Notes From All Over, Part 1 -- January 11, 2020

Refinery: not looking good. Google planned refinery by national park hurt by funding, lawsuits or go to KXNET news.  A reminder:

• greenfield refinery
• $800 million 
• near Theodore Roosevelt National Park 
• Williston would love to have it

Snow: overnight here in Grapevine.

Autos: quick! Name the #1 selling sedan in the US for the past 14, maybe 15, years. Hint: a member in that same family made the top 10 list also. Name the #1 selling SUV in the US for the past four years for so. I'll come back to this. I heard this on the radio while driving into work this morning -- I need to confirm. We'll see. Answers here.

Real estate: Charlie Sheen bought California mansion for $7.2 million 2006; apparently sold the mansion this past week to an undisclosed buyer for $6.6 million. He had been asking for $10 million; was on the market for two years. 

Recommendation: if you are an investor, and like to trade/invest on-line, there are many, many options out there. My personal favorite: Schwab. I am completely blown away by their service -- but, we are fortunate to have a local branch. But I was with Schwab decades before I lived near a brick-and-mortar branch.

One example: no matter how little or how much money I deposit in the local Bank of America, there's generally a hold on it overnight despite the fact that Bank of America owns Merrill Lynch and my ML account is linked to the bank. I've been banking with BofA for decades. On the other hand, when I drop by the Schwab branch, a) there is no standing in line; b) one is greeted with genuine smiles; c) offered coffee (sometimes an accompanying snack); d) the deposit is made in less than a minute; e) a "complete" receipt is returned; and, most amazing, f) the deposit shows up in the account at the same time as one gets the receipt and one can begin trading immediately.

It blows me away.

Okay, enough of this. To the top stories of the week.