Coal stocks, including Peabody Energy, Arch Resources and Warrior Met Coal, are suddenly on fire after several earthshaking developments. The first came Thursday night, when President Biden's horrific debate performance turned former President Donald Trump into a strong favorite to win a second term.
Next came Friday's Supreme Court ruling that blew apart a key source of executive branch authority known as Chevron deference. For four decades, courts have deferred to federal agencies' interpretations of the law, as long as they were deemed reasonable. Now agencies will have much less discretion in interpreting the intent of Congress. That has major consequences for the Environmental Protection Agency.
Andrew Wheeler, who ran the EPA during the Trump administration, told E&E News that the demise of the Chevron doctrine would require the Biden administration to rewrite the EPA's new power plant rule that requires fossil fuel-fired power plants to reduce emissions by 90%.
If Friday's ruling is the chess-equivalent of check for the Biden EPA regulations, then a second Trump term would be checkmate.
Trump's Debate Win Gave The S&P 500 A Boost. Then This Happened.
Coal Stocks: BTU, ARCH, HCC
Yet Friday's gains for coal stocks were somewhat muted compared to today's. BTU rose 2.45% on Friday and 7.8% in Monday stock market action. Arch gained 2.2% on Friday and 10.2% Monday. HCC rose 2.1% on Friday and 17.2% on Monday.
What accounts for Monday's huge surge? A big contributor appears to be a weekend explosion at Anglo American's Grosvenor steelmaking coal mine in Queensland, Australia. While there were no injuries, making the mine safe for reentry is expected to take several months, the company said.
Peabody and Arch both have steelmaking, or metallurgical, coal operations as well as thermal coal.
