Equities and the Economy:

• Stocks log worst day since mid-October.
• Blame Trump’s immigration executive order.

Yesterday the Dow fell 123 points, 0.61%, dropping below 20,000 to end at 19,971, the S&P 500 lost 14 points, 0.60%, finishing at 2,281 and the Nasdaq lost 47, 0.83%, to 5,614. All three indexes posted their worst daily performance since October 11th. At one point in the day the Dow was down 223 points. Folks are blaming President Trump’s executive order on immigration policy for the drop. It’s not the order itself that concerned investors. It was the fact a major policy was implemented very quickly bringing investors uncertainty, and an increase in uncertainty always comes with the selling of higher risk assets, which includes equities.

Economy solid but uncertainty remains. Dow down 161.

Oil

• WTI price falls for second consecutive day.
• Consolidated at $53.

WTI fell to its lowest price in more than a week yesterday closing down 54¢ at $53.62. Brent lost 29¢ settling at $55.23. WTI still is trading broadly around $53.

The EIA yesterday stated U.S. oil production was 8.96 million bpd in the week ending January 20th, its highest level since last April adding the it is forecasting production to grow to 9.3 million bpd in 2018. Did OPEC really expect anything else??? This morning WTI is up 75¢.

Warning: Brent and WTI speculative net long positions are at a record high. The boat is listing heavily.

Courtesy of MDA Information Systems LLC

Natural Gas

• March natural gas loses 12.6¢.
• No cold air for next couple of weeks.

Natural gas prices rose last week on the threat of very cold air in western Canada dropping into the U.S. That isn’t happening and natural gas prices have consequently fallen. Yesterday’s 2 week forecast trended warmer showing no cold air across the country and seasonal temperatures in the east which brought out the bears who pushed prices down. The March Nymex contract fell 12.6¢ closing at $3.232. This morning’s forecast trended even warmer with the just about the entire country to have above normal temperatures in the 6-10 day period. Ohio, Illinois and Pennsylvania may even be “balmy.” The bears are still feasting with natty down 8.9¢ this morning.

Weather in Houston this week for Super Bowl to be, ah, super!

Elsewhere

I hope Elon Musk is right. He wrote recently that cars with self-driving capabilities will arrive in the next 3 to 6 months! The Tesla CEO and founder said there’s been big strides in its Autopilot technology making it 6 months tops to get to Level 4 autonomy (I have no idea what that is!). Reality check. Elon Musk has a habit of missing deadlines.