Worse Timing Ever Or "Dead Cat Bounce" -- October 16, 2018

Updates

Later, 3:20 p.m.: talking head on CNBC now admits analysts are always slow to adjust earnings forecast when "things" change. Analysts did dot not take into account the Trump tax bill. Earlier this month (or was it last month?) a talking head on CNBC said that the biggest (positive) effect on earnings from the Trump tax bill would be seen in 4Q18. Note: these are earnings for 3Q18. So, if one thinks the big quarter will be the fourth quarter, look at these numbers coming out in 3Q18. 

Later, 3:13 p.m.: others --

• IBM - misses on revenue; falls 4%

Later, 3:06 p.m.: CNBC senior analyst seems surprised by Netflix beat. It was huge. On all levels. Netflix up 14%; up $49; now trading at $395. 

Later, at the close: 

Original Post

Prescient. CNBC predicted the Dow (irrelevant) would jump 500 points today -- and predicted that well before the market opened today (link here):

496. Right now (1:35 p.m., October 16, 2018), the Dow (irrelevant) is up 496 points. Could the Dow be up by 500 points any time today? Don't know. Just asking. CNBC crawler says Dow was up 500 points at least once during the day. Crawler: stocks are surging on earnings. On pace for best day since March, 2018.

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Proof That Pocahontas Is No Longer Being Taken Seriously 

The EIA Link Everyone Needs To Bookmark -- From A Reader -- October 16, 2018

The link.

The link is now a permanent link at the sidebar at the right, near the top, just under "new wells reporting."

A reader provided the link, perhaps one of the best links I failed to link. The reader will get a lifetime subscription to the blog as a way of thanks. Thank you. 

The Market, Energy, Political Page, T+ 64 -- October 16, 2018

Late. I was going to post this yesterday and then forgot. Yesterday afternoon, after watching the market and the news -- particularly the Khashoggi news -- it appeared to me that the US stock market (Dow, Nasdaq, S&P, etc) simply "hit the re-set button."

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.

Not late: watch this space. I'm thinking Drudge Report will link the Heidi Heitkamp "I Am Sparticus" moment by tomorrow. If not, Matt dropped the ball. LOL. If folks don't know the story, check out The Bismarck Tribune today. Wow.

The list. I am debating whether to post Heidi's "I Am Sparticus" list. My hunch is that the list will soon disappear from the web. But Heidi is going to have to talk to a lot of folks to get that list removed. Reminds me of the movie in which Meryl Streep starred, "Florence Foster Jenkins." The question not being asked: where did Heidi obtain such an interesting list? Four columns of names; each column 30 names long; cities where the women live, and in North Dakota, towns and cities are so small it won't take much googling to get mailing addresses or phone numbers of most on that list. More at Grand Forks Herald.

Boom! Making America great -- job openings hit record 7.136 million in August. Inflationary? We'll see. Job opportunities? You betcha. This should drive the market down today -- this news will encourage the Fed to raise rates in December. The Dow (irrelevant) following the news: up almost 300 points.

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They're Reading The Blog

We Are All Native Americans

I posted my note at 4:47 p.m. on October 15, 2018.

The WSJ posted its editorial late in the evening, 7:17 p.m. ET. Just saying.

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The Book Page

Regular readers probably know my reading habits by now.

If one has similar reading habits, I highly recommend Howard Bloom's The God Problem, c. 2012. One may not care for the author's writing style. I get a bit tired of it, but cutting through the chaff, getting to the barley seed, it is incredibly interesting. I'm only through page 126 of a 563-page book (with an additional 96 pages of notes) so I do not know how the book turns out but so far I am really enjoying it. But I can only read a few pages at a time; there is so much information to digest.

I've not yet gone to wiki to see the "origin" of the 12-inch ruler and I have no plans to do so. Regardless of the wiki story, I have my own myth -- it may be what others say or it may not; I don't know but ...

I thought of that when I went from the Sumerians trick of making perfect right angles, and then the Egyptians carrying the trick one step farther -- taking a rope at least 12-feet long and putting knots at 3, 4, and 5 feet. The rest is history, as they say. Brilliant.

3+4+5 = 12.

12 inches in a foot. Things don't  just happen. 

From the book, page 122:

The pyramid at Giza, commissioned by Pharoah Khufu in 2580 BC absolutely, no excuses, required perfect right angles. The pyramid required a perfect right-angle foundation. It would be the biggest such structure ever -- forty-eight modern stories tall. Two hundred and eighty arm-lengths high, two hundred and eighty Egyptian cubits. The height of roughly one hundred peasants' huts piled on top of each other. The height of seven ziggurats. The success or failure of a twenty-year-long project will depend on the precision of right angles. The pyramid will require 2.3 million blocks of stone. Blocks of stone whose smallest will be two and a half tons, and the biggest will max out at thirteen tons. It will require 800,000 workers....

Bad Timing Or "Dead Cat Bounce" -- October 16, 2018

Morning Note -- October 16, 2018 -- Bone Saws Are The New Box Cutters

From a presidential tweet this morning, a president with a great sense of humor and willing to share. This was part of a tweet thread that began with a tweet from President Trump:

LNG export terminals: link to an old post with list of LNG export terminals planned along the Texas / Louisiana coast. 

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The gloves are off: the other day I wrote that "the gloves are off," now that the world has come down hard on Saudi Arabia following the murder of Kashoggi. From Bloomberg:

For 45 years, it’s been considered out of bounds for Saudi Arabia. But all of a sudden, Riyadh made what many read as a veiled threat to use the kingdom’s oil wealth as a political weapon -- something unheard of since the 1973 Arab embargo that triggered the first oil crisis.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, said on Sunday it would retaliate against any punitive measures linked to the disappearance of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi with even “stronger ones." In an implicit reference to the kingdom’s petroleum wealth, the statement noted the Saudi economy “has an influential and vital role in the global economy.”

Roger Diwan, a longstanding OPEC watcher at consultant IHS Markit Ltd., said the Saudi comments broke “an essential oil market taboo.”

This had to have been the most well-planned state-level murder ever planned. International. One or two private jets land at Istanbul airport, arriving from Saudi Arabia. Fourteen thugs. Diplomatic bags? Fourteen guys just happen to arrive by plane the very same time the victim visits the consulate. One wonders to what degree the government of Turkey played a role. We've been through Istanbul numerous times: it's not an easy airport to get through with regard to passport control and customs.

I wonder if Mike Pompeo asked the Saudi King which brand they used. It looks like bone saws are the "new" box cutters.

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LNG Texas: Canada has their "LNG Canada" -- one project. And we still haven't seen how that will play out. But Texas? Texas has an "LNG Texas" project, too -- actually more than one can follow. Today, Rigzone is reporting that another LNG Texas project "advances":

NextDecade Corp. has secured a draft environmental impact statement (EIS) from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for its Rio Grande LNG project near Brownsville, Texas, along with its associated Rio Bravo Pipeline, the company reported Friday afternoon.

“We appreciate the FERC staff’s continued commitment to the review of our project,” Matt Schatzman, NextDecade’s president and CEO, said in a written statement. “The draft EIS represents a culmination of several years of analysis and evaluation in conjunction with multiple federal, state and local agencies and stakeholders.”

FERC, which reviews and permits LNG facilities in the United States, issued the draft EIS as required by the National Environmental Policy Act. The document follows a detailed review of environmental, engineering, social and other aspects of NextDecade’s proposed project. The 27-million-tonne-per-annum Rio Grande LNG export facility would receive natural gas from the Agua Dulce gas hub near Corpus Christi via the company’s 4.5 billion cubic foot per day Rio Bravo Pipeline.

Comment: there are many, many blog posts on LNG export terminals in Texas / Louisiana -- this post, at one time, provided a fairly comprehensive list of such terminals.

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Back to the Bakken

Wells coming off the confidential list today -- Tuesday, October 16, 2018:

• 34686, SI/NC, XTO, FBIR Yellowwolf 31X-10D, Heart Butte, no production data,
• 34474, SI/NC, XTO, FBIR Ironwoman 31X-10D, Heart Butte, no production data,
• 34079, SI/NC, XTO, Ravin 21X-15A, Siverston, no production data,
• 29774, 1,674, Slawson, Gobbler Federal 3-35-26H, Big Bend, 43 stages; 8.3 million lbs, t9/18; cum --

Active rigs;

$71.39→	10/16/2018	10/16/2017	10/16/2016	10/16/2015	10/16/2014
Active Rigs	69	58	31	67	189

RBN Energy: the LNG Canada project will impact gas markets, but not soon enough.

The final investment decisions by Royal Dutch Shell and its partners in the LNG Canada liquefaction and export project in British Columbia are a long-term boon to Western Canadian natural gas producers and to TransCanada, which now can proceed with its planned Coastal GasLink pipeline across the full breadth of BC. But the LNG Canada facility in Kitimat and the new 420-mile, 2.1-Bcf/d pipe won’t come online until 2023 — an eternity for producers in the region’s Montney and Duvernay shale plays, who through much of 2018 have been enduring profit-crushing price discounts for their gas relative to Henry Hub. Today, we consider the largest North American liquefaction/LNG export project to be sanctioned in several years, and why BC and Alberta producers wish it were coming online much sooner.