June 11, 2020

Gasoline demand: pundits can say what they want, but at the end of the day, the one metric that drove today's market and the drop in the price of crude oil was the gasoline demand that was reported yesterday.  The four-week average demand spooked the market -- and it WAS bad. But the "one-week" was good, in fact, considering, it was great, so we will see next week.

Don't take that out of context: it was not the metric per se. It was what the metric -- gasoline demand --  represents. "Jay" has it right: it's going to be a long, hard slog. But we're going to be just fine.

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site.  Do not make any investment, financial, career, travel, job, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here.

AAPL: although shares fell yesterday, AAPL was the first to hit a market cap of $1.5 trillion.


AAPL: iPhone owners are spending a ton of money in the App Store -- The Motley Fool.

iPhone sales might be down for Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) amid the coronavirus pandemic, but Apple users are spending a lot more in the App Store while staying indoors. App Store sales climbed 35% in the first two months of Apple's third quarter, Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty estimates. Importantly, growth accelerated from April to May, even as economies started to reopen.

"High levels of engagement have sustained as the 'new normal' (at least in the near-to-medium-term) includes more time spent indoors, which should remain a tailwind to App Store performance," Huberty wrote in a note to investors.

Overall, Huberty expects strong App Store sales to lead to a 16.7% increase in services revenue for Apple versus the 12% she previously modeled. That's over $500 million in additional revenue. Considering that the App Store is one of Apple's highest margin services, that revenue will likely produce a profit margin well above Apple's average services gross margin of about 65%.

Rogaine. Thank goodness for Rogaine. I've been using it for decades. Now there's a report out there that "bald men may be hit harder by coronavirus -- scientific study. No link. I'm sure the story is easy to find. 

TCM tonight: wow, this will cheer you up -- or at least put things into perspective -- The Glenn Miller Story, starring James Stewart. Wow, what a great country. Meanwhile, sleepless in Seattle. The only thing I've never figured out: why "Harry Morgan"?  He pops up everywhere. Why? I couldn't watch the ending; I know how it turns out. Too difficult for me to watch.


The Nightingale, Julee Cruise

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More Sophia Stories

1. Sophia, our five-year-old granddaughter, thought I looked sad today. I wasn't. She suggested that I was sad because I had no one to sleep with. She is aware I'm home alone; Grammy is in Portland, Oregon. Sophia insisted I take one of her fluffy/stuffed animals home so I would have something to sleep with. I kid you not. So, I now have a fluffy teddy bear in the twin bed in our apartment. That's important to know so if I die in my sleep, you can tell the coroner why there was a teddy bear wearing a train conductor's hat in bed with me.

2. When I picked up Sophia from TutorTime she looked very, very sad. I thought she was going to cry. She was sad to leave TutorTime (I picked her up at the usual time). But after summer camp ends at 4:00 p.m. she gets time to spend with her other friends. Today they were playing with their Barbie Dolls and they were going to let Sophia play with them even though she did not have a Barbie Doll.

I took Sophia back in and was getting ready to call Jessica to ask if Sophia could stay another hour. Her Montessori teacher, Ms Nisha (short for a 23-letter Indian name with 15 vowels) asked what the problem was. We told her. Ms Nisha reminded Sophia that she would have the entire Tuesday next week to play with her friends and their Barbie Dolls. Apparently Summer Camp Tuesday is Barbie day. Sophia jumped up and down, she was so excited. Ms Nisha saved the day. We got in the car and headed home.

3. On the way home, Sophia said she would like to go to Tom Thumb (local grocery store) to buy a Barbie Doll because she did not have one. We went to Target instead. On the way, she suggested she should get two. I said we would look at the prices. Individual Barbies are $9.99 which is a very, very fair price (American Girl dolls were across the aisle -- LOL). But some Barbies came with a real occupation and all the accessories for $19.99. So she had her choice: two $9.99 plain Barbies or a really, really nice decked-out $19.99 Barbie. She chose the latter but she had a hard time choosing between two. The two finalists: Barbie the dentist or Barbie the international jet setter. The latter came with decals. In the end, she chose Barbie the dentist because it reminded her of her dental visits.

On the way home, I was watching her in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes got very big. She was quite shook up. She went into a monologue: "I should have gotten Barbie the traveler. But, no, that is not a good idea. Melia (one of her friends) has Barbie the traveler and if I got the same Barbie the traveler, we would get them mixed up. And if Melia doesn't wash her hands she will leave corona virus on her Barbie and I will get the coronavirus (I can't make this stuff up). So I'm glad we got Barbie the dentist because no one else has Barbie the dentist."

4. I've mentioned that whenever Sophia sees "Subscribe to my channel" on her YouTube videos on my iPad, it interferes with her watching the video, so she just clicks on "Subscribe to my channel." So now, I'm subscribed to a gazillion children's YouTube video channels.

Tonight, Sophia gave me my iPad back after she has been playing with it. It was on my Schwab Account -- the one where we have our investments. She signed out of it and then pointed out the Schwab icon at the bottom of the iPad and asked me what that icon was for. Aghast! What was she doing on my Schwab account? Well, the good news: we bought another 500 shares of Apple today. Sophia thought we needed more apples. LOL. Most of that story is true.