At Investor's Business Daily:
HAL, SLB, and other oilfield services companies should see a busy second quarter due to pent-up demand following a wintry first quarter, according to a report from Sterne Agee.
Analyst Stephen Gengaro bases his outlook on reports of lower well counts during the first three months of the year. That includes a 2.5% sequential decline in well counts reported by Baker Hughes, a provider of well-bore products and technology services and systems to the oil and gas industry.
"This highlights our belief that wells per rig would drop in Q1 due to weather disruptions, and likely leads to a sharp rise in Q2 well completions," Gengaro noted.At Zacks: rig count tops 1,500.
At Yahoo!Finance: Oil services EFTs soar in anticipation of earnings.
Is America's energy boom slowing? Definitely not -- Motley Fool.
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Replacing "Clean" Nuclear Fuel With Dirtiest Coal Out There: Germany
What’s a beleaguered utility to do when forced by the government to close its profitable nuclear power plants?It turns to lignite, a cheap, soft, muddy-brown colored form of sedimentary rock that spews more greenhouse gases than any other fossil fuel.The story of German power giant RWE AG exemplifies the crisis facing the nation’s utility industry -- and those of many countries across Europe -- as nuclear power plants get shuttered in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, renewables steal away revenue, and consumers and companies complain about rising power costs that are three times higher than in the U.S.Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision in 2011 to shutter all 17 of Germany’s nuclear power stations by 2022 struck a blow to RWE’s profit stream, particularly for a company that has almost no presence in renewables. RWE posted its first loss last year since World War II and may face worse losses going forward.
The Essen-based company, founded in 1898 to produce power for Germany’s industrial heartland, has had no choice except to ramp up production from its profitable coal-fired plants, most of which burn lignite.
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Pushback On Microsoft Office For Apple?
I believe the original "rental price" for Microsoft Office for Apple was $99/year. The buzz seemed to suggest few Apple folks were going to rent MOA for any price, but certainly not for $99, or was it $199/year?
Now, Microsoft says they will rent a copy of MOA for personal use for one lap top and one iPad for $69/year, or $6.99/month. Based on the comments, I don't get a warm fuzzy that renting MOA is going to be a huge hit.