Ouch! WTI Drops To Five-Month-Low; Gasoline Demand Turns Ugly -- The Good News -- The Price Of Gasoline Dropping At Our Neighborhood Exxon -- May 4, 2017

Now, down more than 5%:

Earlier, just down 2%:

Jim Cramer over at CNBC feels comfortable that WTI won't dip into the 30's. Okay.

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Gasoline Demand

Of course, this goes against my argument that jobs data correlates with gasoline demand, but it is what it is. This is simply not good. Gasoline demand is well below what it was a year ago and trending in the wrong direction, and if I recall, last year was not exactly a great year for the economy. Now we have this:

Surge Seen In CBR From 2017 - 2021 -- Daily Oil Bulletin -- May 4, 2017

Original article at Daily Oil Bulletin. Someone posted, apparently, the entire article over at Investor Village. Archived.

The Bakken is mentioned often in that article as is DAPL.

For the record, I don't buy it: I don't see any surge in CBR out of Canada between now and 2020.

But if one buys into it, these things support the thesis:

• huge CAPEX deferral / cancellations since 2014 could result in huge demand/supply imbalance by 2020
• political environment won't permit (m)any new crude oil pipelines in the US
• Canada unlikely to connect any pipelines to their western ports in the next several years
• Enbridge could lose a huge pipeline: Enbridge Line 5

Enbridge might want to start investing in CBR rather than wind. Just saying. 

Make America Great Again -- First Time Claims Plunge 19,000 -- May The Force Be With You -- May 4, 2017

First time unemployment claims: posted.

• prior: 257,000
• consensus: 246K
• consensus range: 245 - 250,000
• actual: a huge beat -- dropped 19,000 to 238,000  
• 4-week moving average: 243,000
• it will be interesting to see how the mainstream media reports this
• futures market unchanged after release of data

Engaged! I haven't watched MSNBC or "Morning Joe" in months. Then this linked by Drudge (thank goodness for Drudge): Joe Scarborough and Mike Brzezinski are engaged to be married. Wow. Both are divorcees. He has had two divorces.

The Energy And Market Page, T+104 -- May 4, 2017

Boom? Dow 30 futures suggest market could open up 50 to 60 points.

Bust? WTI down 1.5%. Support at $47? We'll see. The good news: based on yesterday's drawdown, only 200 days until US supply/demand "rebalanced." Meanwhile Saudi Arabia caught with hand in the cookie jar, or better said, with siphoning hose in their crude oil storage depots. 

Saudi Aramco IPO: "everything" will still be controlled by Saudi "government." I guess that means no voting rights for shareholders. I wonder how the SEC feels about this.

Beating the Saudis to the punch? Kuwait Energy to be OPEC state's first London-traded company.

Stallion: Ferrari's profit jumps on surging demand for big-engine supercars. Several story lines in this article, but this is what caught my attention: Ferrari is on track to deliver 8,400 vehicles this year. Meanwhile, Musk Melon says he will deliver 5,000 vehicles high-end, luxury EVs each week starting this July. As of today, folks who follow this industry suggest that Tesla has not begun Model 3 production yet, and has not done any on-the-road testing. I don't know. But it's pretty incredible that a company that's been in business for decades is "on track to produce 8,400 vehicles this year" and then there's a start-up that says it can produce 5,000 vehicles per week.

Compliance? It depends on the definition of "compliance." Some data points form Platts:

• OPEC April output unchanged from March output
• total output 80,000 bopd greater than agreed-upon ceiling when Indonesia production (730,000bopd) added in (Indonesia suspended its OPEC membership, November, 2016)
• production increases in Angola, Nigeria offset drops in Libya, Iraq (and now Libya is back "up" again in April)
• overall, Platts sees all this as "in compliance" 
• as noted: depends on the definition 

The Political Page, T+104 -- May 4, 2017

But the ads are funny. A talking head made an interesting point about millennials yesterday: it had to do with "accident forgiveness" that is now a marketing gimmick for car insurance companies. It turns out someone noted this two years ago. It also explains why so many folks are excited about "driverless cars." (Hint: think parallel parking.)

First time unemployment claims: posted.

• prior: 257,000
• consensus: 246K
• consensus range: 245 - 250,000
• actual: a huge beat -- dropped 19,000 to 238,000  
• 4-week moving average: 243,000
• it will be interesting to see how the mainstream media reports this

Buy on the rumor; sell on the news. Hope spring eternal. Bait and switch: some suggest that futures today reflect a "repeal and replace" bill in the US House. LOL.

Similarities: timing of the US House vote is like NASA launches -- "T-minus three hours and holding." I wouldn't be surprised if there's a "whether" delay -- "whether or not it's worth holding the vote."

Death spiral: Aetna will exit Virginia in 2018.