TGIF -- December 10, 2021

Updates

Later, 1:52 p.m. CT: talking on head on CNBC -- what company has "pricing power" -- able to pass its prices on to consumers. "His" choice, AAPL. But he's waiting to jump in when AAPL pulls back "a bit." He is waiting to buy back in when AAPL goes down to its September, 2021, highs of 155. Today, AAPL is up over $3.00 and trading at $177. 

Later, 9:00 a.m. CT; consumer sentiment 70.4 vs 68. Amazing.

Later, 8:16 a.m. CT: Donald Trump's SPAC is up four percent. Could open at $58. Lucid recovers; up over 4% -- again, these are all futures. AMD has recovered; the chips have all recovered and some are surging; look at Broadcom. Big Pharma, generally down a bit, as vaccine mandates fade. Oracle up 16%. Again, futures. Holy mackerel, I had not seen how far ATT had fallen. ATT and Discovery are both down 20% for the year. 

Back to Spam (see below), from yesterday:

Hormel's sales rose 43% from the prior year to $3.5 billion, aided as well by the addition of Planters which the company acquired from Kraft Heinz for $3.35 billion earlier this year. Operating profits for Hormel rose 29% from a year ago.

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site.  Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here.

Later, 8:10 a.m. CT: okay, I broke down -- with the CPI having been reported and the market surging, the VIX dropping, and 10-year treasury dropping, I just had to check in on Jim Cramer, et al, on CNBC. Incredibly upbeat. 

Nothing has changed -- they were engaged in conversation about the ports in southern California and said the same thing I said last night -- about cargo ships being anchored over the horizon, out of sight, and, transit times are being doubled, as boats slow down crossing the Pacific.

Then, of all things, Jim Cramer noted that Hormel can't keep Spam on the shelf. I've talked about that before and it's impossible to find Spam. Okay, that's a bit of hyperbole but not much. I don't see much Spam on the shelves right now, but I keep a small stock in reserve at home.

Later, 7:53 a.m. CT: if today's trading keeps pace with futures, I want to see two more things out of the Brandon administration:

• more releases of crude oil from the SPR: and,
• more government spending

LOL. 

The market could be huge today.

Original Post

Daimler Truck: day one. I'm am incredibly biased, but I think Daimler Truck is #1 or #2 now -- only Tesla and Daimler Truck are in the same league with regard to tractors. The new company is the largest truck maker in the United States by way of its Freightliner brand. Globally, Daimler Truck is also the largest maker of buses. Its other brands include Mercedes-Benz trucks and buses sold primarily in Europe and Fuso trucks sold in Asia.

CPI: 6.8%, y/y. Up 0.8 vs 0.7 est, m/m. Equity markets surge.

First group "financial / economic" indicators:

• 10-Year Treasury: link here.Trending up; at 1516%.
  
• DXY: link here. Trending up; at 96.36.
  
• Silver: link  here. Trending down; at $21.8780.
  
• CBOE volatility index: link here. Explained at Investopedia. Had been trending down significantly the last couple of days; yesterday up almost 4%, today trending down, down about 4%. 

Global warming:

• we hit a record high yesterday; 
• today it will be a bit tougher to hit a new record simply because the current record is a bit higher than the old record yesterday
  
• 6:25 a.m. at DFW, north Texas: 70°F
• forecast: high of 82°F; sun, no precipitation;
• through the next few days, back to a high in the mid- and high-60s
• by Wednesday next week, back to 80°F

Photo of the day: link here. 

*****************************
Back to the Bakken

EIA: North Dakota's natural gas producers met the state's natural gas capture target. Link here.

Active rigs:

$71.66	12/10/2021	12/10/2020	12/10/2019	12/10/2018	12/10/2017
Active Rigs	29	15	54	64	53

Friday, December 10, 2021: 60 for the month, 63 for the quarter, 314 for the year:
36306, conf, Bruin, FB Belford 148-95-22D-15-7B,

RBN Energy:  Canada's Trans Mountain Pipeline restarts after three-week shutdown. 

Trans Mountain Pipeline, the only pipeline that connects crude oil production areas in Alberta to Canada’s West Coast and the U.S. Pacific Northwest, has started to resume operations after a three-week shutdown. The pipeline closure — the longest in TMP’s 68-year history — began November 14 after major flooding exposed portions of the 300-Mb/d conduit, which also carries some refined products. Fortunately, Trans Mountain did not suffer any severe damage, breaks, or spills, and its operators were able to initiate a phased restart on December 5 at reduced pressures. Full service is expected to be restored soon. So what happens when a primary source of crude oil to five refineries — four in Washington state and one in British Columbia — is removed from service with little notice? In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the impacts.

From the article: 

The four Washington state refineries north of Seattle import from TMP in roughly equal amounts, averaging close to 50 Mb/d each over the first nine months of 2021. 

As we said earlier, crude exports from TMP to the Pacific Northwest have averaged 206 Mb/d through 2021 to date, which means that TMP was providing about one-third of all the crude into these refineries when compared to their combined refining capacity (206 Mb/d of imports divided by 619 Mb/d of capacity). The small differences are likely due to timing and reporting differences. 

However, these refineries also have more flexible access via dockside terminals to receive waterborne crude, as well as the ability to rail in crude oil, mostly Bakken crude, from other parts of the U.S. and Canada (except for HollyFrontier’s Puget Sound refinery, which does not have rail access). Based on crude railing data for the third quarter of this year from the Washington Department of Ecology (WDOE), crude from the Bakken averaged 90 Mb/d and from Alberta averaged 31 Mb/d. Of that railed amount, EIA data indicates 14 Mb/d went to the US Oil & Refining center in Tacoma, leaving 76 Mb/d for the state’s four other refineries.