Capital Expenditures

Oil prices will remain subdued for the next 20 years. That comes from a new policy brief from Stanford economist Frank Wolak, who says that a series of phenomena – surging U.S. shale production, a weakening OPEC, the shale revolution spreading globally, efficiencies in drilling, and more natural gas substitution for oil – will combine to prevent oil prices from rising above $100 per barrel anytime soon.

How can it be? Services PMI was at 6-month highs. The Kansas City Fed Index tumbled to -4 in March (against expectations of +1) and was last below this level in Feb 2013. KC Fed has now missed for 6 of the last 8 months and the report is a disaster across the board. New orders plunged to -20 (2nd lowest print since Lehman), order backlogs imploded, average workweek collapsed to -17 (lowest since Lehman), and future capex expectations fell to a five-year low. As one respondent noted, "we do not see the economy as being as strong as a portrayed in the national media reports."

Janet Yellen noted that everything was awesome and that stocks were now slightly "on the high side" of their historical range. It appears no one showed her the Russell 2000 which has a valuation multiple of just about 90x LTM earnings (as reported by the 2000 companies which comprise the index, and which were certified as accurate by 4,000 CEOs and CFOs on penalty of jail time). The mystery of how the Fed remains so stubbornly bubble blind - just like it did during the dotcom and housing bubbles - is thus revealed. The self-evident reason is that the purported geniuses who comprise our monetary politburo drink the Wall Street Cool-Aid about forward ex-items EPS. The Fed is driving a two-ton bubble machine, but has no clue that it has become a financial death trap.

Spending cuts for oil-directed drilling have dominated first quarter 2015 energy news but rig counts for shale gas drilling are too high. Investors should pay attention to this growing problem. Bank of America fears sub-$2 gas prices now that winter heating worries are over. Low natural gas prices affect the economics for gas-rich oil production in the Eagle Ford Shale and Permian basin plays as well as for the shale gas plays. Meanwhile, an orgy of over-production is taking place in the Marcellus Shale... Investors should carefully examine why shale gas players have not reduced rig counts more. Continued drilling in the Marcellus will crush natural gas prices further.

"This time a year ago, the oil industry's biggest problem was finding a way to deal with the “retirement tsunami” about to crash down on it as older oilfield workers hung up their cork boots to enjoy freedom. Now, with oil prices still in the doldrums, many of those same workers are lucky to be hanging onto their jobs, while others have been booted from the payroll as an ugly wave of layoffs takes hold."

The oil jobs nightmare is in fact spreading like a cancer. Last year there was much banter from the Wall Street shysters and Bakkan shale oil experts about the true breakeven price for shale oil not being $80 (which is the truth) but actually being as low as $58 a barrel. They were spreading this lie in order to keep idiot investors buying the stocks and bonds of these fly by night shale oil companies.  Well, we are now six months further down the line and Bakkan shale oil this morning is selling for $37 per barrel.

At 6.90, Empire State Manufacturing missed expectations of 8.00 (and dropped from the previous 6.9 print) for the 2nd weakest print in 11 months. While New Orders tumbled back into the red (and 16-month lows), average workweek and number of employees rose markedly (making this survey once again seem a total farce). "Hope" for the future improved (though remains lower than most of the last year's prints) but new order expectations, tech spend, and capex all plunged.

Doubting if the growth ahead of GM is now over, and the great post-bankruptcy "success story" is rapidly fading as the company has been pushed to resort to the kind of financial engineering which has pushed the S&P higher for all of 2014, and follows a record month of stock buyback announcements? Then doubt no more: moments ago GM announced it is authorizing an immediate $5 billion stock buyback, and plans to return all cash above a $20 billion floor to shareholders.

"...we are failing to deliver on our obligations as Americans, that is undeniable.  We are allowing the political class to plunder our wealth, negate our freedoms and desecrate our Constitution.  Sadly we have become the immoral populace our founding fathers warned all future generations not to become... The duty and obligation is ours and so too then are the failures and successes of our society. We are 15 years in to what is absolute denial regarding the competence of our nation’s policymakers. Yet here we sit, silent and indifferent to our own demise; so completely antithetical to the character of a true American."

The overwhelming mainstream media message continues to be everything is strong and the future is absolutely as bright as ever, as measured by the all time high markets; but the facts and the data clearly tell a different story. While memories are short, 2008/9 (and 199/2000) taught us that pundits will always tout the ‘everything is great’ story until it is too late. They laugh and ostracize anyone who attempts to rock the boat with a message of reality. And they do it to deter others from delivering such a message. That message is that there exists no catalyst mechanism to pull us out of this economic slumber. So you can listen to and laugh along with the ‘all knowing’ pundits or you can take heed of history and protect yourself now. But do remember the choice was yours. You will have nobody to blame but yourself when and if it all comes tumbling down and you were too busy laughing.

It will get much worse.

Following January's bounce back from December's collapse to 2-year lows, Empire Fed fell back modestly in Feb. Against expectations of a small drop to 8.00 (from 9.95), it printed 7.78 - basically flat now for 2 years. Under the hood things are a lot more concerning as New Orders tumbled from 6.09 to 1.22 and number of employees slipped from 13.68 to 10.11. What is perhaps the most concerning for the ever-hopeful multiple expanding dreams of equity market wealth, future business expectations collapsed from 48.35 to 25.58 - the biggest drop since Jan 09 (along with a plunge in expected workweek from 11.58 to 1.22).

"Our downgrade is about more than execution risk; we note: (1) The profound drop in fuel prices harms the competitiveness relative to internal combustion engine vehicles of TSLA’s planned Model 3 mass-market car, the potential for which we believe accounts for the majority of today’s equity value; and (2) Competition is mounting – automakers at the recent Detroit Auto Show debuted a number of electrified vehicles, some of which appear directly aimed at the Tesla Model S (e.g., Mercedes C-Class Plug-in Hybrid), the X (e.g., Audi Q7 e-Tron Plug-in Diesel Hybrid), and the 3 (e.g., Chevrolet Bolt) – see takeaways from our walking tour of the show. We reduce our estimates on flow-through of 4Q’s softer sales and margin trends, and guidance for higher operating costs: 1Q15 goes to -$0.31 from +$0.93 and FY15 to $1.89 from $4.12. Our December 2015 price targetd-declines to $175 from $180." -JPM

There have been ZERO times that the Federal Reserve has entered into a rate hiking campaign that did not have a negative consequence...