Midstream joined in on the biggest and broadest equity selloff in recent memory this week. This was the worst week for the S&P 500 and for MLPs since 2008. Oil dropped to the mid-$40s, interest rates and natural gas prices dropped to fresh lows.
There wasn’t much to be done as an investor, other than pick your spots to reduce risk early in the week and then maybe start to add to core holdings at much lower prices later in the week. It was the end to a brutal earnings season and brutal month for energy stocks.
Expectations have been re-based, risk factors are well-known, and there was incremental progress on cleaning up IDR structures and superfluous entities (EQM). We inch ever-further from midstream as an asset class and ever-closer to a sector comprised of a few large midstream players with high barriers to entry and high bargaining power.
Selloff in Context
One of the things I do here is put midstream price action into context of history. This week was notable, this month was notable, but we’ve seen worse, for the most part. For MLPs, it was the third worst week of all time (there were two 20% decline weeks in fall 2008). Midstream and MLP investors could at last take some comfort that it wasn’t just energy this time. For the AMNA, it was the worst week in that index’s shorter history (that dates back to late 2013).
Decarbonization Whitepaper
Before the market volatility took the spotlight this week, ESG was a dominant talking point this year. Activism around climate change continues to ramp up in recent years. De-carbonization remains a priority of global governments, reflecting a high level of interest among constituents.
This week, we published a whitepaper arguing that while new technology (e.g. Tesla, Bloom Energy) get headlines for potential to reduce carbon emissions long-term, infrastructure companies across all four major sectors (utilities, transportation, communication and midstream) are able to make a significant immediate impact on carbon emissions. Click here to read the piece.
Status Update
The month mercifully ended today and MLPs registered a -14% return (including distributions) in February. Without the late rally today, it could have contended for the worst ever month in MLP history. As it stands, it was the 4th worst month ever, and worst since September 2015 when MLPs were down 15%. MLPs rallied 10% in October 2015 after that collapse in September.
Only one other time has the MLP Index started with two straight negative months: 2016. That was the last year MLPs outperformed the S&P 500. March was positive that year and was the turning point for the group.
Switching to the broader midstream sector, February was tied for the second worst month for the AMNA in its brief history as an index. The quarter is also off to a rough start with two straight negative months. AMNA’s outperformance relative to MLPs in recent years has only grown wider with this year’s returns, helped by steadier performance out of Canada and large U.S. corporations.
