Midstream oil firm Tallgrass Energy Partners, LP (TEP – Free Report) has recently reported that the partnership has agreed to make two acquisitions through its subsidiary, Tallgrass Terminals LLC. The firm has also taken a few commercial development steps to increase its bouquet of various services. Pawnee Terminal Acquisition and Others The partnership will buy a 51% membership interest in the crude oil terminal at Pawnee, CO from Zenith Energy for around $31 million. The terminal serves as an injection point of the partnership’s Pony Express Northeast Colorado Lateral (“NECL”) with a storage capacity of 300,000 barrels o...
Tomorrow we get three big earnings reports to start the New Year and the fourth quarter reporting season, which roughly reflects company performance from October – December 2017 (varies by company). Monsanto (MON) Materials – Chemicals | Reports January 4, before the open. The Estimize consensus calls for EPS of $0.42, four cents higher than the Wall Street consensus, and suggesting YoY growth of 81%. Revenues are also expected to beat, with the Estimize community looking for $2.88B vs. the Street’s $2.72B. What to Watch: Solid growth expectations appear to be back for Monsanto after a hiccup in FQ3 2017. Analysts on Estimize...
Point forecasts are evil. Economists are asked to make point forecasts, and they oblige. But it’s a dumb thing to do, and they know it. Practitioners, who should know better, rely on these point forecasts far more than they should. Because, in economics and especially in markets, there are enormous error bars around any reasonable point forecast, and those error bars are larger the shorter-term the forecast is (if there is any mean-reversion at all). I can no more forecast tomorrow’s change in stock market prices than I can forecast whether I will draw a red card from a deck of cards that you hand me. I can make a reasonable 5-year or 1...
Want to trade someone else’s list of Picks for 2018? You might. I do read very few of other people’s or firm’s picks-mainly to see if they agree with my own personal list. However, regardless of whether these lists resonate with you or not, what these lists lack are two essential components. 1. Any strategy for tracking, trading and managing the picks. 2. How the macro picture, and particularly sector rotation, impacts anyone’s list. Oh sure, predictions sound so smart. “I think gold is going to infinity.” “You should be long oil.” “My best pick for 2018 is Commercial Metals CMC.” Well, the last one is true and my pick. ...
The Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee (TBAC) was established a long time ago in the maelstrom of World War II budgetary as well as wartime conflagration. That made sense. To fight all over the world, the government required creative help in figuring out how to sell an amount of bonds it hadn’t needed (in proportional terms) since the Civil War. A twenty-person committee made up of money dealer bank professionals and leaders was one of the few no-brainers of that day. Outside of that, over the intervening decades, the TBAC has faded into obscurity. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t do anything, just what it has done hasn’t reached the l...
The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico entered the fourth quarter having suffered one of the most devastating natural disasters in the island’s history. Hurricane Maria left billions of dollars in damage in its wake, including both infrastructure damage and economic losses. The human costs have been equally terrible, with millions of US citizens suffering. Three months later and the lights are still out – only 70% of power has been restored. Many businesses remain closed due to the lack of electricity and the high costs of using diesel generators. An estimated 20%-30% of the island’s 65,000 businesses may close permanently. Residents have fl...
The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico entered the fourth quarter having suffered one of the most devastating natural disasters in the island’s history. Hurricane Maria left billions of dollars in damage in its wake, including both infrastructure damage and economic losses. The human costs have been equally terrible, with millions of US citizens suffering. Three months later and the lights are still out – only 70% of power has been restored. Many businesses remain closed due to the lack of electricity and the high costs of using diesel generators. An estimated 20%-30% of the island’s 65,000 businesses may close permanently. Residents have fl...
The shrinking list of stocks to short There will be more to come in the weeks and months that follow, and at various points throughout the year, the list will certainly be bigger than the one below, but with the market back in rally mode over the last two days, the list has shrunk considerably. I have no desire to short anything at this point. The market is rallying hard to start the year, and doing so provides no real edge in my trading. As a result, I will continue to ride the market rally higher, and should the market turn south, I will be prepared to short the market and take advantage of any downside opportunities the market presents m...
The Hang Seng and Shanghai were both off to an impressive start for the New Year. Recording gains of over 2% for the first two trading days, we saw the former touch 10-years intraday highs. China PMI data released yesterday helped sentiment, but we saw an impressive all-round performance with real estate related companies continuing their pre-new year rally. Volumes were better which contributed to confidence, but with some market still closed it was seen as a healthy start to 2018. The US Dollar was under pressure early yesterday but has recovered all and added after stronger US data and some confident Fed minutes. Against the Yen, the USD r...
As the new year picks up speed traders are returning to a new round of fresh buying. It looks like the last trading day of 2016 selling fade is history as potential shorting opportunities generated by it are reversed. For example, the ‘bull trap’ in the Nasdaq was blown away as the index closed at new all-time highs. This buying was enough to reverse the MACD trigger ‘sell’ and accelerate the bullish technical performance of other indicators. The faster upper channel line is the new target as the older, slower one was breached on today’s close. The S&P is still trading inside its broader channel although it...