MASTER LIMITED PARTNERSHIPS

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

It use to be down days was great for blog page views but the crash has begun to drive down page views. Maybe no one wants to endure pain on a continuous basis.

This guy on CNBC likes MLPS. I wish CNBC would let us bloggers embed video into our post. I would link to them more often if they did.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...: I don't own or recomend this stock, but it shows crystal clear that the standard "trusted" metrics (that we've all used all of our investing life )are meaningless today.

HS

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=STLD

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/081015/clw142.html?.v=33
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Steel Dynamics

Reports 3rd quarter easrnings, of .98 cents a share.

The stock sells for $7.33 a share ( Down another 32 cents in after hours as I type).

PE=2.61

Last years earnings = $2.81 a share.

This year's high $40.92.

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FORT WAYNE, Ind., Oct. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Steel Dynamics, Inc. (Nasdaq: STLD - News) today announced third quarter 2008 net income of $193 million, or $0.98 per diluted share, down sequentially 8 percent from $210 million, or $1.05 per diluted share, compared to the second quarter of 2008, but 92 percent higher than the $101 million reported for the third quarter of 2007. Net sales of $2.6 billion for the third quarter were up 7 percent compared to $2.4 billion in the second quarter of 2008, and increased 122 percent from $1.2 billion in the third quarter of 2007. For the first nine months of 2008, both net sales of $6.9 billion and net income of $546 million set company records. Earnings were $2.75 per diluted share for the first nine months versus $1.51 for the year-earlier period. Third quarter 2008 results included contributions from the Recycle South operations that were purchased in June 2008.; 10/15/2008 6:26 PM
Anonymous said...: dreiser139
joe i appreciate your efforts and read u daily.
im sure just as many read your blog daily just numb from the battering.
whats there to say.
however im still buying favs when they break down with great tax deferred yields.
keep up the good work
dreiser139; 10/16/2008 12:23 AM
Anonymous said...: Maybe this is partially behind Coal related companies downturn:

HS

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a2RHIj_6hvV0&refer=home
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Obama to Declare Carbon Dioxide Dangerous Pollutant If Elected

By Jim Efstathiou Jr.

Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama will classify carbon dioxide as a dangerous pollutant that can be regulated should he win the presidential election on Nov. 4, opening the way for new rules on greenhouse gas emissions.

The Democratic senator from Illinois will tell the Environmental Protection Agency that it may use the 1990 Clean Air Act to set emissions limits on power plants and manufacturers, his energy adviser, Jason Grumet, said in an interview. President George W. Bush declined to curb CO2 emissions under the law even after the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the government may do so.

If elected, Obama would be the first president to group emissions blamed for global warming into a category of pollutants that includes lead and carbon monoxide. Obama's rival in the presidential race, Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, has not said how he would treat CO2 under the act.

Obama ``would initiate those rulemakings,'' Grumet said in an Oct. 6 interview in Boston. ``He's not going to insert political judgments to interrupt the recommendations of the scientific efforts.''

Placing heat-trapping pollutants in the same category as ozone may lead to caps on power-plant emissions and force utilities to use the most expensive systems to curb pollution. The move may halt construction plans on as many as half of the 130 proposed new U.S. coal plants.

The president may take action on new rules immediately upon taking office, said David Bookbinder, chief climate counsel for the Sierra Club. Environment groups including the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council will issue a regulatory agenda for the next president that calls for limits on CO2 from industry.

`Hit Ground Running'

``This is what they should do to hit the ground running,'' Bookbinder said in an Oct. 10 telephone interview.

Separately, Congress is debating legislation to create an emissions market to address global warming, a solution endorsed by both candidates and utilities such as American Electric Power Co., the biggest U.S. producer of electricity from coal. Congress failed to pass a global-warming bill in June and how long it may take lawmakers to agree on a plan isn't known.

``We need federal legislation to deal with greenhouse-gas emissions,'' said Vicki Arroyo, general counsel for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in Arlington, Virginia. ``In the meantime, there is this vacuum. People are eager to get started on this.''

Bush Fought Court

Burning coal to generate electricity produces more than a third of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions and half the U.S. power supply, according to the Energy Department. Every hour, fossil-fuel combustion generates 3.5 million tons of emissions worldwide, helping create a warming effect that ``already threatens our climate,'' the Paris-based International Energy Agency said.

The EPA under Bush fought the notion that the Clean Air Act applies to CO2 all the way to the Supreme Court. The law has been used successfully to regulate six pollutants, including sulfur dioxide and ozone. Regulation under the act ``could result in an unprecedented expansion of EPA authority,'' EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson said in July. The law ``is the wrong tool for the job.''

Proponents of regulation are hoping for better results under a new president. Obama adviser Grumet, executive director of the National Commission on Energy Policy, said if Congress hasn't acted in 18 months, about the time it would take to draft rules, the president should.

EPA Authority

``The EPA is obligated to move forward in the absence of Congressional action,'' Grumet said. ``If there's no action by Congress in those 18 months, I think any responsible president would want to have the regulatory approach.''

States where coal-fired plants may be affected include Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Texas, Montana, Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Georgia and Florida.

The alternative, a national cap-and-trade program created by Congress, offers industry more options, said Bruce Braine, a vice president at Columbus, Ohio-based American Electric. The world's largest cap-and-trade plan for greenhouse gases opened in Europe in 2005.

Under a cap-and-trade program, polluters may keep less- efficient plants running if they offset those emissions with investments in projects that lower pollution, such as wind- energy turbines or systems that destroy methane gas from landfills.

McCain `Not a Fan'

``Those options may still allow me to build new efficient power plants that might not meet a higher standard,'' Braine said in an Oct. 9 interview. ``That might be a more cost- effective way to approach it.''

McCain hasn't said how he would approach CO2 regulation under the Clean Air Act. McCain adviser and former Central Intelligence Agency director James Woolsey said Oct. 6 that new rules may conflict with Congressional efforts. Policy adviser Rebecca Jensen Tallent said in August that McCain prefers a bill debated by Congress rather than regulations ``established through one agency where one secretary is getting to make a lot of decisions.''

``He is not as big of a fan of standards-based approaches,'' Arroyo said. ``The Supreme Court thinks it's clear that there is greenhouse-gas authority under the Clean Air Act. To take that off the table probably wouldn't be very wise.''

How new regulations would affect the proposed U.S. coal plants depends on how they are written, said Bill Fang, climate issue director for the Edison Electric Institute, a Washington- based lobbying group for utilities. About half of the proposed plants plan to use technologies that are 20 percent more efficient than conventional coal burners.

Stopped Construction

``Several states have denied the applicability of the Clean Air Act to coal permits,'' Fang said in an Oct. 10 interview.

In June, a court in Georgia stopped construction of the 1,200-megawatt Longleaf power plant, a $2 billion project, because developer Dynegy Inc. failed to consider cleaner technology.

An appeals board within the EPA is considering a challenge from the Sierra Club to Deseret Power Electric Cooperative's air permit for its 110-megawatt Bonanza coal plant in Utah on grounds that it failed to require controls on CO2. One megawatt is enough to power about 800 typical U.S. homes.

``Industry has woken up to the fact that a new progressive administration could move quickly to make the United States a leader rather than a laggard,'' said Bruce Nilles, director of the group's national coal campaign.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jim Efstathiou Jr. in New York at jefstathiou@bloomberg.net; 10/16/2008 7:35 AM
Anonymous said...: With the national debt standing at $10 trillion, the budget deficit at well over $500 billion and well on it's way to a trillion, consumer debt at $2.6 trillion, and, as T. Boone Pickens keeps saying, $700 billion annually being shipped to hostile foreign regimes to finance our oil addiction, I can't wait to see how Mr. Obama plans to cut taxes for "95% of the American people," balance the budget, increase our energy independence, and now, according to your post, HS, curb CO2 emmissions by imposing restrictions on coal.

That Barack! What a guy!

Lee; 10/16/2008 7:49 AM
AggiePilot said...: Oct. 16 (Bloomberg)
Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP (KMP US): The largest U.S. pipeline partnership by market value said third-quarter profit was 49 cents a unit. Analysts, on average, expected the partnership to earn 59 cents, according to a Bloomberg survey. The stock lost 5.3 percent to $47.12 in regular trading yesterday.; 10/16/2008 8:52 AM
Anonymous said...: Lee:

The first and only priority for a McCain or Obama administration has to keep our economy from falling into the abyss.

Unfortunately the risk of a policy error due to political considerations could exacerbate an already dire situation.

The US is the Saudi Arabia of Coal.

Much has been said of "Clean Coal"
technology... but it's not yet ( and may never be ) commercially viable.

The environmental impact statement requirements of the EPA and the use of the courts ( by enviornmental groups ) to delay or or derail energy projects imho is perhaps the greatest threat to our fragile economy after the credit crisis.

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The Credit Crisis is the "Great Depression " risk.

A note that can't be rolled over when it becomes due, or a bond that is defaulted on, can mean bankruptcy. That's why the FDIC has a Bond Guarantee plan( for 3 years) for new Bank debt.

All other companies and industries are out of luck.

I think the note rollover may be less of an issue, as note holders either will be paid off with a companies revolver, or the noteholders will extract a higher interest rate to rollover debt.

As to the revolver based debt, the rate in many revolvers is adjusted quarterly and at least partially based on LIBOR.

For bond holders, Sr. debt holders often can force a company into bankruptcy, when a bond matures and can't be paid.

In normal markets the market place sorts out the above. But when markets are far from normal, and even good companies, can't access the credit makets there may be some need for "Regulatory Forbearance " IE manditory rollover of debt or an extention of the FDIC Bank Bond program for non bank companies.

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Balancing the federal budget ( in the midst of a depression risk ) has to be the stupidest campaign promise ever.

It will not be kept, because the consequenses of balancing the Federal Budget will be a depression.

Unfortunately, we expand the national debt in the good times, so we have less flexability to do so without greater risks, in the bad times.

Pres. Hoover raised the top rate for income taxes from 25% to 63% in 1932. When the Bush tax cuts expire, that will be another blow to the economy.

HS; 10/16/2008 9:08 AM
Anonymous said...: What good is it to curb coal in the USA. A trip to china will show they are prodigious users of coal.

SAVE THE HUMAN RACE, DONATE A BRAIN TO THE SIERRA CLUB

Reading tee leaves; 10/16/2008 4:14 PM