Good News Is Bad News: April Was Another Strong Month In The US For Job Growth

Energy prices staged a strong recovery rally Thursday and were clawing back more of their weekly losses Friday morning until the April Jobs report was released, and the overnight gains were erased shortly thereafter.

Good news is bad news: April was another strong month in the US for job growth, with the BLS estimating 272,000 new jobs during the month. Equity and energy futures both ticked lower following the report as the continued strength in the US economy suggests the FED can continue to hold interest rates. The official unemployment rate ticked up by .1% to 4% while the U-6 unemployment rate held steady at 7.4%. The agency did make slightly lower revisions to the job growth estimates in February and March totally a reduction of 15,000, or roughly 3% of the total jobs they estimated were added in those 2 months.

Saud Arabia’s energy minister rejected claims that the DoC’s plans to unwind voluntary output cuts were bearish, threatening that the plans could be unwound at any time. The minister also singled out the vampire squid for using inaccurate data in their report, just two weeks after they became the first Wall Street bank to be given a license to put a headquarters in the Kingdom. Those comments are getting some credit for the rebound in prices the past couple of days, although they’re a bit amusing considering they came at the Russian Economic Forum, which isn’t exactly known as a bastion of data accuracy.

I’m from the government, and I’m here to help. California’s energy commission submitted an “Emergency Regulatory Action” 2 weeks ago that will now require all refiners and importers in the state to file detailed monthly margin reports. See below for specifications. Meanwhile, while a large part of the country is seeing retail prices dip below the $3 mark, California is celebrating retail prices dropping below $5/gallon as regulators are clearly winning their war on the refiners.

Click here to download Notice of Approval of Emergency Regulatory Action

Click here to download a PDF of today's TACenergy Market Talk.