The Market, Energy, And Political Page, Part 3, T+65 -- May 4, 2018

Why?

• huge jobs report this morning: guarantees the Fed will raise rates
• 10-year Treasury: just under the god-awful 3% rate
• Mueller ready to subpoena Trump
• Trump ready to start a trade war with China
• alt-left says Korean peace talk is bogus
• John Bolton ready to go to war with Iran
• TSLA slumping
• oil surging --> inflationary pressure
• equities can't compete on yields any more
• global economic slowdown
• healthcare costs taking money out of investors' pockets
• Kanye West banned on Detroit hip-hop radio station
• global warming means the end of earth as we know it
• Trump, Pence, Cruz to speak at NRA convention in Dallas today
• "Honduran Caravan" immigrants invading southern California
• Friday, day before weekend

And yet the Dow is surging today. Now up over 338 points. Why?

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Update On Keystone XL
(Yes, That Pipeline)

Update, link here:

• first, old news: despite a leak on the "old" Keystone, some months ago, Nebraska regulators "voted in favor of the "new" Keystone XL
• TransCanada appears to begin work on the "new" Keystone XL this fall: clearing vegetation ahead of construction; Reuters cites a letter from the US State Department to Native American communities in Montana, near the route of the pipeline
• TransCanada has not yet made a final investment decision (FID) on the $8 billion project (US dollars)
• having said that, TransCanada confirms that it expects construction of the Keystone XL to begin in 2019
• if not further delayed, I would assume a start date in 2019 could mean a completion date by the end of 2020

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AAPL, AAPL On The Wall (Street)

Who's The Fairest of Them All?

Apple posts best week since 2011.  -- CNBC

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Harold Hamm Who?

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Amazon Really Is Amazing

The WSJ had a review of a book that looked like the "perfect" book for our son-in-law who lives out-of-state (i.e., not in the state we live in, the state of confusion. LOL. Just kidding, the state of Texas).

So, surf over to Amazon, a simple click or two and the book is on its way. No state tax if the state it is being sent to has no state tax. No driving to brick-and-mortar store to see if it is in stock (most likely it is not). No buying it and paying the 8% Texas state tax (if it in stock). No taking it home, wrapping it, and then driving to the US Post Office to pay $6.00 to have it shipped. Amazon ships it for free. And, not only that, it will arrive in two days.

Truly amazing.

And one more thing. I can begin reading it immediately, either on my laptop or on a tablet. 

The Market, Energy, And Political Page, Part 2, T+65 -- May 4, 2018

Updates

May 5, 2018: gets little "play" in the mainstream press. Found this on the ultra-conservative Washington Examiner. I wonder if Kanye West is aware of this? Unemployment rates for African-Americans and Hispanics hit record lows.

The unemployment rate for black workers dropped to 6.6 percent, beating the previous record low of 6.8 percent set in December, 2017 (also during the Trump presidency).

The jobless rate for Hispanics fell to 4.8 percent, tying the record reached last year and in 2006.

Kanye West would note that Valerie Jarrett is living in the past, giving credit for the strong economy to President Barack, a dead duck president as of about 2014, more than four years ago. She starts out talking about Obama's first year in office, 2009 - almost a decade ago. But if you want to give Obama credit for the economy, "that sounds like a choice."

Original Post 

I especially like "Apple all-time high." I completely missed that.

Warren Buffett has sold off all of his IBM. Apparently he replaced IBM with AAPL.

WTI surging, as is Brent.

The technical data does not support $70 oil, but geopolitics certainly does.

One comment: Present Trump doesn't talk much about "lines in the sand," certainly not as much as his predecessor, but he keeps his word. One might do well to take Trump seriously but not literally.

Has Mueller jumped the shark? Tapping phone calls? Oh, that's right. That wasn't supposed to be "released" by NBC. They were just supposed to say that Mueller or the FBI or the "deep state" or someone was simply "monitoring" phone calls to the White House. Even an occasional die-hard Hillary supporter might question the propriety of tapping phone calls going to the White House, even if the ACLU won't. I'm hoping to see a tweet from John Brennan on the propriety of US security agencies, like the CIA, tapping phone calls to the White House. My understanding is that Brennan has tweeted twelve times to date. Or something like that.

Chuck Schumer: "...six ways to Sunday."

Disclaimer: I make a lot of simple arithmetic errors. I often see things that do not exist; I read quickly and miss important points. Sometimes it takes me days (maybe even weeks) to see where I was wrong.

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

Canadian oil revenue is falling despite production growth. Well, if you can't a) ship it; and/or b, sell it, what does one expect?

How's the rest of the market doing:

• RDS-B: up 1%.
• BRK-B: up 1.4%.
• OAS: up 1.5%.
• EOG: down 1.3% (profit-taking?)

The market is up almost 300 points after the jobs report, and this is the screen shot from Yahoo!Finance at 11:34 a.m., May 4, 2018, from the video is now the "banner" video:

The unemployment rate drops below the psychological barrier of 4%; unemployment is at an 18-year low; after one full year of Trump, America is great again; but let's point out the stock market is ugly.

By the way, this points out exactly the "Wall Street vs Main Street" discussions.

The stock market is down: huge buying opportunity and apparently Warren Buffett took advantage of it. As Jim Cramer would say, there's always a "bull market somewhere." Right now, it may be in the Bakken.

Please look at the disclaimers.

Warren: $42,052 million in AAPL stock. At 1.5% return:

• $630,780,000 / year
• $1,728,164 / day
• $72,007 / hour

.... but he's still a Hillary supporter. What a great country. And based on what I've read, Warren would vote for Bernie and not Trump. And he still says his secretary pays more than he does in taxes (on a percentage of income). Hopefully the Trump Tax Cut changed that. If so, we will never know, will we?

Some P/Es: 

• AAPL: 19
• FB: 33, no dividend
• GOOG: 57, no dividend
• AMZN: 257, no dividend
• TSLA: n/a  but if Tesla earned a penny, it's P/E would be 2,889; no dividend, maybe not even a future

Thoughts On The Unemployment Rate -- May 4, 2018

Wow, wow, wow. 

Pardon the interruption: WTI is surging: up over 2%. Now up $1.38. Trading very, very close to $70. 

Anyone want to hazard a guess why? For me, it's pretty obvious. One five-letter word.

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Thoughts On The Unemployment Rate

Updates

May 6, 2018: see first comment. I've also placed that comment at a new post to give it the attention it deserves. 

May 6, 2018:

Original Post  

Now back to what I was doing.

Starting with this link, one can generate this chart, U-6, unemployment, defined as:

U-6 Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force.

Labor participation rate from this link:

I think these graphics are important. Comments and questions:

• under previous administrations, when the unemployment rate dropped even 0.1% when the rate was much higher, the network talking heads seemed to fall all over themselves extolling how things were getting better
• under this administration, with "everyone" agreeing that we are at "full employment" and there is no slack for additional workers, the unemployment rate fell not 0.1% but 0.2% and CNBC talking heads practically ignored the significance (if indeed there was any)
• humans seem fixated on numbers; getting to an unemployment rate below 4% is certainly a "psychological" milestone, if not a historic, economic milestone, and yet, CNBC talking heads brushed over it -- in fact, they made sure to note that "new" jobs came in "slightly under expectations" (that was the theme even later when Steve Liesman interviewed a member of the Fed -- why the ho-hum attitude? I thought I had misheard CNBC''s senior analyst when he said the unemployment rate was 3.9% -- really? under 4% after months and months -- and after months and months when talking heads kept expecting the rate to fall below 4% and it didn't -- and the senior analyst seemed to have the same enthusiasm as reporting the sun came up in the east again today
• Steve Liesman and others ask "where will more workers come from" with an unemployment rate of 3.9%? look at the charts above, perhaps?
• why didn't the market crash this morning? the employment number guarantees the Fed will raise rates by the end of June, 2018
• in the big scheme of things, is there really much difference between 67% and 63% when it comes to labor participation rate? How accurate/reproducible is the data? 
• if there is a significant difference between 67% and 63% for labor participation, is there not now significant wiggle room for additional workers to join the labor market?
• with an unemployment rate below 4%, is there really a need for a Bernie-Sanders-full-employment bill? I assume there is if one can't pass a drug urinalysis test in states that have legalized marijuana
• with a U-6 rate of almost 8% and a labor participation rate of only 63%, is there not yet some slack to answer the question raised by Steve Liesman and others (or am I missing something)?
• why is the labor participation rate dropping (assuming there is a significant difference between 67% and 63%)? And why did the participation rate rise slightly after Donald Trump was elected president and then level off?
• do military opportunities have any effect whatsoever on US non-military employment?
• to what extent is the US public school system and community colleges failing to prepare individuals for those skills that guys like Bill Gates and Mark Cuban say we need guest (foreign) workers? Why are foreign countries able to supply those workers (both at the low end -- farming -- and at the high end -- technology) when the US seemingly cannot?
• at the low end, is the US economic safety net too generous?
• at the high end, are public schools, community colleges, and universities failing us?

Anyway, even if CNBC won't, I will via, courtesy of the Drudge Report:

I especially like "Apple all-time high." I completely missed that. 

No Wells Coming Off The Confidential List Today -- May 4, 2018

No wells coming off the confidential list today. 

Active rigs:

	5/4/2018	05/04/2017	05/04/2016	05/04/2015	05/04/2014
Active Rigs	62	50	28	84	185

RBN Energy: E&P profits appears ready to take off this year after turning a corner in 2017. Was the Saudi Surge the best thing that could ever have happened to US shale companies? I think so. It weeded out many, many marginal companies; it make the operators meaner and leaner; it reminded investors of harsh realities.

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

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The Fine Arts And Literary Page

My reading this weekend: The Three Mona Lisas, Rab Hatfield, c. 2014. See review here. The summary:

"The most elusive sense of 'mystery' ever captured in a portrait" and the historical contradiction concerning the identity of the represented woman as "Mona Lisa," the wife of a Florentine silk merchant, or a Florentine lady, painted on request of the Magnificent Giuliano de' Medici, incited (poor choice of a word, in my opinion) Rab Hatfield to find out the truth about La Jaconde, the famous portrait of the rich Louvre Museum in Paris.

In Three Mona Lisas Hatfield's argumentation (another poor choice of a word, in my opinion) leads to the conclusion that Leonardo da Vinci overpainted this masterpiece twice (thus the "three" Mona Lisas), changing ti from the portrait of Mona Lisa, ordered by her husband Francesco del Giocondo, to that of La Gioconda, refashioned on demand of the Medici prince, admirer of this masterpiece if not of the represented person herself.

Thus Leonardo turned the individualized portrait of a middle-class housewife into "the idealized and somewhat fantasized portrait of a fascinating and perhaps unattainable woman", or rather into a "metaperson", due to "the double reworking that ... has here produced a masterpiece that ... can never be repeated". 

We need not say that this is a nearly surrealistic theory.

I have had the opportunity to see the Mona Lisa in the Louvre not less than a dozen times (while stationed in Germany for seven years, visiting Paris countless times and the Louvre almost as many times). However, it is a small painting, maybe 8 x 11 inches, and so surrounded by museum-goers, I think I have actually only seen it twice. Maybe once.

I picked up the hardcover book at the Kimbell Museum in Ft Worth (TX) yesterday, while visiting the special Asian exhibition. My wife loved the exhibition. Her mother is/was Japanese. Most of the exhibition centered around China.

Because I am still in my China phase, I enjoyed the historical plaques with each item but I did not particularly care for the exhibit itself.

The exhibit helped reinforce what little Chinese history I can recite without note cards, to include the major dynasties, the Han, Tang, Yuan, Ming, and Qing.

The Han: four hundred years centered on either side of the birth of Christ.

The Yuan: the first time (only time), China was ruled by a foreign group.

Ming: three hundred years ending just as the time of the Black Plague occurred in Europe. The two were not related, obviously -- at least as far as I know .... although....

Qing: following the Ming. Ended with the "Chinese" revolution of 1911.

Tang introduced cobalt blue but the Mings greatly expanded the technology.

Oh, my goodness, it just dawned on me -- the etymology of the word "crock" for crock pots. Oh ... my ... goodness.

The Market, Energy, And Political Page, T+65 -- May 4, 2018

CAFE standards. Why I love to blog:

• from The WSJ yesterday
• from the blog three years ago 

Unemployment

• for April, 2018, unemployment rate (U-3) drops to 3.9%; drops from 4.1% where it had been for months 
• CNBC: ho-hum -- says labor figures came in "slightly below expectations" for the second month ina  row; number of people employed increased 138,000 two months ago; increased 164,000 last month
• time to start measuring U-6 unemployment and labor force participation rate -- seriously -- we'll get back to this later

Boom: 47 states reported an increase in GDP during Trump's first full year in office; I do think this might be a record; can't wait to see the three state that failed. I assume ND would be one of the three after such a strong oil boom moving into a manufacturing state; nope, I was wrong, ND's GDP increased by 1.0%; the three:

• Kansas 
• Louisiana (that should change this year)
• Connecticut

Trans Mountain: Ottawa to "sue." Says federal government still has "some" say in how the country should be governed. LOL. This is a big deal. If British Columbia prevails, the "Supreme Court" of Canada is essentially saying that BC can go its own route (no pun intended) -- even separate from the union. That may be hyperbole; I don't think so.

AAPL: Warren buys another 75 million shares. Already owned 165.3 million. At $175/share = $175 x 240.3 = $42,052 million. Those would be American dollars, not Venezuelan Bolivars.

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

Disclaimer: I make a lot of simple arithmetic errors. I often see things that do not exist; I read quickly and miss important points. Sometimes it takes me days (maybe even weeks) to see where I was wrong.

Disclaimer: many of these bullets are being posted "from memory." I will come back to double-check later. Maybe.

Attention span: Americans, as a "group," have a very, very, very short attention span. The fact that the "Mueller investigation" is still the top story on CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC and a dozen other networks tells me all I need to know who's behind this effort.

Kanye West: Free Speech? Not for liberals. Kanye West's music has been banned on some liberal music station. And, of course, top link: CNN.

Missiles: how many missiles did the US and its allies fire at Syria a few weeks ago? Around 120. Not one missile was taken out by Syrian/Russian defenses. Not one missed its target. One-hundred-twenty missiles against three chemical "factories" that, apparently, had been abandoned and non-operational for months, if not years. If Trump and allies were willing to launch 120 multi-million-dollar missiles on such meaningless targets, how many missiles and smart bombs do you think Kim thought Trump was ready to launch and drop on Pyongyang? Yes, I thought so.

Ford: From Bloomberg: "By not investing in next generations of any car for North America except the Mustang, the company now anticipates it’ll reach an 8 percent profit margin by 2020, two years ahead of schedule." Comment: does anyone really believe Ford's strategy is no more "cars" except for the Mustang? I don't. "Strategy" is defined as ten years out.

Ford: the company's decision to not invest in next generations of any car for North America except the Mustang was brilliant. Right now, the biggest uncertainty US automakers face: 1) US CAFE standards; and, 2) California's CAFE standards. Ford has done what it can to minimize that uncertainty by taking control. Successful CEOs minimize uncertainty. Take control.

Cognitive dissonance: at least one viewer wants Scott Adams to give reasons why Trump should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. That same viewer did not provide any justification for President Obama a) being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize; and/or, b) being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Even in hindsight.