Notes From All Over -- The Early Morning Market Edition -- April 22, 2021

Wow, with regard to the blog, when it rains, it pours. So much information coming out today, Thursday, Earth Day, April 22, 2021.

Gasoline in Las Vegas: hard to find? Link here.  

Chevron spokesman Tyler Kruzich said that the shortage at several of its valley gas pumps began over the weekend. 

“We are working to resupply those stations as soon as possible,” Kruzich said. 

The company said that with travel and capacity restrictions lifted, the West Coast has seen increases in fuel demand “that may outpace the available supply at times during the month.

Earth Day:

• Coal, earth day: the key driver of the expected rise in emissions is coal, for which demand is set to grow by 4.5% this year, surpassing its 2019 level and approaching its all-time peak from 2014. Source: IEA.
• oil demand to peak in 2026 -- Rystad;
• wind: Germany expects too little interest in next wind power auction; cuts capacity;

US equity markets: there must be 135+ companies reporting earnings today. I am only interested in one.

• UNP: lags 1Q21 earnings and revenue estimates;
• EPS: $2.00 vs $2.06 expected; $2.15 a year ago; 1Q20 was before the pandemic meltdown
• revenue: $5 billion missed; the estimate by 0.7%; year-ago: $5.23 billion;
  

Dividend increases: I mentioned this earlier this week. We're going to start seeing some nice dividend announcements. And yesterday, we saw some:

• ANTH: increased to $1.13, from 95 cents;
• KMI: increased but just barely, from 26.2 cents to 27 cents, I believe (I need to recheck)
• PSXP: increased to 87.5 cents according to the linked site, but another source doesn't reflect that;
• at $3.50 annual dividend, PSXP is paying 10.11%
  

PSXP:

• PSX (Phillips 66) due to report April 30, 2021, before market open; forecast, a $1.40 loss;
  
• SeekingAlpha, February 25, 2021: PSXP may seek merger or other transaction including take-private deal; another SeekingAlpha article here;
• analyst: says filing suggests Phillips 66 is "preparing to take PSXP private ex-DAPL and thereby limits the upside to PSXP units anything but a "best-case" litigation outcome"
• merging PSXP and PSX would be a logical road-to-take
• "everything" hinges on outcome of DAPL decision;

DFS: story on earnings must have been written by a robot; template, fill in the blanks:

Discover came out with quarterly earnings of $5.04 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.88 per share. This compares to loss of $0.25 per share a year ago.
These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items.

This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of 75%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this credit card issuer and lender would post earnings of $2.37 per share when it actually produced earnings of $2.59, delivering a surprise of 9.28%.

Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates three times.

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

Chipotle: same customer experience as McDonald's; truly amazing; customers want the product; they don't want the experience;

• reported previously: McDonald's bottom line improved significantly when in-restaurant dining was eliminated
• less staff required; much less attention required for maintaining bathroom cleanliness:
• one wonders if staff could be cut in half if in-restaurant dining eliminated?
• from $15/hour to $0/hour
  
• child play area closed: no cleaning expenses
• the Chipotle experience and the McDonald's experience suggests customers prefer the food but not inside the restaurant
• eliminates seniors (like me) from spending all day in McDonald's drinking inexpensive coffee:
• eliminates the teenagers and homeless folks from hanging around;
• it will be interesting to see how fast these restaurants open their doors again;