The Million Dollar Way (The Bakken Oil Blog)

Saturday, August 8, 2026

BR Croff Wells In Croff Oil Field Have Been Update -- August 8, 2026

Locator: 51364CROFF.

The BR Croff wells in Croff oil field have been updated. Link here. Only cumulative production data updated.

The Weekend -- Part 2 -- August 8 - 9, 2026

Locator: 51363ARCHIVES.

The other big headline this weekend: BRK is back to buying equities. Link here.

Link here.

From the linked article:

Strong earnings reports from the U.S.’s largest companies are powering major indexes to new records, easing some concerns that the recent rally is overly dependent on a handful of artificial-intelligence stocks.

Some concerns.

Among the more than 440 S&P 500 companies reporting second-quarter earnings so far, 86% have beaten analysts’ estimates, according to FactSet data. That puts the index on track for a seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit earnings growth. A run of upbeat reports from companies including Palantir, Caterpillar and Walt Disney this past week fueled a climb that carried stock indexes to their best weekly gains since April.

Investors still have plenty of volatility-fueling worries: the on-again, off-again war with Iran and new questions about how the Federal Reserve will fight inflation. Many note that earnings growth remains heavily concentrated in energy and AI stocks, particularly skyrocketing profits at memory companies supplying the AI build-out.

But earnings season is reassuring many that a strong core of corporate profitability underpins the market’s gains.

“These earnings are ridiculous,” said Phil Blancato, chief market strategist at Osaic. “These profit margins are incredible.”

In the coming week, investors will hear from companies including Cisco and Applied Materials, and parse the latest reading of the consumer-price index.

Companies in the S&P 500 have posted a roughly 50% jump in blended earnings growth, according to FactSet data, the most since the stimulus-fueled pandemic recovery in 2021. For energy firms, that rises to more than 147%, while totaling around 117% and 92% for communication-services and consumer-discretionary sectors, respectively. For tech, it was 70%.

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Tech Activity -- US -- August 8, 2026

Locator: 51362SOURCE_FOUNDRY.

Note: before we get to the "Source Foundry," note that the earlier post regarding the $30,000-Ford-EV-pickup has been updated: see this post.

Now, back to the Source Foundry story.

Wow, look at this: another foundry to challenge ASML -- but the bigger story, of course, is the amount of money Situational Awareness controls by an under-30 CEO. Just after selling over-leveraged assets to Citadel. Or whatever that was all about.

The story is over at The WSJ, link here:

AI-battered hedge fund Situational Awareness made a big bet this week in Source Foundry, a private company aiming to reinvent the way chips are manufactured, according to people familiar with the matter.
The company has invested $500 million in the startup, including a fresh $400 million infusion this week, one of the people said. Founded last year by Stanford University researchers Abdulmalik Obaid and Joe Burg, Source Foundry has already raised at least several hundred million dollars to date, including a recent fundraising at a valuation of $5 billion, one of the people said. Sequoia Capital previously backed the startup.

So, if I understand this correctly, Source Foundry is a start-up only in the revenue-raising stage.

AI: you can howl at the wind, but AI is here to stay.

Tech Activity In Texas -- August 8, 2026

Locator: 51361TEXASTECH.

Tag: Amazon hyperscalers Tesla SpaceX

Amazon LCD in west Texas:

Also in the same area:

And then this:

100 million square feet? Walmart Supercenters run about 200,000 square feet. So, five such Supercenters would total about one million square feet. Now, multiply that by 100 = 500 Walmart Supercenters -- the size of the footprint?

Read social commentary at this post.

How others see it:

The Weekend -- Part I -- August 8 - 9, 2026

Locator: 51360ARCHIVES.
Pageviews: the number of pageviews hit 81 million since inception -- was reached today, early afternoon, approximately 1:05 p.m CT.

Strait of Hormuz: won't re-open until US agrees to Iran's demands. My hunch: the Iranian spokesman (a top Iranian national security official) was talking to his base. The New York Times just calls them conditions, implying (?) that Iran had won the war. One wonders if the US has Iran right where they want them. Link here. Better, here. Paraphrasing / my words:

US military must depart the Gulf and areas surrounding Iran;
US military must end naval blockade of Iran;
pay war reparations; release frozen assets;
end attacks on Iran and Iran's allies in the region.

Bessent: lost a lot of credibility this week when he suggested that the strait would likely be opened by Wednesday at the latest.

BRK: all things being equal, BRK-B should surge Monday.

Having said, it's now how much BRK "made" this past quarter; rather, it's how much BRK-B could have made, if a) they had not sold any AAPL shares; b) if they had bought into the AI revolution several years ago; c) if Geico had improved (GEICO reported a 45% decline in pre-tax underwriting profit down to approximately $1 billion -- although at $1 billion, Geico is but a rounding error for BRKA/B).