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Natural Gas Report Day:
- My estimate: 45-50 Bcf Injection. In the year ago period we got a 12 Bcf withdrawal as the mercury soared so look for another goodly sized increase to the YoY storage surplus today. In fact we'll jump from 2% over last year to 5% if I'm withing a 10Bs of being right.
- Hot But Not When Compared With Last Year. CDDs hit their highest level of the year so are at 87 last week and while this was 22% warmer than normal is was still 12% below last year's sweltering heat.
- Natural Gas Imports Dipped Smartly Week to Week. Gross imports from LNG shipments and pipelines fell 1.25 Bcfgpd from the prior week to 10.9 Bcfgpd, down 0.7 Bcfgpd from the year ago week. This is the second week in a row that LNG has tumbled and it could just be a timing thing or it could be a signal that LNG shipments are being diverted to higher margin locales now that the bloom has come off the North American natural gas rose this summer.
- Consensus: 53 Bcf Injection From Dow Jones' Survey. Anything less than 50 and I think gas maintains or perhaps rallies a little as the heat of last week is less than the heat of this week.
Tropics Watch: Getting busier.
Stocks We Care About:
- (CHK) Debt Deal.
- $500 million of Contingent Convertible Senior due 37 replacing a like amount of their revolver. These are 30 year notes bearing annual interest at 2.5% sold at a slight discount and puttable to the company beginning in 10 years. The revolver has a mix of rate possibllities but all are higher than 2.5%.
- On top of that Fitch revised it's outlook to negative last night based on their assumption from management's comments on the 2Q conference call that management. They site debt to reserves metrics that only take into account 1P reserves as stated in the most recent Q (10 Tcfe). I think the company deserves a less mechanical calculation than that based on their vast unbooked potential but that's why I don't work for a debt rating agency.
- On top of that Wachovia cut the shares to neutral this morning.
- As of June 30 debt to total capital was 45%and debt to EBITA was 2.0, both measures well within the limits of the bounds of reasonability.
- The stock fell 4% after hours.
- (HK) After the numbers: closed up 3.5% after trading as high as up 6%. I think this goes higher.
- (SWN) - after waiting for days for people to care less about the broad market and oil prices (of which they sell very little) Southwestern finally had it's day in the sun today. No news but it was probably helped by strong results from kindred shale gas E&Ps (KWK) and (HK)'s strong operational and financial performances which got people to refocus back on gassy stocks. Or maybe it was just a coincidence. See added calls in holding watch.
- (CRK) - added another 2.5% on top of the 7% gains from yesterday's session following it's great quarter (still without me). I kept think it would come in and the spreads aren't the best and I was too cheap and there you have it. No position. But hey, it should retake $30 in short order, it came close yesterday.
- (OII) - Up 963% on the remaining half of my call position purchased way back on 7/18. And I'm not chasing but will close before week's end.
- (FTO) After the numbers: closed up 2.4% after trading as high as up 7.4%. I think this goes lower. Comments from the call. Still holding the August $50 puts now bid $13.80 (up 376%) following purchase on 7/12.
- (WNR) Rallied HARD on the (FTO) numbers, even after gasoline prices reversed and closed lower. Was up as much as 12% at one point and closed up . I'm holding the August $55 which had, until yesterday been performing well but are now down. See holdings list below for added puts.
Oil Report.
Crude: For the second week crude did the exact opposite of what you'd think and sold off
- Crude Imports: fell by 167,000 to just under 10 mm bopd
- Refinery inputs: down 419,000 bopd
Gasoline: You would think get off by a factor of 2x in the wrong direction would inspire prices to move. And they did for the first few hours after the numbers came out but in the end, September RBOB fell a half cent on the day to close at $1.9377.
- Utilization: Fell Off A Cliff. Down 2.4% to 91.25%. This was completely unforeseen by everyone including myself. When the number came out I think I violated an FCC air waves language rule on MN1.com but quickly recovered with something like "this is good for the refiners, heck, this is good for the energy group in general with that oil draw" ~ that's the jist of it anyway.
- Production fell as well to 9.15 mm bpd from 9.4 of late. Actually makes since with the down utilization for once. Distillates production fell a commensurate amount as well.
- Imports crept back up to 1.4 mm bpd which really saved us from an even nastier decline in stocks.
- Demand remained high at 9.7 mm bpd. This should come off soon but as this is the most estimate laden number in the collection here it may already be falling.
Holdings Watch:
CALLS:
- (CHK) Sold half my August $35 position for $1.65, up 114%
- (CHK) Bought half of the previous sale back at $1.--. Given the news above I obviously wish I sold the whole bundle prior to the close. I continue to hold these and the Jan 08s.
- (HAL) Added to my $35 August calls at $0.75. This gets me down to an average cost of $1.45. Last bid 0.50. I'm done on this for now until the stock starts to act better.
- (SWN) Added August $40s for $2.70. Last bid $2.35.
PUTS:
- (WNR) Added August $55 in a strictly "too far too fast" trade for today's earnings for $1.65. Last bid $1.65
Earnings Watch:
- (WNR) Report $2.29 vs expectations of $1.99. They paid off $100 million of debt and saw increased throughput at one of their refineries. More after the conference call which is at 11:00 est.
Odds & Ends
Analyst Watch: (FTO) and (ALJ) ratings raised at Carris, (CHK) cuts to hold at Wachovia, (RIG) to strong buy at Matrix, (MRO) to overweight at Lehman,
From Barron’s
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 8, 2007
INVESTORS’ SOAPBOX AM
Oil Futures Won’t Tank
UBS Investment Research
OIL PRICES IN 2007 MAY LOOK MUCH like last year’s, but we do not expect a crash.
In both 2006 and 2007, oil prices started the year at $60 per barrel (Brent futures). In both years, prices reached into the high $70s early in August. Brent futures settled at a record high $78.30 on Aug. 7, 2006. By early October, they had plunged to $58.43.
With the recent wobble, 2007 looks very similar.
What holds up oil prices this year, though, is fundamentally different. We believe that the similarities in prices between 2006 and 2007 are only superficial. There were different drivers pushing prices to a record high last year, especially in early summer. The story of the 2006 market was actually quite complex and unusual.
In 2006 prices rose against a backdrop of relatively loose markets. While that market admittedly benefited from fighting in the Middle East, a tight refining situation, financial flows into commodity markets and the fear of upcoming hurricane season (features we have seen this year also), crude markets were actually oversupplied and downstream stocks of oil products were high and rising, despite the fact that markets were coming off a cold winter.
An absence of hurricanes, the ending of hostilities in Lebanon and the removal of gasoline from the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index pushed prices down sharply as fundamentals took over.
In 2007, while some of these factors are present once again, crude-oil prices have strengthened impressively from a low in January, after demand had been impacted by a warm Northern Hemisphere winter. Underlying demand growth has been robust, supply less so. Inventories are tightening and fundamentals are significantly more supportive.
Thus while the parallels between 2006 and 2007 are attractive (and even more tempting to draw after the wobble of the past few trading days), we think the fundamental situation is very different.
Fundamentals should tighten in the second half of the year. Last year, inventories built rapidly in the second half. Without a material spillover from the current woes in financial markets to the wider global economy we expect to see deep draws on crude-oil stocks in the third quarter and low stocks in the fourth quarter providing a price floor.
— Jan Stuart
— Jon Rigby
Question – Are their demand numbers correct? I thought I saw stats showing declining demand.
I show three waves stacked in the Puerto Rico area. Another closer to the Yucatan. Nat gas up a dime before the number. Should be interesting.
WNR’s big numbers failing to impress. TSO getting shattered.
Everyhting getting crushed with the market as Paribas suspend payments at three funds. Ya know these guys were one of the first banks, if I remember, to NOT work with the E&Ps back in the late 90s which led to several bankruptcies.
P – I don’t see where they mention specific numbers on demand but seasonally they rise into winter.
z–if Fido issued press releases every time their funds swung a few billion up or down, thats all we’d read every day
unless theres a deeper bombshell here, every major fund has to be deciding what to start buying
z – third to the last para – “Underlying demand growth…
I thought I saw a couple of analyses of this Wendesdays DoE release staing it showed reduced demand.
Cody – EXACTLY…but…I’m going to let them make the first move.
CHK down 5%. Talk about bad timing. Wachovia cut on that. If I have my analysts right (they play musical chairs a lot) that guy is very smart. Of course, the downgrade to neutral doesn’t help people too much since though it may price for him as of last night’s close, no trades were possible at that price. Still, if history is anything to go on, it’ll take the market a week and up to a month to move the stock higher if indeed gas stocks are moving higher at this point. Maybe it’ll be quicker but the rating co downgrade argues against that…even though what they’re saying is actually good for equity holders in confirming the lack of planned dilution by management.
z–you still feeling it for HAL?
Demand is up .8% yoy. It was down a very small amount from their earlier prediction.
P – right robust. No numbers there to argue with. You can say that gasoline demand has been robust, no doubt. They don’t give you an equation of supply and demand to work with so I really can’t comment too much on it. For some, robust is 3% growth. Unless you’re in China, then it’s 8%. Supply has been “less so”…hello Opec, and some non-Opec but they don’t go into it so it[‘s hard for me to address.
They expect big draws in the 2H. Me too if things stay where they are right now and you believe the govts #s which May showed us you generally can’t. OPEC supply is rising, the EIA confirmed that. So it’s kind of like addressing a wet noodle of statement. I’d have to see the underlying math which isn’t here.
Of course, demand is way up worldwide.
I don’t think it was the debt issue per-se that has crapped on the stock…It was the potential new equity issuance…
“On Wednesday after the close, CHK announced it was offering an additional $500 MM of 2.5% Contingent
Convertible Senior Notes. The notes are being offered under the same umbrella as the $1.15 billion in 2.5%
Contingent Convertible Notes issued in May. However, it is not the debt issuance that has us concerned –
financing through that vehicle, given the structure, makes sense to us. Rather, it was management’s
comments (Mr. Marc Rowland, CFO) during Wednesday afternoon’s debt offering investor call, in which
management indicated that equity offering would be likely in the next nine months, perhaps as early as the
end of this year. We do note, importantly, that CHK is locked up for the next 90 days following the convert
offering, and therefore the soonest any offering could be is November.
Regardless of the timing, we were very surprised to learn that more equity will likely be coming over the next
few quarters. Management did say on its recent 2Q07 conference call that it planned to pursue a balanced
debt and equity approach, but it also has spent extensive time over the last 6-9 months trying to convince
investors that it is focusing on capital discipline. In the last 3-4 months, management has become much more
vocal about its capital funding plans, including selling Appalachia assets, monetizing some of its service
company positions and ownership stakes, or perhaps divesting of additional non-core assets. While maybe
we heard the message incorrectly and equity has always been in the plan, we suspect many investors heard
the same message we did.”
-Analyst report
NOAA says “greater than 50 pct” chance that La Nina will form during peak of hurricane seaon – Reuters
HAL – sitting tight right now. Will likely take my hit soon and roll longer. It’s more tied to the broad market on down days and not on the ups which is odd and hasn’t escaped my notice.
Small gas number today would be a big help. Last I saw consensus was 53.
La Nina – I’d think that would be too late. They had been saying it wouldn’t show until later. Does the story say anything about NOAA’s thoughts on potential storm season impact?
Apparently the National Weather Forecast are updating their hurricane forecast at 10.30.
Thanks Nicky
10:30 est. That’ll be at least as important as the gas number. Nice timing G-dudes!!!
Thanks Z and KL –
I took my eye off the globe and focused only on the USA – a mistake these days. Need one eye on each.
Bush is also speaking at 10.30
Nicky
How do you know that the fed injected money at 9:40?
P – not sure if my prattle helped but you’re welcome.
Cody – man he likes that time slot! The conspiracy theorist in me says watch for big numbers lol.
noaa maintains outlook for busy season:
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2007/s2905.htm
They were talking about it on cnbc but you can actually monitor it here.
http://www.gmtfo.com/reporeader/OMOps.aspx
42 bcf
NFX…. just shot up.
Site back up … getting a new host very very very soon.
NFX, SWN, EOG, HK, CRK moving nicely. Even hobbled CHK recovering a little.
Got to like the continued rally in VLO (value) vs the smaller refiners (not so value)
I’m behind on a few things today. Just saw Golman upgraded oil service to attractive.
VLO calls back from the dead. Value and safety in size starting to take hold.
Distillates have been turned back three times at the 19900 area in the last day. This is not surprising as this level provided huge support on the way up.
Energy group looking tired here. The Goldamn upgrade not having the effect on service you’d expect. Maybe people are little suspicious of it right now.
NFX nice run with others starting roll over: Mulling taking my lumps on the $35s and waiting for a bad day to roll longer. I of course will let you know.
SWN strength getting sapped after a nice run
HK holding up well at $16.25 but it can’t fight the tide if the broader market sickens yet again.
HAL just really odd and down a buck. Their buyback may have been knocked out for a week or maybe he’s just being chintzy.
People seems to have like the HOC beat. I’ll try to listen to that call replay later but I’m not in and the stock is so thin it’s a good way to get burned on options.
i’m in thailand on vacation. any reason for the runup on nfx?
Ndog, my non-analytical answer would be this, “traders finally got their heads outta their butts and realized they had a really good quarter.”…but Z could probably give you a better answer…
i’m like that reason just fine 😉 hoping it stays that way for a bit
ndog u in pattaya?
will be next week. in bangkok now
Any thoughts on UNT? Do you see a bottom here?
UNT – I’m not hot on the drillers other than deepwater guys right now but I don’t have any urgent thoughts on them either way.
NFX UP – because my time was due, LOL or what Brian said. That was pretty good. Seriously, it’s lower than the highs of the quarter and gas is up since then, turbulence has been the market, not the stock. Still holding August and Septembers but my Augusts will get the boot soon as I hate playing the “last days until expiry” game unless I’m truly gambling and I do too well at the tables to mess with that here.
WNR down 2.7%
FTO down 3.6%
VLO up 1.6%
what did you get in on the sept at for on nfx?
Cody, you see that Goldman fund rumor re closing the North American Opportunity Equity and maybe the Global Alpha funds?
NFX Sept $2.85 in late July. It’s now back up to $2
Story on hedge fund liquidations:
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/liquidation-big-portfolio-triggers-turmoil/story.aspx?guid=%7B9562090F%2D2CC0%2D4EE2%2DACBF%2D2688F60061DA%7D&dist=hplatest
Every story on this is referencing Long Term Capital. I say, quant schmant. Study up and own good names and short expensive or bad ones. Too much reliance on money flows and computer modeled trends.
But you mean you want these guys to think Z…Pish Posh!! Us MBAs (or soon to be ones) don’t like to think…It might cause a sweat stain in a $200 shirt…I hope this gives me a leg up when I get out that I actually want to think…
NFX SEPTs were a beauty of a buy yesterday, if you could stomach buying them when everything was going to hell…Made a nice gain by selling them today, still in it but sold some Army hats…
Brian – hey, I’m not saying all of them … mostly these computer driven deals.
I’ve got alphabet soup behind my name too and a lot these guys are incredibly smart people. They just get into a pickle from time to time and it causes days like today in the DJIA.
Wow WNR getting absolutely chop blocked!
WNR/HOC are just amazing…10% spreads on these guys intraday…
Z–Do you think these guys still have room to run on the downside? Seems like WNR in the highish 50s and HOC in the lowish 60s are good shorts, granted there’s gonna be a helluva lot of vol with them…
I agree that some are smart, then they get greedy and do ridiculously stupid things that make no sense when you step back and look at it…
Still hold my WNR and FTO puts. Haven’t been in the HOC for some time as I find it overly frustrating to work with.
Z Any positions to take a flyer on?
whooooeeee. EOG flip flopping all over. LOD 71 HOD 75+ If one had the guts (or other anatomical parts) to trade these swings he could make some money…or donate it to the option traders!! Bailed on some of my EOG calls at the higher end but kept some. Wish I could get out of my NFX calls but I’m just too greedy. I keep thinking this thing is going to make a bigger run. I’ll watch the next few days and decide when to get out before expiry date.
Most everything sucking; wonder if we’ll get our normal end of the day run up/down? Wondering if even our stable value funds in 401k is still deemed “safe”. money market/cash not an option there. Its 80% in SYN’s and GIC’s. Not sure I want to know about those???
Scoop – I’m not biting. DJIA looks like Black Diamond to me.
Mark – here ya EOG, same with SWN and NFX probably gives it back when they’re done. Bloody stupid business if you ask me.
WNR down 8% on fantastic earnings. Glad I’ve got those and FTO (down 6%) hedgeing me a little today.
Black Diamonds are very valuable.
Z – in reference 43-46. I just graduated and hardly any of my finance classes focused on the old Grahmn and Dodd valuation methods. Instead we spent countless days talking about modern portfolio theory and fancy arbitrage pricing models that don’t work in reality. A large chunck of my friends who went to work in finance were physics and mathematics majors who never took a class in the subject. I haven’t been around, but it seems like from the mid 90’s on Wall Street has filled itself up with leverage fanatic technicians and forgotten about fundamentals.
Scoop: meant like a black diamond run on a ski slope. Scary.
Lije – THANKYOU!!!
Day looks like base building to me. Any takers?
Base building or base jumping?
Look at SWN getting totally abused after reaching a 2 week high. Just sad.
Hey Cody, where’s Cody? Got any more post close rumors for us?
This market is one that is screaming to be sold when it bounces…See NFX today…I am putting ZERO faith in any of these rallies until I see some follow through…
I am no Cody, but, if 1460 on the S&P doesn’t hold, then the next supt. is 1440. If we close below 1460, we will prob open lower tomorrow and if it holds could retrace half of todays ride. But again, I am no cody!
I like the level of fear here. I’m selling my puts and starting to walk without a net.
Brian – exactly. SWN was $43 while the market was partly cloudy as fundamentals took charge for a bit.
“hey, that injection sure was small Joe,…
yup, let’s buy some gassy stocks)
then the market gets stormy and you have
Goldman’s doing what, what was that POS gassy stock we bought, dump it.
thanks Rammastr
DrT, muchas cojones senor
Nicky – where are you at?
hey z– been busy, didnt have time today – rumors? tons of ’em — reality? clearly margin calls being met as everything with some gains got shipped out the door – amazingly good mkt for buying puts……….from isrg to goog…liked how HK just sits there, hal sucks, chk I knew they wouldnt like the re-finance…….i think value buyers may start nibbling tomorrow…
O.K. 1440 on the S&P tomorrow if we slide early. Could to bust to 1400 whic is a major supt./psych thing. This just keeps getting uglier. If we close below 1400 it could get really bad!
Z –
“Nicky – where are you at?” Are you from Louisiana by any chance? I was born and raised there and caught unmitigated crap from folks when I say “where are you at?” Something about prepositions and all that stuff.
Now, if you were from N’Awlins, it would be:
“Nicky – where y’at?”
On a day like today, gotta have some fun to avoid that base diving stuff. Used to be on the 3rd floor but moved downtown and now on 25th. Much mo’ dangerous!!
oh, two hours ago it was beer-thirty. What is it now?
It seems to me beer thirty should have been called LAST THURSDAY AT 12:00 and should still be in effect!
Baby, rubber ducky, bathwater, drain plug and some of the copper pipe being thrown out now!
Unfortunately, everything is sold to raise capital in these hedge funds. Major investors in some of these funds are pulling out so the funds have to raise money fast. Then the market technicians look at support levels. If those support levels don’t hold, then they have auto sell programs in place. Then more people want money from these hedge funds…. it could unwind quite alot before the market stabilizes.
Don’t know how you interpret it technically, but the DOW closed right at its 200 day moving average. And this is off topic, but does it bug anyone that the Dow can close down 387 points taking most of the energy names with it and homebuilders (HOV and BZH) are up about 30% the last 3 days from hedge fund short covering.
that thing south of Hispanola looks like it’s blooming a bit.
http://www.intellicast.com/Storm/Hurricane/AtlanticSatellite.aspx?animate=true
NOAA’s advisory today.
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2007/s2905.htm
Apologies I was not around to respond to earlier questions.
I will post an update on the broader markets in the morning. But at the time of writing this is looking very ugly with Asia down heavily again.
Last week I warned we were in the crash window and this week is not disappointing! We hit 1504 on spx yesterday (I said in the region of 1502 and turned down, although it was wild and another large bounce followed). Was yesterday all of wave 2? Well it is entirely possible and if so we are in a iii down and they take no prisoners.
Spx really does need to open higher in the am or at the least hold 1445 (currently at 1442) or we are seriously at risk of a crash.
I wanted to post briefly to urge caution out there – cash is king right now and don’t try and step in front of this.
My gut says this will be ‘rescued’ – this time at least but I am going to watch and wait.
Hey Nicky, thanks…I’m afraid I have to agree with you on the markets…
Austria -2.5%
Japan -2%
Korea – 3.5%
as to natural gas I’d say we’re going to see some surplus contraction with all this heat starting next week. Last year it started cooling off at this time.
In the tropics this look ominous as some waves have joined forces and that cluster below Hispanola looks to be strengthening to me.
http://www.intellicast.com/Storm/Hurricane/AtlanticAnalysis.aspx?enlarge=true
if you go to the third link on the weather tab above – the noaa animation and zoom in on that storm you can see clouds cropping up from the bath water temp ocean and maybe a hint of convection
Picked this up from a recent CERA report. Looks like the add’l demands in Japan and Europe will be pulling some of our imports away. Will help a little bit with the oversupply in US market. But I still think we’ll see over-the-limit storage by season end and shut in’s of wells (barring any calamity like major storms on Gulf Coast).
“Recent unrelated events in Asia and Western Europe are initial signposts of the emergence of an integrated global gas market. A nuclear power outage in Japan caused by an earthquake on July 16, 2007, and a drop in natural gas supplies from the North Sea owing to natural gas pipeline outages will increase demand for liquefied natural gas (LNG) in Japan and northwestern Europe. LNG cargoes will be redirected away from North America, where in recent months LNG imports have been running at record levels.
Flexible Atlantic Basin LNG supplies will flow earlier than previously expected to Asian markets, leaving less available LNG for the residual markets in the United States and northwestern Europe. Incremental Japanese demand could be around 0.6 billion cubic feet (Bcf) per day, equivalent to 2.5 percent of global LNG supply.
Lingering pipeline issues in the United Kingdom have removed around 0.5 Bcf per day from the market. This has eliminated the large Atlantic Basin spread in favor of the United States and brought the northwestern European market back into the hunt for LNG supply.”
Didn’t anyone notice that Zman’s table is labeled incorrectly? You transposed the actual and forecast column headings Z…
-Eugene
Where were you last Thursday when I could have used the correction. lol.
Haha, busy losing my shirt on my natural gas shorts 🙂
That’s interesting, I’ve been doing same on the long side. hmmm…