EARNINGS AND A FEW OTHER NEWS ITEMS.

DCP Midstream is dealing with an explosion at one of its plants in Texas which it has shutdown for the time being. No indications on the extent of the damage or the impact but the stock lost 50 cents or about 5% yesterday. We also had earnings yesterday from Plains All American (PAA) as they put up another soild quarter. No hints in the press release about 2009 although the company does mention challenging conditions which we all know is the case. Also we have earnings from Penn Virginia Holdings (PVG) and Penn Virginia Resources (PVR). Noticed in the 2009 guidance that coal volumes are forecast to be the same but nat gas volumes are forecast higher from 2008 although we are dealing with lower prices. Also the company mentions the difficulties accessing the capital markets. Nothing new here.

Well it looks like with respect to the dow anyway that we are heading for a retest of the November lows. Futures are calling for a down open of about 90 or so points. Right now if we get down to those levels many of the broader averages will not confirm. Certainly mlps won't confirm as they need to lose 25% of their value in order to get down to the November lows on the index. Thats down around 150. We are still up 23 points on the mlp index for 2009 so far.

Crude Oil is down this morning as the front month contract is around 35 bucks. Gasoline continues to trade completely out of whack to crude and matches up to oil at around 50 bucks. The back month crude contracts are trading at much higher levels. Something has to give somewhere in here. Gasoline is up another 2 cents this morning.

Thankfully we don't have to sit through any congressional hearings today so we don't have to watch and listen to those Washington gasbags. Another day of listening to these sanctimonious scatterbrains and i will probably lose my mind.