline position.

Starbucks bathroom policy: it sounds like Starbucks has an "open-door" policy for anyone who wants to use Starbucks bathrooms whether or not someone who wants to use the Starbucks customer is a customer or not. We'll see how this goes during a huge event when scores of folks show up to use Starbucks bathroom. We'll see how this goes in Starbucks stores in urban areas where there is a large number of homeless living. I do agree, that in this case, the manager "blew it" when he/she called the police, but my hunch is that there is more to the story than we are being told. I've never seen any situation in which someone was asked to leave Starbucks simply while waiting for a friend/colleague to show up. Something tells me there is much more to this story.