On the issue of draws being poor on a weather adjusted basis, I wonder if it's just noise. I say noise because the Nov. HDD for gas heating was 60% below normal in Nov, might as well have been a cool Sept.:
cpc.ncep.noaa.gov
Weather in the 50's doesn't exactly put huge pressure on folks (especially in the crushed suffering segment of the Two Americas) to crank up the heat. I do think some of this lower NG usage is economically based, as many people are living pay check to pay check, paying higher rates on their HELOCs, and ARMS, and need to cut back somewhere. These are the people whose only benefit from Easy Al's money printing and credit bubbles are higher costs,
azcentral.com
as opposed to credit induced windfalls. We should call this later "favored" group, "friends of energy bulls". Keep these people in the game and we ought to drive off the energy cliff soon enough:
biz.yahoo.com
It will be interesting to check (released Monday)
cpc.ncep.noaa.gov
weather adjusted usage in colder Calf this week, but I'll bet it's off too. I'm in Oregon, and I just leave the heat off, and have gotten to rather enjoy 65 in my place as long as it isn't drafty. I have a couple great wool sweaters that I'm having great fun with too. But nobody anywhere has really been put to the test yet, and should we start seeing normal sub 20's winter weather, then the notion of just keeping things cool might disappear in a hurry, and the heat will get cranked up. And if we get severe cold, this noise won't matter at all.
<I don't see any forecast that shows widespread normal temps for at least 10 days.>
If that is becoming the consensus view, and the specs and funds are getting nicely short because of it, then we have the makings for a big surprise if the big cold air mass in Canada busts loose to the south. And if it doesn't, market may already be washed out. No guts, no glory as the saying goes, but HO looks like a great risk/reward play to me. |
