Month: August 2019

Midstream broke out of its 6-week slump this week, helped by a private equity bid lobbed in Tuesday night, but also helped by risk-on broad market action and rebounding commodity prices.

Midstream stocks declined for a 6th straight week, this time joined by a pretty scary broad stock market decline on Friday. Broad market fear appears to be joining the energy sector antipathy and midstream apathy we’ve seen all summer.

The end of next week, the last trading day of August, will be the 5-year anniversary of the peak of the Alerian MLP Index.

Midstream stocks were down inline with broad equities this week, after a rally Friday that almost salvaged the week. It was a 4th straight negative week for midstream, and the MLP Index (on a price basis) now sits 11.3% lower than its high for the quarter reached in mid-July.

Midstream and MLP stock performance accelerated to the downside this week, finishing with bigger losses this week than last week. It was also the 4th consecutive negative week for midstream, the longest such streak since late December.

It was an inauspicious start to August for the stock market, for oil prices, and for the midstream sector due to the overriding influence of interest rates and tariff rates this week. MLPs had their second worst week of the year and worst week since early February.