The Market, Energy, And Political Page, Part 2, T+9 -- May 17, 2018

Quick takes:

• US birth rate drops to record low
• most common birth name in the UK: Muhammad (link)
• WSJ: oil is above $70, but frackers still struggle to make money (link) -- think Amazon
• Mexican presidential election getting closer -- July 1 is a la vuelta de la esquina
• window seat safe again: Southwest Airlines completes engine inspections
• Australia on track to become world's largest LNG exporter by next year, but right now faces an LNG shortage that has made imports a "very urgent need" (link)
• Brent hit $80 for first time since November, 2014; Iran sanction concerns (link)

Off the blog until later this morning: family commitment. Good luck to all. We leave you with this:

• WTI: $72.18
• Dow futures: down 9 points
• WMB: up 1.57% pre-market trading according to some sources
• OAS: hit 52-week high yesterday; pre-market now, up another 1.54%
• UNP: up 0.75% yesterday, flat in pre-market today
• TSLA: showed a bit of life yesterday but down again today in pre-market
• most oil companies I looked at are "red" in pre-market trading despite WTI above $72
• BTC-USD: down half-a-percent yesterday
• ETH-USD: down a percent yesterday