Records, Records, Records -- October 3, 2018

Say what? The senior CNBC financial analyst continues to mis-read the market. Sees a bogeyman behind every economic indicator.

Record: speaking of economic indicators -- ISM service index soars. Link here, but the story is everywhere. The CNBC senior analyst apparently has not gotten the memo. From the link:

The Institute for Supply Management’s survey of non-manufacturing firms climbed to a postrecession high of 61.6 in September from 58.5. It’s also one of the highest levels ever in an index whose roots stretch back to the late 1990s. 

Interestingly, MarketWatch was actually pretty muted on this. But look at the WSJ:

Ramped up purchases in the services sector and spending by local governments at the end of their fiscal year pushed services-sector activity to the highest level on record.
The Institute for Supply Management on Wednesday said its nonmanufacturing index rose to 61.6 in September, the highest reading on record going back to 2008. A reading above 50 indicates activity is expanding across service and other industries, while a number below 50 signals contraction.

Trumponomics: finally, they're talking about the "Trump effect" yet to come. The Trump tax cut? The biggest effect will hit the US in 4Q18. Repeat: the Trump tax cut will have its biggest effect on the US in 4Q18.

Road to Canada -- re-posting:

Another record? From Rigzone -- Canadian oil pain grows as crude discount to WTI hits $40. Wow.

Canadian heavy crude’s discount to West Texas Intermediate futures increased to the widest in almost five years, raising the specter of local oil producers curtailing operations.

Western Canadian Select’s discount for November fell $1.25 to $40.75 a barrel Tuesday, the biggest since November 2013. The plunge came as new supply from Suncor Energy Inc.’s Fort Hills mine helps to fill pipelines to capacity.

“If you get this sustained wide differential, you are going to see these guys start to ramp down production,” Mike Walls, a Genscape Inc.

When discounts widened to $30 a barrel early this year on the back of a pipeline outage, companies including Cenovus Energy Inc. and Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. said they were cutting some production or starting maintenance earlier than planned. Yet, with oil sands maintenance soon to wind down and further maintenance not planned until next spring, there is “no relief valve for the next two to four months,” according to Walls.

Other grades of Canadian crude are also suffering.

While increasing volumes of oil are being shifted onto rail cars, the pickup in crude-by-rail has been slow.

Exports rose one percent in July from June to 207,000 barrels a day. Cenovus said last month it signed oil-by-rail agreements to ship about 100,000 barrels a day on tracks but the agreements won’t go into full effect until the second quarter next year.