Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktVital Statistics:
| Last | Change | Percent | |
| S&P Futures | 1250 | -4.1 | -0.33% |
| Eurostoxx Index | 2263.9 | 9.850 | 0.44% |
| Oil (WTI) | 101.91 | 2.540 | 2.56% |
| US Dollar Index (DXY) | 77.974 | 0.042 | 0.05% |
| 10 Year Govt Bond Yield | 2.02% | -0.02% |
Euro sovereign yields are stable this morning, with Italy a little tighter and Spain a little wider. Oil is rallying on news that ConocoPhillips will reverse a pipeline which will move oil from the Central US to the Gulf Coast. There has been a glut of West Texas Intermediate in the central US, which has caused US oil (West Texas Intermediate) to trade at a substantial discount to International oil (North Sea Brent). At the moment, WTI is trading at 101.90 a barrel, up 2.50 vs Brent at 112.36 up 20 cents. Libya has also accounted for some of the premium as well, but the biggest driver is the absolute glut of oil in the central US.
In economic data we had the Consumer Price Index, Industrial Production, Capacity Utilization, and the NAHB Housing Market Index. All of these indices were net positives for the market, with the CPI indicating inflation remains under control, and industrial production, capacity utilization, and the NAHB index higher than expected. While these indices are still at soft levels, there is improvement, and the show that a double dip is not in the cards. While Europe is still the wild card, people are so pessimistic that the “black swan” may in fact be a garden-variety recession and not a financial catastrophe. Food for thought.
Bloomberg has a story about how there may end up being 200,000 job losses in the financial industry this year. It shows how utterly clueless the Occupy Wall Street people are. They imagine everybody is getting six and seven figure bonuses. Instead they are getting pink slips.
Business is terrible and people aren’t getting paid. The one thing OWS does not understand about the Street is that you eat what you kill. If you don’t generate revenue, you aren’t getting paid, no matter what fraternity you went to, who your parents are, etc. The fantasy that connected people are sitting on their duffs and making multimillion dollar bonuses is just that – a fantasy. Most senior people I know who lost jobs in 07-08 are still unemployed, even if they had nothing to do with subprime loans.
Chart: Capacity Utilization.
This chart gives a picture of how much slack there is in the manufacturing economy. Levels are back to the mid level of the 02-08 expansion, though less than the 90s. It certainly indicates that inflation will not be a problem, and that capital expenditures will be on hold for a while. Still, the trend is positive.
Filed under: Uncategorized |
All Things in Moderation 
It shows how utterly clueless the Occupy Wall Street people are. They imagine everybody is getting six and seven figure bonuses. Instead they are getting pink slips.Business is terrible and people aren't getting paid.I'm not sure the imaginations of OWS are that everyone on the street is making six and seven figure bonuses. I think the promise from TARP was that we had to rescue Wall Street to save Main Street. Maybe things would have been worse without TARP, that seems to be the opinion of most economists, but they're still not very good. I presume the financial firms have suffered the same consequences the rest of us have re unemployment and falling home values etc. I would also imagine that a lot of the people losing their jobs are in the middle class just like the rest of us. Maybe the people you mention should join OWS instead of drinking champagne from their balconies.
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Thank God we still have some manufacturing to possibly lift us out of the doldrums and change the unemployment figures. I doubt anyone thought the financial sector was going to do it. If the middle class spends, jobs will follow. To expand slightly on Brent's comment re manufacturing:WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. manufacturing is recovering from a slump, and inflation may be peaking.Data issued Wednesday point to an economy growing slowly but steadily. Still, surging oil prices and a possible European recession threaten to drain the economy's momentum."The continued resilience of manufacturing is encouraging, since this should be the sector most exposed to the global economic slowdown," said Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist with Capital Economics.Industrial production rose in October at the fastest pace in three months. Output at the nation's factories, utilities and mines rose 0.7 percent last month, the Federal Reserve said Wednesday.Factory output, the largest component of industrial production, increased a solid 0.5 percent. It was the fourth straight monthly gain. Factories made more trucks, electronics and business equipment.Manufacturers "are benefiting from the strong growth in emerging markets, and domestic businesses are confident enough in the future to continue expanding purchases of capital equipment," said Daniel Meckstroth, chief economist for the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI, a trade group.A separate report from the Labor Department showed Americans paid less for gas, cars and computers last month as overall prices fell for the first time since June.
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lms;Maybe the people you mention should join OWS instead of drinking champagne from their balconies. Huh?
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Scott, if was a reference to a story when the OWS protests first started. There was a pic floating around of a bunch of financial thirty somethings hanging out on their balcony making fun of the protesters drinking champagne. Too obscure?
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scottHave you checked out the visitors lately? Some interesting details if you look at location.
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lms:Too obscure?No. But I doubt those were the unemployed people Brent was talking about.Some interesting details if you look at location. Who's in Eugene? And who is from country Unknown?
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OT: Jon Stewart covers, among other things, Jerry Sandusky's call into Bob Costas.http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/tue-november-15-2011-mark-kellyYikes.
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ScottI don't know but if you look through the other pages we're getting visitors from quite a few places other than the ones we know of here who comment regularly. That's a good thing I think. We had a few last week from Spain and Australia if I remember correctly. It may just be Plumline people checking us out also, which is fine as well. I just think it's an interesting thing to watch.Obviously, the balcony people weren't in the ranks of the unemployed so I get your point. I just think unemployment spreads across all industries, which was sort of my point. Everyone was hurt by the housing bust for the most part, except oil maybe, it's an employees market there.
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lms:If you look at referrals, it looks like someone linked to us at PL. I'll check it out. Maybe it was one of us.
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lms:Looks like it was shrink. wbgonne showed up after some tech problems shut down pl for a bit, and made a snarky comment about moving PL to a different place. shrink directed him to here.See Greg's 9:17am comment and resulting thread on today's morning plum.
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lms:We got quite a few click thrus as a result of shrink's link. Also, I noticed that we got a click thru from a google search from someone in the UK. The search was for "the folly of prediction" which turned up one of Kevin's early posts. It was on the third page of google returns, but at least it showed up in a search.
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This is BIG news though it won't be apparent for a while. Enbridge the competitor pipeline company to Keystone has bought the Seaway pipeline and announced it is reversing the flow to make it run FROM Cushing OK to the Gulf. This means a few different things. 1) the spread between WTI and Brent dropped to it's lowest since January 20112) the Keystone pipeline probably will never be built in my opinion and the competing pipeline through Illinois has won3) Canadian tar sands oil just got a lot more economical looking in the not-to-distant future.4) export of refined petroleum products should increase, although refineries are running about 85% of capacity, so I'm not enough of an expert to guess how much.Now a conspiracy theorist, which I am not, might suggest that this has something to do with upcoming instability in the Middle East over our departure from Iraq, the ageing of Saudi leadership, the questionable new government in Libya etc. A move in the price of oil on risk premium would mean that the Canadian oil located in a safe area, would become much more valuable.
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Scott: See Greg's 9:17am comment and resulting thread on today's morning plum.Apparently they feel we post about ourselves too much. Perhaps, whatever that means, but I must say Michigoose's post re: her military service was better than anything I've ever read on Plumline (no disparagement to Greg, but it just was). But, to each their own. Not sure what Shrink's game is. He's a card!
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Also Michigoose's boot post. And Bites and Pieces.Dang, this blog is da bomb!
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"Japan crude oil consumption soars on nuclear shutdown" http://www.commodityonline.com/news/Japan-crude-oi… I'm trying to gauge if there's an export opportunity for the US in this story. I think however the bottom line, we have seen the lows for oil prices overall for some time to come, absent a total meltdown in Europe.
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The PL regulars are concerned about us posting about ourselves? Geez, they'd be mortified with the Post's Achenblog. 90%+ of the comments are about themselves, or at least incredibly off topic. And it's thriving.I blame Obama.
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Conversely, I read the PL comment to say that we at ATiM are mostly posting about commenters at PL (not ourselves). Wonder why shrink keeps mentioning us? Not that it really matters.
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JohnDomestic oil is really hopping right now with all sorts of new plays in Midland and Northern CO, just the ones I know of, due to new technology. I know it won't make everyone happy but it's happening nonetheless.
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I blame Obama.I blame Scott.
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BTW scottThanks, I've never looked at referrals before, not sure why. I wonder what the other one is.
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lms:I have been saying hold off on buying oil until the spread between them came in. That time is here.
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John–I think your comment at 12:25 is spot-on in your speculation.Kevin–You are too kind, sir!Okie–Did you see the brined potatoes recipe in last night's B&P?
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Yeah I think so too john. I just might give it a try.
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lms:I blame Scott. Heh.I wonder what the other one is.Yeah, I was trying to figure that one out too. The referrals section is definitely useful to see when you get linked someplace else.
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Noooooo, not encouraging anyone to speculate! You know me better than that. LOLJust pointing out that there are pivotal points in commodity pricing, and I think this will prove one going forward UNLESS Europe implodes. Speaking of which Merkel and the Germans are pretty clear what they want, why aren't we understanding what she means?
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I know john, I'm too chicken anyhooooooo. I did buy a little of the company daughter went to work for though. Looks good going forward. My speculating days really are over, saving it for the card tables…………
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Didn't know about the stats page. under the keyword search there is "all things in moderation novahockey"looks like i've made it.
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Krugman living on an island by himself. (thanks to jnc for the link)http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/16/the-very-brave-boe/
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