The Market, Energy, Political Page, T+25 -- June 25, 2018

Best Video Of The Day 

Update

Later, 6:59 p.m. CDT: see this post.

Original Post

 A reader sent me this. It could not have been more timely. My youngest sister's family recently acquired a Corgi (with papers?). It was a puppy not long ago and is now pretty well grown. Corgis are natural herders, and their Corgi is constantly herding all the folks who visit the house. It's quite humorous to watch Tucker, the Corgi, herd humans and he does herding much, much better than this one.

My grandfather raised sheep in northwestern South Dakota and I spent a fair amount of time on his land. I do not recall sheep ever "attacking" or "chasing" anything. I've already watched this video several times and have not yet gotten tired of it.

Goats? Completely different. They will definitely chase you. 

Obama

As good an article as any on the whereabouts of former President Obama. I have no idea how much is true and how much is relevant (probably very little) but's an interesting read. 

Tesla

From an earlier post:

SolarCity: An Albatross:

• Tesla owns SolarCity
• the $2 billion purchase came with almost $3 billion in debt
• "huge chunk" of interest coming due soon
• [again, typical article: "huge chunk" not defined; and date coming due was not provided] 
• Tesla doesn't guarantee repayment; SolarCity does (this is called non-recourse debt for Tesla)
• but, the SolarCity debt affects Tesla's overall credit rating and impacts borrowing costs
• Tesla has $10 billion of total debt outstanding; $3 billion is non-recourse, mostly Solar City debt
• without SolarCity, Tesla's borrowing ratings might be closer to 5.9% (single B rating)
• with SolarCity rating, a B- rating/Caa1 rating, closer to 7.2%
• story at Fortune through YahooFinance

This story has been previously posted, but more background at this linked story:

• SolarCity acquired by Tesla in 2016 for $2.6 billion
• Tesla will close 13 - 14 solar installation facilities in nine states (three regions)
• CA, TX, AZ,
• MD, NJ, DE
• NY, CT, NH,
• SolarCity will end its partnership with 800 Home Depot stores -- generated about half of the division's sales volume (wow)
• in line with 9% workforce reduction that was announced last week
• "We continue to expect that Tesla's solar and battery business will be the same size as automotive over the long term." -- Elon Musk
• the company installed 76 MW of solar in 1Q18; a 64% decline from 214 MW installed two  years ago (1Q16)
• more at the link