The Political Page, T+186 -- July 25, 2017

Huge thanks to Don for spotting this one.

The Energy And Market Page, Part II -- What's The Big Story For The Day?, T+186 -- July 25, 2017

Updates

Later, 8:31 a.m. Central Time: S&P 500 hits new record high. Wow.
 

Original Post

What's the big earnings story for today?

• GM earnings surprise; from Fortune
• McDonald's earnings and share action?
• CAT's shares up 5% in pre-market trading? Cramer says this is the biggest earnings report in this earnings season (2Q17).
• the Dow opening is forecast to open almost 200 points?

This is a rhetorical question; please do not reply/comment.

Futures: surging. Could the Dow hit a new high today? WTI up almost 2%. The Dow is forecast to open almost 200 points.

Cramer/CAT:

• CAT came back much stronger than Cramer thought
• no infrastructure bill
• oil was still well below $50 throughout the corner
• this takes me back to my story on the specialty truck company in Portland, OR; FAST (a July 15, 2017, post)

Disclaimer: I started watching CNBC at 5:00 a.m. but quickly switched to FBN. CNBC never changes. But as soon as Stu Varney came on, I immediately switched to Cramer over at CNBC. Varney's opening monologue (which will continue all day): US Senate vote on healthcare. 

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For The Archives

I've probably eaten at more McDonald's restaurants across the country than anyone reading this. McDonald's is really the only spot I stop when traveling cross-country because I know I will have reliable wi-fi. I sometimes stop at Starbucks but not nearly as often as I used to.

One can pretty much be assured that the food will be absolutely the same from one McDonald's to another McDonald's. The only thing that really changes from one Mickey D's to another is the ambience, and that ambience seems to be directly related to a) the region of the country; and, b) urban or rural.

One would think that "rural" would be generally better but that's not always the case. Some of the worst McDonald's have been in low density areas where one would expect they would be happy to see you. But I suppose in some "rural" locations it's hard to find workers and the ambience of a McDonald's is directly related to the "quality" of its employees.

Snopes On The Ropes -- NY Times -- July 26, 2017

Long-term readers know my thoughts about Snopes.com. So this NY Times headline caught my attention: Snopes, in heated legal battle, asks readers for money to survive.

Snopes, the fact-checking website that once focused on debunking flimsy internet rumors but has expanded into a 16-person operation that calls out political leaders for dishonesty, is locked in a legal battle that it says has drained the money it needs to survive.

The site, which gets all of its revenue from advertising, created a crowdfunding page on Monday, seeking $500,000 from readers to remain operational indefinitely. It says that Proper Media, the vendor that runs its advertising services, has withheld the site’s revenue and has refused to relinquish control of the site. That leaves Bardav — the company that owns and operates Snopes — with no way of moving the site to a new host or installing its own ads, said David Mikkelson, a founder of the site.

“We have had no income whatsoever for the last several months,” Mr. Mikkelson said in an interview on Monday.

When asked how long the site could last without a successful fund-raising drive or legal victory, Mr. Mikkelson responded: “Not a whole lot longer.”

The other side of the story is completely different, according to the linked story. It looks like we need Snopes to fact check the story of its imminent demise. LOL.

With regard to the Bakken, Snopes has never updated it's March 10, 2011, post on the Bakken.

According to news accounts, although new drilling techniques have greatly increased oil production in Bakken formation in recent years, as of February 2011 that region was still yielding less than half a million barrels per day. 

Snopes was consistently negative on the Bakken throughout that fact-checking post and never updated the evolution of the Bakken.

Snopes completely missed the Bakken revolution. 

If I recall correctly, Snopes started out as a website run by one person (or possibly a husband-wife team) with no research department (in other words, simply another blog) with its own agenda. [Update: a reader sent me this link -- yes, it was a husband-wife team.]

Of course, one wonders if the whole story is fake, particularly coming from The New York Times. LOL. 

The Energy And Market Page, T+186 -- July 25, 2017

The other day, Don had some thoughts on the market going forward. This was my not-ready-for-prime-time e-mail reply.

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

Disclaimer: I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken, and similarly inappropriately exuberant about the current economy. I have always been inappropriately optimistic about the US economy -- since 1984.

My thoughts in that e-mail, with slight editing:

I think Jamie Dimon was right: with Trump's agenda, the economy will grow very, very fast; without Trump's agenda, the economy won't grow any more slowly; in other words, Dimon thinks that even if Trump's agenda is stopped cold, the US economy will continue growing.

1. ENERGY: I think cheap energy prices are percolating throughout the entire economy.

2. MONEY: Cheap money continues to percolate through the entire economy. Even Janet Yellen seems more dovish all of a sudden; she either sees something that scares her or she wants to keep her job.

3. REGULATIONS: I have a note from a businessman in ND who says the change in federal regulations are already affecting how fast contractors can get things done in ND. In some cases, EPA, etc. would have slowed project start dates as long as eleven years; they're now seeing these delays going down to two or three years.

4. ATTITUDE: Amazon, Apple, Google, Tesla, JPMorgan, etc., all have a huge appetite to keep growing. Making America Great may sound like a simple slogan but it too percolates through the whole economy. Folks don't want to be left standing at the depot when the train pulls out. And several trains have already left the station. Amazon hit new highs yesterday. NASDAQ hit the 50th record high since Trump's election or something like that.

5. BALKANIZED: Whatever the US does as a whole, the economy, like politics, is going to become more regionalized. Despite my continued negative comments on California has, it remains a growth engine in technology. Texas cannot be held back. RBN Energy said Florida got a new natural gas pipeline in for the first time in decades and I don't think Florida can be held back. Financial institutions in Boston -- not going to be held back. The recent CNBC story said Minnesota was a great place to start a new business and Washington State was the best state to start a new business, so even those states are doing something right.

6. I think if the economy were to turn real ugly, it would have to be a "black swan" as they say -- something that no one expects.

Opportunity to weigh in: poll at sidebar. 

Bakken Déjà Vu -- Is There Enough Pipeline Capacity Coming Out Of The Permian? -- RBN Energy -- July 25, 2017

Active rigs:

$47.08	7/25/2017	07/25/2016	07/25/2015	07/25/2014	07/25/2012
Active Rigs	58	32	73	192	208

RBN Energy: squeeze coming to NGL takeaway capacity out of the Permian?

A big question mark hanging over the Permian like a dark cloud is whether there will be sufficient pipeline takeaway capacity to deal with continued production growth in the U.S.’s hottest shale play.

Mostly, takeaway-adequacy questions are asked about either crude oil or natural gas, but ensuring sufficient NGL pipeline capacity out of the Permian may ultimately be the biggest challenge of all. Why? Because just about everything involving NGLs seems to be more complicated — how they are produced, transported, stored and even priced. Today we begin a series on Permian natural gas processing, natural gas liquids production growth and existing plus planned NGL pipelines out of West Texas and southeastern New Mexico.