United States

While North Korea has test fired numerous ballistic missiles (mostly intermediate-range, including one intercontinental) in the past, and as such today's launch was largely seen as merely the latest political provocation to Trump by a seemingly oblivious Kim John-Un, there was one notable difference in the launch post-mortem: according to press and Pentagon reports, the maximum altitude attained by the ICBM was 3,700 km (2,300 miles) with a flight time of about 47 minutes.

The New Russian Sanctions Bill Is Washington’s Monument To Its Criminality

Paul Craig Roberts

With WTI heading for its best week since 2016, demand and inventory data is trumping production for now and today's Baker Hughes rig count data did nothing to change that as, following last week's 1 rig drop, producers only added 2 oil rigs in the last week to 766.

• *U.S. GAS RIG COUNT UP 6 TO 192 , BAKER HUGHES SAYS :BHGE US
• *U.S. OIL RIG COUNT UP 2 TO 766 , BAKER HUGHES SAYS :BHGE US

Judging by the lagged correlation to WTI, rig counts are stalling as expected...

U.S. tobacco stocks are getting smoked this morning (led by an 12% crash in British American Tobacco and Philip Morris) after an FDA statement said it plans to purse lowering nicotine in cigarettes to non-addictive levels.

Bloomberg reports,

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will work to cut the amount of nicotine in cigarettes to nonaddictive levels, with the goal of preventing thousands of tobacco-related deaths a year. The surprise move sent shares of cigarette stocks plummeting.

 

On Thursday, the U.S. government ordered family members of employees at its embassy in Venezuela to leave as the nation's political crisis deepened ahead of a controversial vote critics contend will end democracy in the oil-rich country. Similarly, Canada warned its nationals against non-essential travel to Venezuela and urged citizens already there to leave. As well as ordering relatives to leave, the U.S. State Department on Thursday also authorized the voluntary departure of any U.S.