The Rig Count is Up, NDX is Down

 Friday 10/30/2026

The Rig Count is Up

The Baker Hughes US Rig Count is 603 as of October 23, 2026. That is an increase of 53 or 10% increase. This is translating to an increase in energy service stocks. And that translates into an increase in employment in the Permian Basin service sector.

About two years ago I recommended Transocean RIG as it was trading at 50% of book value. No other firm in the world could match its inventory of offshore rigs. RIG promptly collapsed below #3 making it an even better buy. The Iran war bumped it to $7.60 and then it fell to $5.00. the surge in rig count has raised it to $7.00 today. Today it trades at 89% of book value and yes, represents a real value.

Patterson   PTEN has jumped to $13 and trades at 56% of book value. Bell weather Halliburton HAL has risen from $32 to $36, another value.  Those three are far less expensive than the energy service ETF of XES at $114.

West Texas Intermediate WTIC is healthy at $104.11 up $2.00 today.

I suggest reading my free blog www.professorelam.blogspot.com. There I suspected the FED would stand pat and it did this week. TLT an ETF for long dated bonds seems to be peaking. This makes bets on lower bond prices like TBF or TBT a good opportunity.

The conclusion is that oil prices and interest rates are rising. As I have said here, we are replaying the 1973-74 stock meltdown.

Wall Street is finally beginning to doubt the AI boom. I recently mentioned the over leveraged Core Weave CRWV and its $5 B of debt. It tanked 10% today and I do not see value in it.  My page of AI stock price sis glowing red.   All over the chart Space X SPCX dropped 4% today.

Tech heavy NASD 100 NDX dropped a hefty 3% today on a gap down chart move.  The reality of too much debt amid sky expectation is settling into this sector. It looks like a replay of the dot.coms at their peak in March 2000. Lower prices lie ahead.

Margin debt, borrowed money to finance stock purchases, peaked in June at $1.5 trillion, not a misprint.  For context at the bottom of the sub-prime mania in 2009, margin debt was about $200 Billion. That is a 7x plus increase. The unwinding of that debt as tech prices fall will spread to other sectors of the supposedly safe stock market.

Dennis Elam worked in the Permian Basin oil field from 1975-1989. He is an Associate Professor at Texas A & M San Antonio.