Author: Hinds

The S&P 500 closed negative for a 4th straight week, while midstream had its worst week since June in what has been a brutal September so far.

Midstream stocks bounced back early in the week after two rough weeks, but then as the market rolled over later in the week, midstream and MLPs were dragged back down.

Midstream struggled again this week, in a risk-off week for stocks and commodity prices.

With the market taking a very well-publicized breather this week, midstream followed the market and oil prices lower. MLPs were down each day this week and finished down 4.7%.

MLPs staged a comeback effort late in the week (+3.7% Wednesday to Friday), but finished down vs. last week, and well below the S&P 500’s 3.3% gain.

After a few weeks of positive performance, midstream rolled over this week. Energy stocks in general were negative, despite benign commodity price movements and strength among market indexes (which clearly are dominated by tech stocks).

Midstream followed up last week’s big week with another strong week of price action. Midstream’s gains were mostly isolated to Monday and Wednesday, but those two days were good enough for a 3% week for the group overall, better than the S&P 500, utilities and infrastructure.

Midstream was higher each of the first 4 days this week, before taking a breather Friday, to finish up 5-6% over last week. MLPs were particularly strong, especially gathering & processing stocks….

Midstream underperformed this week, even after counting the juicy dividends that were paid this week. Tech stocks, utilities and other sectors reported strong earnings and saw stock price gains as a result.

Midstream performance was mixed this week, with strength in MLPs offset by weakness among large U.S. corporations like WMB and KMI, the latter of which reported less than stellar 2Q results coupled with low energy commentary.