LOTS OF NEWS AND LOTS OF DISTRIBUTION HIKES
MLPS FINISH LOWER YESTERDAY

Good Friday morning and we begin this morning with a ton of news leftover from last night. First off we had earnings and a distribution announcement from Atlas Pipeline Partners (APL) and also one from Buckeye Partners (BPL). Atlas did not raise the distribution for the second quarter in a row however they did say there operations are running on all cylanders so the outlook is good for later in the year. The stock is among the highest yielding MLPS in the mid 6% range so a flat distribution is priced in imho. Buckeye boosted their distribution. Atlas Energy Resources (ATN) announces a 43 cent distribution for the quarter. Earnings from Oneok LP are out and the company reaffirms guidance for the rest of the year. Meanwhile nobody raises distributions better than Magellan Midstream Partnerts (MMP) which raises for the 24th quarter in a row...6 years! And for the 5th quarter in a row Magellan Midstream Holdings (MGG) raises its distribution. Williams Partners boosted their distribution 3 cents to 50 cents even or 2 bucks annual. And Boardwalk Partners gave its shareholders a distribution boost.

MLPS had a rare down day yesterday as the index dropped a point and a quarter. Most of that was ex-distribution distortions of some of the big players like Kinder Morgan (KMP) and a few others. Look for more of this over the next 5 days as most MLPS pass their ex-distribution dates. Stock futures are a little soft...crude oil was flat and natural gas was higher this morning.

Its an early post and at this juncture no morning headlines and no upgrades or downgrades but it is early and i will post headlines as they break.