The post that got too long. This one will be book marked for future reference on the natural gas link at left.

Jobs Watch: Job losses of 663,000 being billed as not too terrible, no changes to February, but sharp downward revisions to January levels. See story here.

In Today’s Post:

1. Holdings Watch
2. Commodity Watch
3. Natural Gas Supply Slide Show
4. Natural Gas Storage Review
5. Brief Thoughts on Natural Gas Demand
6. Odds & Ends

In Today’s Post:

Holdings Watch: All $10KP trades. The wiki has been updated.

• Out (15) CRK $35 April calls for $1.05, up 172%. Will hold the $30 calls for awhile, and may rebuy these as the expected and potentially catalytic operations update has not yet been released.
• (10) HAL April $15 Puts (HALPC) for $0.38.
• (5) BHI April $30 Puts (BHIPV) for $1.40.
• Note: Estimates still coming down, potential for further pressure on numbers for the rest of the year remains high. They may or may not issue warning releases.

Commodity Watch

Crude oil jumped $4.25 to close at $52.64 yesterday on the strength in the broader equity markets and weakness in the dollar brought about by a smaller than expected interest rate cut in Europe. This morning crude is trading off slightly.

Natural crawled up $0.09 to close at $3.78 yesterday. We remain within a hair of near term support. The "rally" was not the gas storage numbers nor the release of the supply data for January but was instead the green markets. This morning gas is trading down a touch with oil.

Natural Gas Supply Slide Show

ZComments: The January natural gas supply data was released by the EIA yesterday, no big surprises but we are starting to see the roll in most of the big, growthy pieces of U.S. gas production. The following slides kind of say it all but here are my big picture thoughts:

1. January 2009 Lower 48 gas production was 58.6 Bcfgpd, down from 58.8 Bcfgpd in December. Onshore production was 52.3 Bcfpgd, down from a December level of 53.06 Bcfpgd.
2. The January data reflect rig activity levels from late last year. Rig counts were only off by 20% from peak levels last Fall. In other words, the January production did not reflect a majority of the reduced activity that has occurred in North American drilling. 
3. All regions that had been growing look "toppy"
4. The Gulf of Mexico is the one exception.