Palantir Moves From Denver, Colorado, To Miami, Florida -- Sends A Message To Those States Considering A "Wealth Tax" -- META's CEO Appears To Have Already Moved From California To Florida -- February 18, 2026

Locator: 50005TECH.

Palantir: moving headquarters from Denver, CO, to Miami, Florida. Link here. 

Powering AI: jet engines! Link here. 

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Chokepoints

Two chokepoints for LDCs:

• cash;
• land (permits) 

Cash: only one of the seven Mag 7 companies is not chasing cash. Apple is chasing chips. All the rest are chasing capital / cash.

• one might argue Apple is chasing AI, and that certainly looks true at the moment

Land ((permits): the chokepoint is "construction" of the data centers -- acquiring land, getting the necessary permits, hooking up to the grid or building their own energy sources -- hooking up to the grid will likely be 5 - 7 years; but with NIMBY things look worrisome for some. Texas may very well be the least affected by these chokepoints. Lots of land, lots of energy, pro-business. From February 2, 2026. 

Mideast -- Update -- February 18, 2026

Locator: 500056MIDEAST.

Significant events -- observations and comments:

• current events began on January 13, 2026, when Iranian officials stated they "were ready for war."
• probably began when Trump began to get serious about Iran's continued / renewed work on Iran's nuclear program 
• quickly, US and Iran worked for a diplomatic solution 
• "no one" took Iran's overtures seriously 
• tens of thousands of Iranian civilians may have been murdered
• Trump has a short fuse when large numbers of civilians are harmed 
• high level diplomatic talks with Trump's personal envoys set in motion
• Iran stalling for time; Trump played along; it worked to his advantage
• in early February, Iran's military took aggressive action on US vessels on two separate occasions;
• either one could have resulted in a "Bay of Tonkin" resolution; neither did; Trump ignored the events;
• the Netanyahu - Trump summit, February 11, 2026;
• when that history is written, years from now, that may be seen as the most important date; 
• think Tehran Conference, Churchill-FDR, November 28 - December 1, 1943
• finalized "Overlord" with Stalin
• six months later for a much, much bigger "event"  
• it won't take six months this time. 
• mid February, 2026, a second US a/c carrier arrives in the region
• except when "we" go to war (or may go to war) in the region. the US has one a/c carrier on site in the Mideast
• the most recent a/c carrier is the US' largest a/c carrier, the Gerald R Ford
• the White House schedules a briefing on the Mideast / Iran for February 18, 2026;
• the Olympics end this weekend, February 22, 2026;
• US Congress returns to work, Monday, February 23, 2026;  
• the State of the Union address is scheduled for Tuesday, February 24, 2026.

That brings us up to date.

The optics will not be good if "we" go to war with Iran and the Department of Homeland Security remains unfunded. Already, the optics are starting to go "south." 

All those audits of ICE mandated by US Congress? They've all been put on hold while the DHS remains unfunded. Wow. Not good. For Schumer and his counterpart in the US House.

Trump may give the US Congress one week to fund DHS. It's unlikely US Congress would be willing to vote on funding anything during hostilities with Iran.

Possibilities:

• reactive response by the US to a major Iranian provocation
• Iranian hardliners may inadvertently (or purposely) instigate a provocation;
• Olympics may or may not be an Iranian concern 
• proactive response regardless of Iranian diplomatic efforts; stalling has gone on long enough;
• Netanyahu gave Trump the "green light" in early February, 2026, but both agreed upon a "not earlier than" date for a proactive attack
• proactive attack could simply be a re-play of the first 12-hour US attack on Iran, and warn them ahead of time that's all it would be unless Iran escalated the situation. 

META / Nvidia Partership Sucking All The Oxygen Out Of The AI Arena -- But There's A Whole Lot More -- Lines Are Being Drawn -- February 18, 2026

Locator: 50004TECH.

Investing:

• knowledge is power;
• MOJO is fleeting;
• for Mag 7: FOMO has flipped to FOOI 
• Mag 7 stronger than ever.

FOMO: the META / Nvidia partnership is sucking all the oxygen out of the AI tech arena.

Amazing.

Key takeaways, if you don't remember anything else:

• META's LDCs in this partnership will be the first to launch Nvidia's high end Hopper Grace chips; being released earlier than expected;
• META will use millions of Nvidia chips;
• direct assault on Intel and AMD;
• META: $600 billion through 2028; 30 new LDCs in Texas, Louisiana, and Ohio

Partnerships:

• META and Nvidia
• Google Gemini and Broadcom
• Apple and Broadcom

AWS?

AMD?  

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Disclaimer
Briefly

Briefly: 

I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken and I am often well out front of my headlights. I am often appropriately accused of hyperbole when it comes to the Bakken.

I am inappropriately exuberant about the US economy and the US market.

I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple. 

See disclaimer. This is not an investment site. 

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. All my posts are done quickly: there will be content and typographical errors. If something appears wrong, it probably is. Feel free to fact check everything.

If anything on any of my posts is important to you, go to the source. If/when I find typographical / content errors, I will correct them. 

Reminder: I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken, US economy, and the US market.

I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple. 

And now, Nvidia, also. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Nvidia. Nvidia is a metonym for AI and/or the sixth industrial revolution.

I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Broadcom.

Longer version here.   

Apple's "Baltra" -- Update -- February 18, 2026

Locator: 50003BALTRA.

I mentioned "Baltra" once before and then forgot about. Need to update it or provide a stand-alone page for Baltra. Apparently it's still a "thing." 

Link to techpowerup, December 16, 2025.  

About a year ago, industry insiders let slip early details regarding Apple's mysterious "Baltra" AI chip. At the time, Broadcom was reportedly assisting with the design's network technology. In addition, the "Baltra" project was linked to TSMC 3 nm N3E or N3P node processes. Recent leaks suggest an adjusted gestation schedule; instead of a predicted start of "mass production by 2026," timelines seem to be extended by another year. The reasons behind this rumored delay are not clear, but the North American giant has—officially, as of October 2025—bolstered its Apple Intelligence and Private Cloud Compute-oriented data centers with US-made advanced server equipment, likely running on familiar M2 Ultra processors. Industry moles reckon that M4-based variants are being readied for distribution.

Apple's futuristic in-house "Baltra" AI setup is expected to be inference-oriented, as predicted by Max Weinbach. The tech industry analyst imagined: "basically, I doubt they'll do a massive cluster, but maybe something closer to a GB300 style, with ~64 chips all to all with larger high bandwidth LPDDR memory. Should be significantly cheaper than most current chips, and match the needs." Last month, Mark Gurman claimed that Apple had signed up for a custom Google Gemini-powered LLM. The notorious tipster believes that the claimed $1 billion per year deal will drive next-gen personalized Siri and AI web search functions. As mentioned before, Apple's in-progress "Baltra" data center chip could be designed for efficiency and cost-effectiveness, rather than the raw processing power required for training.

Ai prompt: Is Apple's Baltra still a thing? How has it evolved? Why don't we hear much in the media about Baltra? 

Google Gemini:

Jump In Oil Price -- Wednesday, February 18, 2026

Locator: 50002B.

Vatican says "No!" to Trump's "Board of Peace." Prefers UN successful model in the Mideast.

Mideast: largest US a/c carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford about ready to arrive in theater -- 

CVX, ticker: at the open up 1.42%; up $2.39; see jump in oil price over night -- see below. 

Berkshire unit sells its Washington State's energy assets. Link here.  

Portland General Electric Company has agreed to buy select power plants and utility operations of Berkshire Hathaway’s PacifiCorp in Washington State for $1.9 billion, the Portland-based firm. The proceeds will easily pay for Berkshire's new position in The New York Times, at about $350 million. And, yes, NYT is profitable, beating estimates 4Q25, 89 cents vs 87 to 88 cents estimate.

AAPL: Apple stock is Big Tech's "safe haven." Link here. 

Apple stock is up 7.9% over the past 12 months, outperforming hyperscalers Microsoft, Amazon and Meta. 

Apple rose 3.2% on Tuesday, while Microsoft stock was down 1.1%, Alphabet dropped 1.2%, Tesla fell 1.6%, and Meta declined 0.1%. 

Amazon closed up 1.2% and Nvidia gained 1.2%. 

“People do look at Apple as a safe haven against this big AI spending, this ROI [return on investment] story, just because their capex is relatively low compared to other hyperscalers,” said Ryuta Makino, research analyst at Gabelli Funds.

Ford: back to developing a $30,000 truck. What's the definition of insanity, again? What's a midgate?

 

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Back To The Bakken 

WTI: $64.00. Up $1.67, up 2.7% overnight.

New wells reporting:

• Thursday, February 19, 2026: 36 for the month, 89 for the quarter, 89 for the year, 
• 41876, conf, State 159-92-36C-24-1H, 
• 41818, conf, BR, Rolla 6D, 
• 41499, conf, Enerplus, MHA Phoenix 4894 41-34 2BU,
• 41498, conf, Enerplus, MHA Helena 4894 41-34 1BU, 
• 41459, conf, Phoenix Operating, Daniel Ferrari 3-10-15-22 1H ,
• 41458, conf, Phoenix Operating, Daniel Ferrari 3-10-15-22-2H, 
• 41371, conf, Hess, EN-Hanson A-155-94-0607H-8,
• 40807, conf, Hess, BW-Hagen-149-100-1522H-5, 
• Wednesday, February 18, 2026: 28 for the month, 81 for the quarter, 81 for the year,
• 41960, conf, Kraken, Charity 3-19-15 1H, 
• 41500, conf, Enerplus, MHA Memphis 4894 41-34 3BU,

RBN Energy: from basic repairs to long-term investment, may steps are needed to revitalize Venezuela's oil industry. Link here. Not interested.