Good Friday Morning! The big economic number this morning is the CPI so we wait for 8:30am to see what 10 year rates will do.Meanwhile we have Philip Berleger on CNBC who is predicting a collapse in Oil prices and gasoline prices. Interesting persepective in describing the hedge funds that have sold puts to oil and gas companies that hedge their production...that they will now have to cover those puts by selling futures making for a downward spirial. I find it interesting how quickly sentiment has become so extremely bearish on energy. So lets see what the XOI index is telling


Looks to me like 1000 on the XOI is a key level that has to hold in my view. If that breaks then the stocks are telling you that the bull move of the last several years is over with. So how does it impact MLPS? Well one needs to remember that while traders will blindly sell (or not buy) all things energy when prices are dropping there is a point where MLPs will seperate and go their own way. Note the AMZ MLP index had diverged




MLPS are far more influenced by moves in the 10 year rate then moves in crude and natural gas and notice that MLPS have rallied back the last 2 days. We'll see how this plays out today.
We have a downgrade this morning from buy to hold from Natural Resource Partners (NRP) thanks to A G Edwards. Nothing else so far on the wire this morning and no corporate developements.