Equities and the Economy:

• Dow and S&P post intraday record highs.
• Fed leaves interest rates unchanged.

Yesterday the Dow and S&P 500 both hit intraday record highs but retreated closing mere points from record levels. The Dow added 58 points closing at 23,435 and the S&P climbed 4 points to finish at 2,579. The Nasdaq also posted an intraday record high but selling in the afternoon pushed the tech-heavy index lower with it ending down 11 points to 6,717.

The FOMC concluded their two day meeting and, as expected, did not change interest rates. The committee noted that economic activity had been picking up at a “solid rate.” This was an improvement from its September comment that economic activity was improving at a “moderate” pace. More fodder for them to raise interest rates next month, which is widely expected.

The ADP Research Institute yesterday reported that private sector employers added 235,000 which was well over economists’ forecast of an increase of 200,000. The ADP report is the prelude to tomorrow’s Labor Department employment situation report.

At the global level, investors welcomed the latest data showing China’s manufacturing purchasing managers index showing factory activity in the world’s second-largest economy expanding at a steady pace in October.

This morning it’s pretty quiet with the Dow up 18 points.

Oil

• Prices intraday hit multi-year highs.
• DOE report price supportive.

Intraday oil prices hit multi-year highs but similar to equities ended the day marginally lower than Tuesday. WTI fell 8¢ to close at $54.30 and Brent fell 45¢ settling at $60.49. The DOE’s weekly report yesterday, while not as bullish as API’s report on Tuesday, was supportive of prices. The agency said that crude oil supplies fell by 2.4 million barrels and gasolines stocks fell by 4.0 million barrels. Both data points were greater than forecasts.

This morning WTI is up 4¢. Chatter.

Courtesy of MDA Information Systems LLC

Natural Gas

• Prices end little changed.
• Cooler air creeping in next week.

With temperatures in the Midwest and south currently 8 to 16 degrees above normal the cash market has been very soft all week which has pushed prices materially lower. Yesterday’s forecast showed some below normal temps in the 11-15 day time frame for the northeast which brought in some short covering supporting the market and natty ended virtually unchanged down 0.3¢ at $2.883.

Today is Thursday which means it’s storage report day. Traders are looking for a 71 Bcf injection. If it materializes it will be only the second week in 6 the injection would be greater than average.

The weather forecast continues to shift cooler, albeit marginally, and natty is up 2.5¢.

Elsewhere

Hollywood is the king when it comes to the number of movies produced annually. Not! India is. Each year “Bollywood” produces about 1,000 movies, about twice that of Hollywood. The “B’ in Bollywood refers to Bombai, which has been renamed Mumbai. Bollywood movies tend to be very long, 3 hours or longer, and are dominated with dancing, singing and love as the main plot, but kissing is almost never shown on screen. Every day about 14 million Indian people watch a movie with more than 4 billion movie tickets sold annually compared to 3 billion for Hollywood movies worldwide.

Indian comic actress Manorama (1937 – 2015) played the most leading roles of any performer in movie history. She appeared in more than 1,500 movies and more than 5,000 stage and TV appearances.

By the way, did you know that the Hollywood sign, which was built in 1923 on Mount Lee, was conceived as an outdoor ad campaign for a suburban housing project, Hollywoodland. The sign was designed to stand for 18 months. 94 years later the landmark still stands with more than 40 tour companies running buses and vans to the sign daily.

And finally, CONGRATULATIONS to the HOUSTON ASTROS on winning the WORLD SERIES!!!! WHOOP!!!!