WTI Jumps Above $48 After API Inventory Report Shows Huge Crude Draw

The recent trend of inventory draws (in crude and products) has supported higher Brent and WTI prices (the latter testing $48 today) despite surging production. API reported more of the same with a much larger than expected draw (-10.2mm vs -3mm exp), sending WTI above $48. All was not perfect in the report however as gasoline saw an unexpected build.

 

API

  • Crude -10.2mm (-3mm exp) – biggest draw since Sept 2016
  • Cushing  -2.568mm (-1mm exp)
  • Gasoline  +1.9mm (-1.8mm exp)
  • Distillates -111k

Gasoline surprised with an unexpected build in inventories but the massive crude draw (largest since Sept 2016) and a reduction in stocks at Cushing helped send crude proices higher…

 

WTI traded around $48 into the API print – having ripped higher the last two days after Saudi 'whatever it takes' comments – and blew through $48 on the API print…

“They have chased the bears back into the woods. Sentiment in the market is mildly bullish,” James Williams, an economist at London, Arkansas-based energy-research firm WTRG Economics,

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With Rand Paul’s Support (For Now), Republican Health Care Bill Survives First Senate Vote

After weeks of will-they-or-won’t-they tension, the Senate pulled together 50 votes (plus a tie-breaking vote from Vice President Mike Pence) on Tuesday afternoon to proceed to debate on the Republican health care bill.

Whether the bill—technically known as the Better Care Reconciliation Act—will pass, or what it will look like when it does, remain unanswered questions.

Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, who returned to applause on the Senate floor after getting treatment for brain cancer, provided the best indicator of the bill’s tenuous status. McCain cast a critical vote in moving the bill forward and, shortly afterward, disparaged the bill and the legislative process used to try to pass it, raising questions about whether he will support the BCRA as it goes forward.

“I voted for the motion to proceed to allow debate to continue and amendments to be offered. I will not vote for this bill as it is today,” McCain said. “It is a shell of a bill. We all know that.”

Other Republican senators who have been outspoken critics of the GOP health care effort, including Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, voted in favor of motion to proceed. Paul announced his decision to back the initial vote while maintaining that he could oppose the final version of the bill if it did not go far enough to repealing Obamacare.

“If this is indeed the plan, I will vote to proceed and I will vote for any all measures that are clean repeal,” Paul tweeted Tuesday morning.

After the vote, Paul released a video statement explaining some of the technical details about the votes to come.

Maine’s Susan Collins, and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski were the two Republicans to vote against the motion to proceed. Both have been opposed to the bill during most of the Senate’s negotiations over it.

With debate on the health care bill officially open, senators are now free to offer amendments to the bill. The first of what could be dozens of amendments is being debated at this moment. Each will be given a simple up-or-down vote, and votes are expected to run well into the evening.

The major amendments to watch, according to NBC News, will be offered by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio.

Cruz’ amendment is expected to allow for the sale of so-called “catastrophic plans” currently outlawed by Obamacare. Allowing insurance companies to sell those cheaper options has been a major sticking point for some opponents of the Republican effort, including Paul. Portman’s amendment is expected to authorize $100 billion in new Medicaid spending, something moderate Republicans have pushed to include in the bill.

Want more on the substance—such as it is—of the health care bill? Check out these links:

Bottom line: The Republican effort to repeal and replace Obamacare is alive, if barely, for now. After the rest of this evening’s votes, we will have a better sense of what’s actually in the bill and whether it has a chance to survive a final vote in the Senate, which could come as early as tomorrow.

This is a backwards way to write legislation, to say the least.

“I don’t think that’s going to work in the end,” McCain predicted on the Senate floor Tuesday. “And it probably shouldn’t.”

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San Francisco Demands That Landlord Dismantle Veterans’ Housing

San Francisco, USA: rows of Victorian house; background: downtownSan Francisco officials are in a bind: Either kick poor tenants out of their homes, or don’t enforce laws that officials insist are there to ensure those tenants have adequate living standards.

The city’s Planning Department is demanding that Judy Wu—a San Francisco landlord who rents mostly to veterans—destroy 15 of the 49 units that she and her husband currently rent out. Officials say that Wu illegally subdivided single-family homes into separate flats.

“I don’t want to remove any units, it’s the city that is forcing me to do so,” Wu told the San Francisco Examiner. “I don’t want to displace any of our tenants.”

San Francisco’s Housing Rights Commission is opposed to doing away with the units. And one of Wu’s tenants has asked the city to stop removing sinks and doors from the unit—a change required to bring the building up to code.

So far, the Planning Department has been unmoved, saying that the lots that Wu has turned into multi-unit housing are zoned for single-family use, and that her numerous building modifications violate city codes.

“While additional housing is desirable, the City also needs to maintain standards for the quality of dwelling units,” says a July 20 departmental review.

Wu’s violations were first discovered in July 2015 following some complaints from the neighbors, and in September she was ordered to bring her units into compliance. Wu appealed the order, making no claim that she had not violated city code but saying that she “felt encouraged by the City to create as many units as possible for low-income tenants.”

One can forgive her for having that impression. In 2013 San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee held a press conference announcing a campaign to house 50 homeless vets in 100 days. “I can’t think of a more patriotic thing to do than to find a homeless veteran their home,” said Lee at the time.

Singled out praise at that conference was none other than Judy Wu, who was lauded for her efforts to house the very veterans San Francisco might now put back out onto the street.

It’s not just the mayor that has good things to say about Wu. The San Francisco Chronicle said this in 2016, when the city first sued Wu for code violations:

Visits to Wu’s properties and interviews with her tenants create a picture of a landlord who, while allegedly violating the city’s zoning codes, also cares about housing veterans with few other options. She regularly leases to tenants whose eviction records made other landlords see them as off limits, and apparently is not quick to throw out those who fall behind on their rent, some tenants say.

The veterans advocacy group Swords to Plowshares praised Wu too, saying she was “wonderful to work with and has housed hundreds of vets over the years.”

On Thursday San Francisco’s Planning Commission will decide whether to force Wu to go through with dismantling her rental units and displacing her tenants.

Libertarians often argue that housing regulations raise prices while reducing the supply of housing for the disadvantaged. It’s difficult to think of a clearer illustration of the principle than this one.

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Trump: Cohn, Yellen Are Top Fed Chair Contenders, “Two Or Three Other Candidates”

In a continuation of the same WSJ interview, in which president Trump once again slammed Jeff Sessions, Trump laid out his current thoughts on who, if anyone, will replace Janet Yellen when her terms runs out next February. That said, Trump did not reveal much, saying that he is considering renominating Yellen as Fed chair but also said his econ adviser Gary Cohn (who was present in the interview) is a top candidate for the position.

Trump first expressed his appreciation of Yellen several months ago, also to the WSJ, surprising market who had expected Trump’s animosity against Yellen, revealed during the presidential campaign, would persist. It did not. Trump reiterated that he thinks Yellen is doing a good job and he has “a lot of respect for her,” and said she is still in the running to serve a second four-year term as leader of the central bank.

“I like her; I like her demeanor. I think she’s done a good job,” he said. “I’d like to see rates stay low. She’s historically been a low-interest-rate person” Trump added, reneging on yet another of his campaign promises.

Trump also confirmed recurring rumors that Cohn is the top outside candidate, saying the former Goldman COO is also the top candidate to replace Yellen.

“He doesn’t know this, but yes he is,” he said, when asked if Mr. Cohn, who was present during the interview, was a candidate for the job. “I actually think he likes what he’s doing right now.”

Actually, Cohn was quite aware that “he is.” And, in an especially delicious phrasing by the WSJ, this became quite apparently:

Mr. Cohn and other White House officials have said he is focused on his current job. But former colleagues have said he has developed an appreciation for the power of the Fed during his long career on Wall Street, and for the central bank’s relative independence during his current stint in Washington.

All one can respond to that is “LOL.”

While the above was widely known, the only new information in the WSJ article was Trump said there are “two or three” other contenders in the mix, but declined to name any other potential candidates and said he probably wouldn’t announce a nominee until the end of the year. “It’s early to make the decision.” He said he expected the confirmation process for the Fed job would move quickly.

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Technicals: Gold Failure at $1259 Could Result in Some Pain

 ?via Soren K. Group for Marketslant.com

We are happy to announce the addition of a well respected technical analyst to our growing list of Soren K. Group  of Contributors.

New Gold Contributor

Alongside George Gero, the 30 year veteran of the pits who has his finger on the flows in Gold, and Enda Glynn who we feel is the among the best Elliot Wave analysts out there, we are happy to have asked Michael Moor for his occasional insight into Gold. And he has agreed. 

Michael is one of the few true technicians left who publish a newsletter that people covet. His work is in tradition of the late Peter Beutel, who we had the honor of working with for years.  His subscription list includes a broad, deep clientele from billion dollar hedge funds, to banks, to old floor types. He is one of those guys who makes his money on his objectivity and talent. 

We are subscribers, and cannot post his work here. But he has given us permission to reach out to him for a taste of his perspective. We knew him as an energy analyst from our floor days, but found out recently he covers Gold. 

Basically, we will be looking at his stuff as subscribers, and  when something catches our eye, we will give  him  a call and see if he cares to comment on it. We noted gold failed yesterday at $1259, an area key for our momentum buy indicator. So we looked at his stuff as well as Enda’s EW analysis.. Here is what we found

Moor Analytics

Here are a couple support resistance numbers for Gold today (partial list for this one post)

 ?

click HERE for live charts

As to Michael’s short term bias:

We  are still in a bull leg, and as long as we settle above $1214.19 that will keep us bullishly biased. A Break below that number will start a bear leg in all likelihood. The technical numbers tell the rest.

Long term macro view? He would not give us permission to divulge.  That is something he is well known for in small circles. Calling bigger moves are his forte and align just fine with our own propensity to buy wings in options. It is interesting to note his ultimate dip to buy is in the $1217 area, not unlike the EW analysis we follow. Sadly, that was our own final straw to not be long speculatively. 

Finally , some commentary on today’s action

There is a trendline that will
come in at 12439-35 on Wednesday. A solid failure back below will negate the solid
short covering bias.  If we break back below ($1240) decently, look for profit taking to come in.  Possible areas of exhaustion for this
corrective move up from 12040 come in at 12563-94 and 12628-694.  We held 12590 and have come off $10.2 so far. 

We recommend giving Mike a call if you are looking for some straight forward daily tech work. We have no financial stake in this recommendation. We just want to support independent analysis  in a world of co-opted marketing materials portraying themselves  as “research” 

Email: MoorMoorMichael@aol.com

Call: (646) 708 4612

 

Enda Glynn: GOLD breaks resistance, bullish setup in play.

via bullwaves.org

As of Monday:

GOLD has spent the day hovering around the resistance/support level at 1254.63.
Today’s high reached 1258.75,
This is a solid break of resistance and adds weight to the bullish case from here.

Now that we have a clear five wave pattern in place off the low,
And the upper trendline is within spitting distance!
It is likely that wave ‘i’ brown is complete.
The next move to expect is a three wave selloff in wave ‘ii brown,

For tomorrow;
I will be watching for the beginning of a three wave decline in wave ‘ii’ brown.

The 50% retracement level lies at 1231.79.
And the 61.8% retracement level lies at 1225.46,
This is also the high of wave ‘1’ pink which adds further support.

1225 has acted as a point of oscillation for the price over the last 6 months.
This level should act as major support as wave [iii] green develops in the coming weeks.

30 min

4 Hours

Daily

My Bias: Long towards 1550
Wave Structure: ZigZag correction to the upside.
Long term wave count: Topping in wave (B) at 1550
Important risk events: USD: CB Consumer Confidence. 

Technicals Applied

  1. Currently we want to buy on a settlement above $1256 or a trade above $1259. These are right at both Moor’s and Glynn’s resistance levels. Worth noting
  2. Conversely, we should be short below $1259 with a $1231 target 
  3. Moor and Glynn using different disciplines see the $1217 area as important. We did too, but not as a level to buy. Our mistake
  4. Moor and Glynn see similar upside targets. Glynn’s EW analysis is less time centered, while Moor’s is more so. But it is important to note that both see $1294 area as one area a smart long would sell first time up.

 

Last Defense Against Manipulation

As much as it pains us to say being slaves to the world of statistical analysis: Technicals matter. If you subscribe to manipulated markets as we do, then they matter just as much. For technicals are a reflection of market participation sentiment and bias. Where fundamentals fail, technicals succeed. If for no other reason because everyone else is looking at them, one must consider them, even if to make a decision ignore them.

They are risk reward generators, not crystal balls. Be short under $1259 or be long above it. Or do both. But  $1259 is important to us… today.

Good Luck

via http://ift.tt/2tX6DGb Vince Lanci

Technicals: Gold Failure at $1259 Could Result in Some Pain

 ?via Soren K. Group for Marketslant.com

We are happy to announce the addition of a well respected technical analyst to our growing list of Soren K. Group  of Contributors.

New Gold Contributor

Alongside George Gero, the 30 year veteran of the pits who has his finger on the flows in Gold, and Enda Glynn who we feel is the among the best Elliot Wave analysts out there, we are happy to have asked Michael Moor for his occasional insight into Gold. And he has agreed. 

Michael is one of the few true technicians left who publish a newsletter that people covet. His work is in tradition of the late Peter Beutel, who we had the honor of working with for years.  His subscription list includes a broad, deep clientele from billion dollar hedge funds, to banks, to old floor types. He is one of those guys who makes his money on his objectivity and talent. 

We are subscribers, and cannot post his work here. But he has given us permission to reach out to him for a taste of his perspective. We knew him as an energy analyst from our floor days, but found out recently he covers Gold. 

Basically, we will be looking at his stuff as subscribers, and  when something catches our eye, we will give  him  a call and see if he cares to comment on it. We noted gold failed yesterday at $1259, an area key for our momentum buy indicator. So we looked at his stuff as well as Enda’s EW analysis.. Here is what we found

Moor Analytics

Here are a couple support resistance numbers for Gold today (partial list for this one post)

 ?

click HERE for live charts

As to Michael’s short term bias:

We  are still in a bull leg, and as long as we settle above $1214.19 that will keep us bullishly biased. A Break below that number will start a bear leg in all likelihood. The technical numbers tell the rest.

Long term macro view? He would not give us permission to divulge.  That is something he is well known for in small circles. Calling bigger moves are his forte and align just fine with our own propensity to buy wings in options. It is interesting to note his ultimate dip to buy is in the $1217 area, not unlike the EW analysis we follow. Sadly, that was our own final straw to not be long speculatively. 

Finally , some commentary on today’s action

There is a trendline that will
come in at 12439-35 on Wednesday. A solid failure back below will negate the solid
short covering bias.  If we break back below ($1240) decently, look for profit taking to come in.  Possible areas of exhaustion for this
corrective move up from 12040 come in at 12563-94 and 12628-694.  We held 12590 and have come off $10.2 so far. 

We recommend giving Mike a call if you are looking for some straight forward daily tech work. We have no financial stake in this recommendation. We just want to support independent analysis  in a world of co-opted marketing materials portraying themselves  as “research” 

Email: MoorMoorMichael@aol.com

Call: (646) 708 4612

 

Enda Glynn: GOLD breaks resistance, bullish setup in play.

via bullwaves.org

As of Monday:

GOLD has spent the day hovering around the resistance/support level at 1254.63.
Today’s high reached 1258.75,
This is a solid break of resistance and adds weight to the bullish case from here.

Now that we have a clear five wave pattern in place off the low,
And the upper trendline is within spitting distance!
It is likely that wave ‘i’ brown is complete.
The next move to expect is a three wave selloff in wave ‘ii brown,

For tomorrow;
I will be watching for the beginning of a three wave decline in wave ‘ii’ brown.

The 50% retracement level lies at 1231.79.
And the 61.8% retracement level lies at 1225.46,
This is also the high of wave ‘1’ pink which adds further support.

1225 has acted as a point of oscillation for the price over the last 6 months.
This level should act as major support as wave [iii] green develops in the coming weeks.

30 min

4 Hours

Daily

My Bias: Long towards 1550
Wave Structure: ZigZag correction to the upside.
Long term wave count: Topping in wave (B) at 1550
Important risk events: USD: CB Consumer Confidence. 

Technicals Applied

  1. Currently we want to buy on a settlement above $1256 or a trade above $1259. These are right at both Moor’s and Glynn’s resistance levels. Worth noting
  2. Conversely, we should be short below $1259 with a $1231 target 
  3. Moor and Glynn using different disciplines see the $1217 area as important. We did too, but not as a level to buy. Our mistake
  4. Moor and Glynn see similar upside targets. Glynn’s EW analysis is less time centered, while Moor’s is more so. But it is important to note that both see $1294 area as one area a smart long would sell first time up.

 

Last Defense Against Manipulation

As much as it pains us to say being slaves to the world of statistical analysis: Technicals matter. If you subscribe to manipulated markets as we do, then they matter just as much. For technicals are a reflection of market participation sentiment and bias. Where fundamentals fail, technicals succeed. If for no other reason because everyone else is looking at them, one must consider them, even if to make a decision ignore them.

They are risk reward generators, not crystal balls. Be short under $1259 or be long above it. Or do both. But  $1259 is important to us… today.

Good Luck

via http://ift.tt/2tHpKcj Vince Lanci

Kurt Eichenwald Attempts Twitter Fight With Julian Assange, Gets Wrecked

Content originally published at iBankCoin.com

A Twitter fight has been raging between (possibly former) Newsweek senior writer Kurt Eichenwald and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, and it’s been awesome.

To bring you up to speed – The Gateway Pundit reported Sunday that a lawsuit against Eichenwald and Newsweek was settled out of court last week for an undisclosed sum over Eichenwald accusing Sputnik News editor Bill Moran of colluding with Russia.

After the case was settled, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange tweeted a curious change to Eichenwald’s Twitter profile; the absence of his affiliation with Newsweek…

“He broke me” moment

To say Eichenwald took it poorly would be an understatement. The ardent tentacle and child porn ‘researcher’ who was mercilessly destroyed by Tucker Carlson last December, went on a massive Twitter tirade against Assange – calling the Wikileaks founder a child rapist, spreader of STDs, and an agent of Vladimir Putin among other things.

Eichenwald was also a huge dick – tweeting pictures of nature to assange and taunting him for not being able to leave the Ecuadorian embassy in London for almost five years or face arrest on bogus charges.

Assange hit back along with with the WikiLeaks Task Force, an associated Twitter account…

After Julian tweeted about Kurt’s meltdown, the WL Task Force followed up with an article about ol’ Eichenwald’s days ‘researching’ child porn as the administrator of a pedo website.

We’re not done!

Julian then said that Eichenwald is a ‘CIA-linked’ ‘serial fabricator’ before going on to expose Eichenwald’s pen name – Andrew McDonald – which Kurt used to give 5-star reviews to his own books on Amazon.com!

“I emailed Eichenwald with some praise, have swapped messages with him over the years and actually like him.”

 

“..best thing is the way Eichenwald melds the true lies of the main character with the true truth of reality.”

 

“Best book I ever read.” –Kurt Eichenwald on Kurt Eichenwald

Another one of Kurt’s self-reviews:

Kurt Eichenwald is truly the gift that keeps on giving.

Follow on Twitter @ZeroPointNow § Subscribe to our YouTube channel

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Stocks Scramble To 4th Longest Stretch Of ‘Dip-less’ Gains In 90 Years

Relax, we got this…

 

The Dow was the day's best-performer (thanks to MCD, CAT, GS, and HD – which accounted for 135 of the 122 points gained on the index; MMM and UTX knocked 85 points off the index). Nasdaq lagged thanks to GOOGL but the machines did their best (got almost to unchanged then faded)…

NOTE: stocks took a tumble in the last hour – not on the healthcare vote but on Trump-Sessions' headlines.

Small Caps remain the week's biggest gainer with Trannies, S&P, and The Dow fading tick for tick…

 

Nasdaq was "managed" back to unchanged…

 

And all another yuge short squeeze…Today was the biggest short squeeze in over 5 months

 

Since the lows reached immediately after the Brexit vote in July 2016, the S&P 500 has seen over 270 consecutive trading sessions without a 5% peak-to-trough drawdown. This is the 4th longest stretch since 1928…

 

UTEs are biggest underperformers, Tech was unch, as Financials and Energy were best…

 

GOOGL did not see dip-buyers…

 

VIX tested down to 9.04 intraday… lifting the S&P after a quiet overnight session…NOTE – as soon as VIX opened for trading, stocks took off…

 

VIX has not closed above 10 for 9 straight days – starting with Yellen's dovish Humphrey Hawkins testimony – this is the longest period below 10 in history…

 

The last time VIX dipped below 9 was 12/27/93, the day of VIX's record intraday low at 8.89…

 

FANG Stocks suffered their first loss in 13 days today (thanks to GOOGL)…

 

Bonds and Stocks recoupled the last few days…

 

But today saw bonds extend out beyond stocks…

 

30Y Yield pushed up above 2.91% ahead of tomorrow's FOMC statement…

The yield curve bear-steepened with 2Y outperforming…

 

The Dollar Index gained on the day – though chopped around quite significantly…

 

JPY weakness was the day's big factor (sending stocks higher)…

 

WTI Crude extended yesterday's panic-buying ramp, testing $48 today – the highest since June 7th (when DOE data slumped prices)…ahead of tonight's API data

 

Gold was down modestly (below $1250)

 

Notably markets barely even blinked when The House voted to debate the healthcare bill. Presumably the market knows it's going nowhere with McCain back, bringing confirmed "no"s to 3.

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Mooch The Merciless ‘Terminates’ First Suspected White House Leaker

Just days after newly appointed White House Communications Director Anthony "Mooch" Scaramucci took up his position, he is laying down the law, telling Politico Monday that there would be changes in his communications shop – but he was still evaluating the landscape.

"Senior people have gone to the comms people and said, leak this or leak that on this person or that person."

 

"The comms department reports to me. I report to the president. It has to stop, and I've told them that. If it doesn't stop, I'll fire all of you."

And today, it appears the first actions have taken place.

The financier and longtime Trump surrogate confirmed to Politico early Tuesday that he planned to start by dismissing assistant press secretary Michael Short at a morning meeting.

Multiple White House sources tell Breitbart News that Short was a leaker, and worked closely with now former White House deputy chief of staff Katie Walsh – another RNC wing official who was terminated earlier this year for her own suspected leaking.

Short, who initially said Tuesday that he hadn’t yet been informed of any decision, resigned Tuesday afternoon…

As Politico's Tara Palmeri reports, Short’s ouster is Scaramucci’s first warning shot to White House aides who have been perceived as disloyal to the president. In an echo of Trump’s not-so-subtle warning to Jeff Sessions about his status as attorney general, Scaramucci’s vow to “fire everybody” is a warning to staffers perceived as leakers.

“I’m going to fire everybody, that’s how I’m going to do it,” Scaramucci said to reporters outside of the White House on Tuesday. “You’re either going to stop leaking or you’re going to be fired.”

Scaramucci claimed to have the full authority of the president to clean out the communications shop and put his own stamp on the team.

Short originally worked for the Trump campaign – placed on it by Priebus – and quit the campaign, sources tell Breitbart News, after the Access Hollywood tape came out. Politico confirmed this report…

“He was scorned by many of his colleagues for quitting the Trump campaign, only to rejoin as a White House staffer because of Priebus,” Palmeri wrote of Short.

 

“In a story often retold by campaign staffers, they arrived at Trump Tower one morning, months before the election, to see Short’s computer left open on his otherwise empty desk. He had quit the campaign that day and never returned.

 

The next time he was seen by former campaign staffers was in January on their first day in the White House, where some were stunned to learn that they were going to have to work alongside him or for some of the press assistants subordinate to him.”

Short denied to Breitbart News that he is a leaker. “I have never leaked,” he said in an email. According to Palmeri, too, Short has now denied that he quit the campaign – he just says he went to work back at the RNC. Short is expected to be the first in a wave of staffers closely aligned with Priebus to be shown the door.

Nevertheless, Mooch The Merciless has started draining the swamp…

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In Major Win for 2nd Amendment Advocates, Federal Court Blocks D.C. from Enforcing Conceal-Carry Restriction

Second Amendment advocates scored a significant legal victory today when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit blocked Washington, D.C., from enforcing a law that effectively bars most D.C. residents from lawfully carrying handguns in public. “The Second Amendment,” the court declared, “erects some absolute barriers that no gun law may breach.”

The case was Wrenn v. District of Columbia (consolidated with Grace v. District of Columbia). At issue was a District of Columbia regulation that limited conceal-carry licenses only to those individuals who can demonstrate, to the satisfaction of the chief of police, that they have a “good reason” to carry a handgun in public. According to the District, applicants for a conceal-carry license must show a “special need for self-protection distinguishable from the general community as supported by evidence of specific threats or previous attacks that demonstrate a special danger to the applicant’s life.” Living or working “in a high crime area shall not by itself establish a good reason.”

The D.C. Circuit weighed those regulations against the text and history of the Second Amendment and found the regulations to be constitutionally deficient. “At the Second Amendment’s core lies the right of responsible citizens to carry firearms for personal self-defense beyond the home, subject to longstanding restrictions,” the D.C. Circuit held. “These traditional limits include, for instance, licensing requirements, but not bans on carrying in urban areas like D.C. or bans on carrying absent a special need for self-defense.” The court added: “The Amendment’s core at a minimum shields the typically situated citizen’s ability to carry common arms generally. The District’s good-reason law is necessarily a total ban on exercises of that constitutional right for most D.C. residents. That’s enough to sink this law under” District of Columbia v. Heller, the 2008 case that struck down D.C.’s total ban on handguns.

Today’s decision by the D.C. Circuit widens an already gaping split among the federal courts on this issue. According to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, “the Second Amendment does not protect in any degree the right to carry concealed firearms in public.” By contrast, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit says that “one doesn’t need to be a historian to realize that a right to keep and bear arms in the eighteenth century could not rationally have been limited to the home.”

In Heller, the U.S. Supreme Court did not rule definitively on the scope of the Second Amendment outside the home. In the nine years since that landmark ruling was issued, the Court has declined several ripe opportunities to settle the matter once and for all.

In fact, just last month, the Court refused to review the 9th Circuit’s dismissal of the right to carry, prompting Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, to lambast the Court for its “distressing trend” of refusing to hear any such cases and thereby treating “the Second Amendment as a disfavored right.” As Thomas put it, “even if other Members of the Court do not agree that the Second Amendment likely protects a right to public carry, the time has come for the Court to answer this important question definitively.”

That definitive answer apparently won’t be coming anytime soon. For now, Second Amendment advocates will have to take heart in victories such as today’s win at the D.C. Circuit.

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