9:03 AM, Nov 15, 2017 — It’s been a big day for Boeing (BA) and Airbus, both of which announced large orders at the Dubai Airshow on Wednesday.

Boeing said it sold 225 of its 737 MAX airplanes with a list value of $27 billion to Flydubai, the largest single-aisle jet order by number and value from a Middle East carrier. The transaction surpasses the airline’s prior record order of 75 MAXs and 11 next-generation 737-800s signed at the 2013 Dubai Airshow.

The deal is for 175 MAX aircraft and purchase rights for an additional 50, Boeing said in a statement on Wednesday. More than 50 of the initial order will be 737 MAX 10s, the newest and largest member of the 737 MAX family, Boeing said.

Airbus, meanwhile, was doing some wheeling and dealing of its own at the airshow, securing a memorandum of understanding with Indigo Partners’ four airlines for the purchase of 430 additional A320neo family aircraft valued at just shy of $50 billion.

The aircraft will be allocated among Frontier Airlines in the US, JetSMART in Chile, Volaris in Mexico and Wizz Air in Hungary upon completion of final purchase agreements, Airbus said.

The commitment is comprised of 273 A320neos and 157 A321neos, and was also announced at the Dubai Airshow. With the purchase, Indigo Partners and its airlines will become one of the biggest customers for Airbus’ single-aisle aircraft family as it’s purchased in the past 427 A320 family of aircraft.

Companies: Boeing Company (The)
Price: 261.76 Price Change: Percent Change: +0.00

8:45 AM, Nov 17, 2017 — Tesla (TSLA) unveiled two versions of its electric semi transport truck late Thursday and by Friday morning, orders were coming in even with the slated start of production over a year away.

Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk drove a silver semi into the launch event in California, and touted the vehicle’s acceleration time, aerodynamics and 500-mile range at highway speeds.

“We attended the Tesla Semi event and net the Tesla Semi specs exceeded expectations,” said RBC Capital Markets analysts including Joseph Spak in a note on Friday. “Production (is) scheduled to start in 2019 and while Tesla has had challenges meeting deadlines, it does eventually get there.”

In the presentation, Musk said the Tesla Semi will have an operating cost of $1.26 per mile compared with a diesel truck’s cost of $1.51. Production will begin in 2019, he said.

On Friday, transport company J.B. Hunt (JBHT) said it was placing a reservation to buy “multiple” Tesla Semis that will be used in its intermodal and dedicated contract services on the west coast.

“Reserving Tesla trucks marks an important step in our efforts to implement industry-changing technology,” CEO John Roberts said in a statement. “We believe electric trucks will be most beneficial on local and dray routes, and we look forward to utilizing this new, sustainable technology.”

Musk also revealed on Thursday a new Roadster, with a top speed of 250 miles per hour. RBC said they believe the price tag will be $200,000.

Companies: Tesla, Inc.
Price: 322.66 Price Change: +10.16 Percent Change: +3.25

12:57 PM, Nov 20, 2017 — TransCanada’s (TRP) Keystone XL pipeline received approval from regulators in Nebraska, but the okay was given to an alternate route rather than the course preferred by the Canadian energy company.

The Nebraska Public Service Commission said it approved the alternative mainline route, one of three paths proposed by TransCanada to take oil from Hardisty, Alberta to Steele City near the Nebraska-Kansas border. The mainline route follows along the existing Keystone pipeline for about 95 miles, the commission said in its decision on Monday.

“It is in the public interest for the pipelines to be in closer proximity to each other, so as to maximize monitoring resources and increase the efficiency of response times,” the PSC said. “This would also assist emergency responders and others that may be called upon to assist with any lssues that may arise with either pipeline.”

Keystone XL, which had been rejected by President Barack Obama in 2015 before being approved by his successor, Donald Trump, earlier this year, was the focus of protests amid concerns about the environmental impact of another pipeline.

“There’s no safe route for Keystone XL, and NRDC will continue fighting with every tool, in every venue and with every partner, to make sure it’s never built,” Anthony Swift, Canada project director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, was quoted on Twitter as saying.

Nebraska’s decision also comes after TransCanada’s existing Keystone pipeline was shut down because of a leak that spilled 210,000 gallons of oil in South Dakota last week. The company said on Sunday that 150 people are on site working to clean up the spill.

TransCanada “will conduct a careful review of the Public Service Commission’s ruling while assessing how the decision would impact the cost and schedule of the project,” Chief Executive Officer Russ Girling said in in a statement on Monday.

Companies: TransCanada Corporation
Price: 49.56 Price Change: +0.58 Percent Change: +1.19

7:15 AM, Nov 27, 2017 — Shares in magazine publisher Time (TIME) were sharply higher on Monday morning after media and marketing company Meredith (MDP) said it had agreed to acquire the publisher of titles such as Horse & Hound, Country Life and Sports Illustrated for $2.8 billion in an all-cash transaction.

The deal, which sees Meredith paying $18.50 in cash per share of Time, aims to create a more diversified entertainment company with a lower cost base, according to a statement released by Meredith on Sunday. It was supported by a $650 million equity commitment from Koch Equity Development (KED), the investment and acquisition subsidiary of Koch Industries, owned by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. An additional $3.55 billion in debt financing was secured from four large financial institutions.

Headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa, Meredith publishes magazines such as MidWest Living, FamilyFun and Better Homes & Gardens and owns 17 television stations. Cost synergies resulting from the takeover are estimated to be $400 million to $500 million in the first full two years. The combined company will likely serve about 200 million American consumers across digital, television, mobile, and social platforms, with joint 2016 revenues pegged at $4.8 billion, including $2.7 billion of total advertising sales.

Accelerating its digital position by adding scale, the deal is expected to transform Meredith into a Top 10 digital media company with 170 million unique monthly visitors in the US, more than 10 billion annual video views, and nearly $700 million in digital advertising revenues.

“This is a transformative transaction for Meredith, and follows fiscal 2017 in which we posted the highest revenues, profit, and earnings per share in our 115-year history,” Meredith’s Chief Operating Officer Tom Harty said in the statement.

Meredith, which will continue to pay its current annual dividend of $2.08 per share, signaled the deal will probably be accretive to free cash flow in the first full year of operations. It said the increased scale and free cash flow alongside cost synergies will help in “aggressively” paying down debt and achieve a leverage ratio of about 2 times by 2020.

Shares in Time were up 9.8% in recent pre-market trade on Monday. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2018.

Companies: Meredith Corporation

12:51 PM, Nov 29, 2017 — More interest-rate increases will be needed to support gains made in the labor market and to stabilize inflation around the 2% target that has been elusive this year, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said.

In testimony before the congressional Joint Economic Committee in Washington, DC, Wednesday, Yellen said the target range on the federal funds rate will be the primary means of changing monetary policy as the Fed unwinds its balance sheet of asset purchases that were put in place to shore up the economy during the recession.

“We continue to expect that gradual increases in the federal funds rate will be appropriate to sustain a healthy labor market and stabilize inflation around the FOMC’s 2% objective,” Yellen said, according to remarks on the Fed’s website.

The world’s biggest economy has been recovering from recession sparked by the 2007-8 financial crisis, with data earlier Wednesday showing expansion in the third quarter was 3.3%, better than the Commerce department’s previous estimate of 3%. Stock markets have surged to multiple record highs in 2017 and consumer confidence indicators have risen.

Yellen, who is retiring from the Fed in February, said the growth is “increasingly broad based” and is expected to continue to firm with adjustments in monetary policy. She said that even with asset valuations that are high by historical standards, “overall vulnerabilities in the financial sector appear moderate, as the banking system is well capitalized and broad measures of leverage and credit growth remain contained.”

Still, she said Congress “might consider policies that encourage business investment and capital formation, improve the nation’s infrastructure, raise the quality of our educational system, and support innovation and the adoption of new technologies” as the US grapples with slower growth of the labor force and sluggish productivity.

11:00 AM, Dec 1, 2017 — The Commodity Futures Trading Commission warned about uncertainties around Bitcoin as the CBOE Futures Exchange and Chicago Mercantile Exchange self-certified new contracts for futures products of the virtual currency on Friday.

“Market participants should take note that the relatively nascent underlying cash markets and exchanges for Bitcoin remain largely unregulated markets over which the CFTC has limited statutory authority,” J. Christopher Giancarlothe, chairman of the futures and swaps market regulator, said in a statement. “There are concerns about the price volatility and trading practices of participants in these markets.”

CME Group (CME) said it self-certified the initial listing of its Bitcoin futures contract to launch on Dec. 18. CBOE (CBOE) said it filed a product certification with the CFTC to offer Bitcoin futures trading. And the CFTC said the Cantor Exchange self-certified a new contract for bitcoin binary options.

“We have had extensive discussions with the exchanges regarding the proposed contracts, and CME, CFE and Cantor have agreed to significant enhancements to protect customers and maintain orderly markets,” Giancarlothe said.

The CFTC expects the futures exchanges to monitor trading activity through information sharing agreements, but said investors should be aware of the “potentially high level of volatility and risk in trading these contracts.”

The CME Group said its futures contract will have an initial margin of 35% and including position and intraday price limits, among other risk and credit controls.

“Though we have worked through a lengthy, comprehensive process with the CFTC to get to this point, we recognize bitcoin is a new, uncharted market that will continue to evolve, requiring continued collaboration with the Commission and our clients going forward,” said CME Chief Executive Officer Terry Duffy.

Companies: CBOE Holdings, Inc.
Price: 123.69 Price Change: +0.26 Percent Change: +0.21

9:40 AM, Dec 5, 2017 — Goldman Sachs raised its outlook for oil prices in 2018 on expectations of tighter crude inventories next year after Russia and Saudi Arabia signalled stronger-than-expected commitment to cuts at last week’s meeting of key oil producing nations.

The investment bank sees Brent and West Texas Intermediate 2018 spot forecasts at $62 a barrel and $57.50 a barrel, it said in a note on Tuesday. Forecasts for 2019 are $59.50 a barrel and $55 a barrel. Prior projections for both years were $58 and $55.

“OPEC and non-OPEC participants to the production cuts agreed last week to extend their cooperations until year-end 2018, with a goal of normalizing inventories,” said Goldman analysts including Damien Courvalin and Jeffrey Curie.

“The press conference featured comments on remaining ‘agile and responsive’ to the progress of the rebalancing, as we expected, but the resolve exhibited by Saudi and Russia nonetheless exceeded our expectations,” they said in the note.

Countries from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, have put caps on their production in a bid to curb the glut of global crude supplies that helped send prices tumbling to multi-year lows. Still, output in the US has risen as shale producers stepped up their efforts.

Goldman said by 2019, they see shale and other producers responding to the higher prices, incentivizing “OPEC and Russia to pare back their now greater spare capacity, leaving risks skewed to the downside.”

8:59 AM, Dec 7, 2017 — General Electric’s (GE) GE Power unit is cutting 12,000 jobs from its global workforce as part of the industrial conglomerate’s bid to reduce costs after it slashed its dividend last month.

The workforce reductions will enable Schenectady, New York-based GE Power to hit its target of $1 billion in structural cost cuts in 2018, according to a statement on Thursday. The cuts will affect both professional and production employees at the company that says it generates more than 30% of the world’s electricity.

“This decision was painful but necessary for GE Power to respond to the disruption in the power market, which is driving significantly lower volumes in products and services,” Russell Stokes, president and CEO of GE Power, said in the statement. “Power will remain a work in progress in 2018. We expect market challenges to continue, but this plan will position us for 2019 and beyond.”

General Electric announced last month a plan to slash its dividend by half and cut the size of its board of directors as it set earnings expectations for 2018 below analysts’ expectations and said the year will be a “reset and stabilize” period.

Fitch Ratings downgraded General Electric’s long-term credit rating due to a “deterioration in the company’s operating and financial performance” and “reduced long-term growth prospects” in the company’s gas turbine division.

GE Power said the savings from the job cuts are part of GE’s effort to reduce overall structural costs by $3.5 billion in 2017 and 2018. The company said the plans “are driven by challenges in the power market worldwide” as traditional markets including gas and coal have softened.

According to its website, GE Power has more than 55,000 employees and is GE’s largest industrial business, earning about $27 billion in revenue last year.

Companies: General Electric Company
Price: 17.69 Price Change: +0.03 Percent Change: +0.17

12:05 PM, Dec 8, 2017 — US job creation surpassed economists’ expectations last month buoyed by rising employment in the business services, manufacturing and health care sectors, marking the continuation of a trend in rising employment which bodes well for the possibility of an interest rate hike later this month.

Nonfarm payrolls rose by 228,000 in November, according to data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on Friday morning, ahead of economists’ expectations for growth of 200,000 jobs. The monthly gain was supported by 46,000 jobs in professional and business services, 31,000 new posts in manufacturing and 30,000 new roles in health care.

Employment growth has averaged 174,000 per month thus far this year, compared with an average monthly gain of 187,000 in 2016. The gain in November also marks the fifth month in the past six in which payrolls have risen. In October, nonfarm payrolls rose by 261,000 and in September they fell by 33,000.

The unemployment rate held at 4.1% in November, and the number of unemployed persons was essentially unchanged at 6.6 million, according to the BLS. Over the year, the unemployment rate and the number of unemployed persons were down by 0.5 percentage point and 799,000, respectively.

“The job gains are across the board, with clear increases in services, manufacturing and construction. The numbers might have been boosted by the return to work of people affected by the hurricanes, but this effect will have been small,” Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon, said. “Post-storm repair work likely supported the 24,000 increase in construction jobs. That said, surveys point to another 200,000-plus job gain in December, so the underlying trend is strong”.

“This US expansion is a virtuous circle in which jobs create spending, and spending creates jobs, and November data stay on that message, but also didn’t alter the tale of moderate wage gains,” Avery Shenfeld, chief economist at CIBC Capital Markets, said. “Overall, nothing to sneeze at here, but no pressure on wage inflation to compel the Fed to accelerate its rate hike program after the hike we expect next week.”

The probability of a 25 basis point hike next week currently stands at 90.2% on the CMEGroup’s Fed Watch tool.

12:26 PM, Dec 11, 2017 — The Senate Committee’s Finance Tax Reform Plan could increase tax revenues by approximately $1.8 trillion over a period of ten years, according to a projection released by the US Treasury on Monday which factors in a higher-than-previously projected economic growth rate.

The Treasury’s Office of Tax Policy (OTP) said that it had modeled the revenue impact of higher growth effects using the Administration projections of approximately a 2.9% real gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate over 10 years contained in the Administration’s Fiscal Year 2018 budget.

OTP said that it had compared this 2.9% GDP growth scenario to a baseline of previous projections of 2.2% GDP growth and said that it expects approximately half of this 0.7% increase in growth to come from changes to corporate taxation while it expects the other half to come from changes to pass-through taxation and individual tax reform, as well as from a combination of regulatory reform, infrastructure development, and welfare reform.

“This 0.7% increase in the annual real growth rate results in an increase in tax revenues during the 10-year period of approximately $1.8 trillion,” the Treasury statement said.

The projection follows the Senate passing the ‘Tax Cuts and Jobs Act’ earlier this month, a bill which reduces the US corporate tax rate from a maximum of 35% to a flat 20% rate and allows increased expensing of the costs of certain property for businesses.

For individuals, the bill replaces the seven existing tax brackets with four brackets, repeals the deduction for medical expenses, and consolidates and repeals several education-related deductions and credits.

12:20 PM, Dec 13, 2017 — Target (TGT) is buying delivery startup Shipt in a $550 million deal that will see the retailer expand its same-day shipping capacity as consumers increasingly turn to online shopping and home delivery.

The cash purchase will see Minneapolis-based Target join its network of stores with Shipt’s technology platform and community of shoppers, according to a statement on Wednesday. Founded in Birmingham, Alabama in 2014, Shipt uses shoppers to delivery groceries and other goods to customers in 72 cities.

“The acquisition significantly accelerates Target’s digital fulfillment efforts, bringing same-day delivery services to guests at approximately half of Target stores by early 2018,” the company said. “The service will be offered from the majority of Target stores, and in all major markets, before the 2018 holiday season.”

Retailers have been putting more money into online shopping, and in October Target’s rival, Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) acquired Parcel, a technology-based, same-day delivery startup based in New York in a move that was seen as a challenge to e-commerce giant Amazon.com (AMZN).

“With Shipt’s network of local shoppers and their current market penetration, we will move from days to hours, dramatically accelerating our ability to bring affordable same-day delivery to guests across the country,” Target Chief Operating Officer John Mulligan said.

Shipt will be a wholly owned subsidiary of Target, running its business independently, according to the statement. The deal is expected to close before the end of 2017.

Companies: Target Corporation
Price: 61.97 Price Change: +0.95 Percent Change: +1.56

12:58 PM, Dec 15, 2017 — Unilever (UN) is selling its group of spreads including Becel margarine and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter to KKR (KKR) for 6.83 billion euros ($8 billion) as part of the plan by the global consumer goods giant to reshape its portfolio of brands.

KKR, a New York-based acquisitions and buyout firm, made the offer on a cash-free, debt-free basis, the companies said in a statement on Friday. Unilever said in April it was planning to offload the spreads business after undertaking a review of the firm.

“The announcement today marks a further step in reshaping and sharpening our portfolio for long term growth,” said Unilever Chief Executive Officer Paul Polman. “The consideration recognizes the market leading brands and the improved momentum we have achieved.”

KKR plans to continue following Unilever’s sourcing practices, including “working towards the goal of sourcing 100% sustainable palm oil by 2019,” said Johannes Huth, the company’s head of Europe, Middle East and Africa.

The deal is expected to be completed in mid 2018 and Unilever plans to return net cash to shareholders, “unless more value-creating acquisition alternatives arise,” the company said.

Price: 57.13 Price Change: +0.54 Percent Change: +0.95

11:40 AM, Dec 18, 2017 — Stocks in the US surged on Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average posting a triple-digit gain amid hopes that the tax reform bill being debated by lawmakers will be put to a vote and pass this week.

The Dow, Standard & Poor’s 500 and the Nasdaq Composite all hit intraday record highs as Republican lawmakers said on Sunday talk shows that they believe they have enough votes to pass the consensus plan on taxes. The blue-chip Dow has surged about 5,000 points this year and Monday’s gains were led by DowDuPont (DWDP), which rose 2.2%, and Intel (INTC), which advanced 2.1%.

Mergers also buoyed the measures, with Campbell Soup (CPB) up 1.2% after saying it would acquire snack-food maker Snyder’s-Lance (LNCE), which jumped 6.6%. Amplify Snack Brands (BETR) surged 70% after Hershey (HSY) said it was buying the company in a $1.6 billion deal.

WellCare Health Plans (WCG) fell 2.6% after the company said it expects 2018 adjusted earnings of $8.40 to $8.65, below the $8.66 average estimate from analysts polled by Capital IQ.

In economic news, builder confidence for new, single-family homes rose to 74 in December, the highest since July 1999 and ahead of the consensus on Econoday for 70. November’s rate was lowered by one point to 69, the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index showed.

In late morning trading, the Nasdaq was up 0.8%, the Dow increased 0.7% and the S&P 500 added 0.6%.

Globally, the FTSE 100 rose 0.7%, the Nikkei 225 jumped 1.6%, the Hang Seng increased 0.7% and the Shanghai Composite added 0.1%.

11:12 AM, Dec 21, 2017 — US equity benchmarks were trading higher on the penultimate day of the week, the morning after the Republican tax bill secured approval and as oil prices gained traction after government data showed a decline in US stockpiles.

Fresh data meanwhile showed that economic growth for the third quarter was lower than previously projected but still above the level seen in the prior quarter. Gross domestic product rose by 3.2% on an annualized basis during the period, down from an earlier estimate of 3.3% growth, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, but nevertheless higher than the 3.1% growth rate seen in the second quarter of the year.

In equity news, Envision Healthcare (EVHC) was leading the gainers, up by 7.4% two days after it said that it and some of its subsidiaries had agreed to a final settlement with the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) with a payment of approximately $31 million to resolve a DOJ investigation into physician services.

Discovery Communications was up by 4.4%, and technology consulting company Accenture was 3.9% higher after it lifted its outlook for earnings and revenue growth in the fiscal year after first-quarter results came in ahead of Wall Street’s expectations.

Oil prices were higher after government data showed that US stockpiles of crude oil contracted by 6.5 million barrels last week. West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures were 0.1% higher at $58.14 per barrel while Brent crude, the international gauge, was up by 0.1% at $64.66 per barrel in recent trade.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was 0.42% higher, the Standard & Poor’s 500 was up by 0.32% and the Nasdaq was up by 0.14% at the time of writing.

11:50 AM, Jan 2, 2018 — Manufacturing growth in the US was at the strongest pace last month since March 2015, with output and new orders on the upswing, bringing a gain in factory hiring and optimism for the new year.

The seasonally adjusted IHS Markit final Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index rose to 55.1 in December from 53.9 in November. The consensus among analysts on Econoday was 55.

Manufacturers’ output grew at an 11-month high amid stronger demand, and employment rose at the fastest pace since September 2014, the IHS Markit release showed on Tuesday. Costs went up and the rate of cost inflation was “sharp overall” amid supply chain delays and increased global demand for inputs.

“With business optimism about the year ahead running at its highest for two years in the closing months of 2017, companies are clearly expecting to be busier in 2018,” said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit. “Indicators of backlogs of work and input buying likewise suggest production will continue to grow at a solid pace as we move into 2018.”

Williamson said strengthening growth, a solid jobs market and rising prices “will add to expectations that the Fed will remain on track for another rate hike in the near future, with March looking a likely possibility.”

The Federal Reserve raised interest rates three times last year. While the broad expectation on the CME Group’s FedWatch tool is for a rate hold later this month, there’s a 56% probability of a 25 basis-point hike in March.

12:31 PM, Jan 5, 2018 — Goldman Sachs (GS) has issued a buy rating on Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY), saying that it sees upside for the pharmaceutical stock this year which will be affected by the strength of data from the company’s so-called Checkmate-227 (CM-227) trial.

The brokerage firm said that it continues to see approximately 14%-to-31% upside to Bristol-Myers Squibb’s stock depending on the strength of the data from the CM-227 trial in both its bull and uber bull cases, according to a note published on Friday. But the firm was also clear to point out that the outcome of the CM-227 trial would not be the only factor in the likely trajectory of the drug company’s share price over the coming months.

With a 12-month price target of $72 for Bristol-Myers Squibb, Goldman Sachs said that it sees key risks as clinical data readout, competition and commercial execution. It expects Bristol-Myers Squibb to generate $20.6 bn in revenues and $3.23 in earnings per share for 2018.The firm said that if the CM-227 trial fails, it believes the Bristol-Myers Squibb stock could go to a base value of approximately $55.

“While a negative outcome would be clearly disappointing, we don’t believe the BMY [Bristol-Myers-Squibb] story is pinned to this outcome alone with optionality in 1L NSCLC [Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer] through monotherapy, chemo combo and other trials like CM-9LA expected in 2019”.

It went on to say that Bristol-Myers Squibb would continue to have one of the most dominant immuno-oncology assets in ‘Opdivo’, a drug used to treat patients with certain forms of colorectal cancer which secured accelerated approval from the Food and Drug Administration in July 2017.

With “a very broad and promising next gen IO [immuno-oncology] portfolio” likely making it an attractive candidate for mergers and acquisitions, Goldman Sachs said that in a mergers and acquisitions scenario, it believes the stock could be worth approximately “$59-to-$74 ex-1L NSCLC”.

“While we believe the longer term BMY story is not limited to this trial, it is clearly the most important catalyst for the stock this year,” the Goldman Sachs note said. “Having said that, even if CM-227 fails (in the IO-IO arm), we believe BMY remains an attractive asset given its still dominant position in IO with Opdivo and Yervoy making them an attractive M&A candidate as well.”

“Our options analysts recommend buying BMY March Calls and MRK[Merck] March straddles ahead of CM-227 interim data,” the note said.

Price: 253.93 Price Change: -2.90 Percent Change: -1.13

1:11 PM, Jan 9, 2018 — The Energy Information Administration is projecting US crude output in 2018 that would be the highest level on record, with the agency seeing production averaging 10.3 million barrels a day.

The level would be up from an average estimate of 9.3 million barrels a day in 2017, and would surpass the previous record high of 9.6 million barrels in 1970, the EIA said in a short-term energy outlook on its website Tuesday. In the first views on 2019, the projection outlook stands at 10.8 million barrels a day, and is seen surpassing 11 million barrels in November of that year.

The EIA said Brent crude prices averaged $54 a barrel last year and are seen at $60 this year and $61 in 2019. West Texas Intermediate, the main US variety, is seen $4 less than Brent in both this year and next.

Moves by global crude nations under the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to cut output have been somewhat dented by rising production from the US, which is estimated to have reached an average of 9.9 million barrels a day in December.

OPEC’s crude oil production averaged 32.5 million barrels a day last year, down 0.2 million barrels from a year earlier, as the cartel’s supply reduction agreements took effect, the EIA said. For 2018, the group’s output is seen rising 0.2 million barrels this year and another 0.3 million in 2019 “as crude oil production slowly returns to pre-agreement levels,” the agency said.

Dry natural gas production is seen averaging 80.4 billion cubic feet per day in 2018, a 6.9 billion increase from 2017. The EIA said that would be the highest year-over-year increase on record. For 2019, a rise of 2.6 billion cubic feet per day is forecast.

10:58 AM, Jan 10, 2018 — Digital currencies like Bitcoin are facing “significant hurdles” to widespread usage including excessive volatility and regulations from governments, although they could have appeal in areas with instability in local money systems, according to Goldman Sachs.

“The fact that cryptocurrencies function without central banks may make them valuable as inflation hedges or stores of value, but also makes them vulnerable to demand-driven fluctuations in price,” Goldman analysts Zach Pandl and Charles Himmelberg wrote in a note Wednesday. “Such volatility makes them poorly suited as a substitute for money generally.”

Still, there’s evidence that demand in digital currencies is growing in countries with instability or capital controls, and places where the US dollar is widely used for local transactions.

Goldman said a Google Trends search showed that the highest intensity for queries about Bitcoin over the last five years have come from Nigeria, South Africa and Ghana, which have volatile local currencies or restrictions on foreign exchange — or both.

The popularity of cryptocurrencies has surged, bringing wide price swings in some of the top units including Bitcoin and Ripple, while companies look to jump on the trend with investments in technologies such as blockchain, a shared database that was developed to support the digital money.

But the anonymity of cryptocurrencies means they could face extra government scrutiny as a potential “useful medium of exchange for criminal activities,” Goldman said.

Digital currencies could succeed as a source of money, Pandl and Himmelberg wrote, but face a high bar as developed-nation currencies already deliver monetary services like facilitating transactions at a low cost “and/or providing better risk-adjusted returns for portfolios.”

“That said, Bitcoin (and cryptocurrencies more generally) may offer viable alternatives in countries and corners of the financial system where the traditional services of money are inadequately supplied,” the analysts said.

12:38 PM, Jan 12, 2018 — General Motors (GM) has filed a safety petition with the US Department of Transportation for a self-driving car that eliminates the driver, steering wheel, pedals and manual controls, the automaker said on Friday.

The petition is asking the department for permission to “safely deploy” the self-driving Cruise AV, its fourth generation autonomous vehicle, in 2019, GM said on its website.

In the company’s 2018 self-driving safety report, GM said it’s envisioning a world with no car crashes, no emissions and no traffic congestion. “Safely developing and deploying electric self-driving vehicles at scale will dramatically change our world,” the Detroit-based maker of Chevrolet, Cadillac and GMC cars and trucks.

Automakers and technology firms have been investing time and money into self-driving cars, with companies from Ford (F) to Toyota (TM) and Tesla (TSLA) working on autonomous vehicles. Car service companies have also been testing self-driving cars, with Uber putting them on the streets of Pittsburgh in recent years.

The Cruise AV “was built from the start to operate safely on its own, with no driver,” GM said. “It doesn’t drink and drive, doesn’t text and drive, doesn’t get upset, doesn’t get tired, never gets distracted and doesn’t produce any emissions.”

GM plans to deploy the cars in its own ride-share app within “known geo-fenced boundaries.” The cars will operate only on roads for which GM has developed high-definition map data, and will drive only “under known operational conditions and constraints that apply to the entire fleet.”

Companies: General Motors Company
Price: 43.96 Price Change: -0.23 Percent Change: -0.52

10:32 AM, Jan 16, 2018 — General Electric (GE) is expecting to book a $6.2 billion charge in the fourth quarter as a result of a review and reserve testing for GE Capital’s run-off insurance portfolio, North American Life & Health (NALH).

The Boston-headquartered manufacturing conglomerate said on Tuesday that the review and reserve testing for GE Capital’s insurance portfolio North American Life & Health (NALH), which has been in run-off for more than a decade, would result in an after-tax GAAP charge of $6.2 billion for the fourth quarter of 2017 and that GE Capital expects to make statutory reserve contributions of approximately $15 billion over seven years.

The Kansas Insurance Department, NALH’s primary regulator, has approved a phased contribution of approximately $3 billion in the first quarter of 2018 and approximately $2 billion annually from 2019 through 2024, the company added.

Earlier in the year GE Capital initiated a review of its insurance reserves in a process which the company said had involved “complex factors and estimates relating primarily to long-term care policies written by primary insurance companies and reinsured by NALH.”

The company said that the required contributions to the statutory reserve would be made by GE Capital, which it said has sufficient liquidity to do so. It said that it had been taking actions to make GE Capital smaller and more focused while maintaining its capabilities to support financing for GE Industrial products.

“These actions will also help restore GE Capital ratios to appropriate levels,” John Flannery, chief executive of GE, said. “At a time when we are moving forward as a company, a charge of this magnitude from a legacy insurance portfolio in run-off for more than a decade is deeply disappointing”.

Price: 18.11 Price Change: -0.66 Percent Change: -3.49