Notes From All Over, Part 1 -- November 15, 2019

Updates

Later, 2:30 p.m. CT: wow, what a market. Dow up almost 200 points in late afternoon trading. 

Later, 9:23 a.m. CT: the market is open. All three indices should hit new all-time highs.

Dow:

• AAPL: up $1.08
• IMUX: down 16 cents; down over 2%
• SRE: up a bit
• UNP: up a bit
• CVX: down a bit
• EW: up $5.22; up 2.2%
• BAX: up a bit
• ENB: up a bit
• EPD: down a bit
• BKH: down a bit
• D: down a bit
• XLNX: up about 3/4ths of a percent

WTI: $56.98, trending up

Original Post

Blogging update: I'll be out and about most of the day and may have some difficulty blogging. It looks like a great day: the monthly NDIC Director's Cut is scheduled to be released [later: wrong: scheduled to be released next week, November 19, 2019] and the market looks good at the moment. Dow futures up about 70 points. In pre-market trading:

• AAPL: green; up about 0.34%; remember, the buzz on Wall Street -- time to sell
• T: green; up about 0.41%; 
• OXY: green; up about 3% but still below $40 and well below its 52-week high; it's an accidental payer of over 8%
• WMT: green; up 0.7%:
• CVX: red; down about 0.6%; goes ex-dividend today
• RDS-B: red; down about 0.32; trading below 60; pays 6.2%
• XOM: green; barely; pays 5%

Quick: what's the ticker symbol for Saudi Aramco? Apparently, it's ARAMCO. Shares to individual investors become available November 17 to November 28, 2019. Unfortunately, I don't meet any of the criteria to be allowed to purchase ARAMCO shares.

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

BKH: I thought I posted this; not sure. If so, re-posting. BKH increased its dividend from 50.5 cents to 53.5 cents, a 5.9% increase. At $2.14 / $76, about 2.8% dividend.

CVX: ex-dividend today; pays December 10, 2019. Others going ex-div today: Phillips 66; Murphy Oil. Link here for list of 267 companies going ex-div today.

Renewable energy falls short .... again. Illinois declares emergency over propane shortage. Data points:

• solar energy not enough for these seven states declaring propane emergency
• Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wisconsin
• early winter weather conditions (aka grand solar minimum)

More on the propane shortage --  from dtnpf:

But unlike the propane shortage of 2013, there is plenty of supply available across the country now.

"In 2013, there was a general shortage of propane across the country. This year, there is propane -- it is just sitting down in the Gulf (of Mexico). So Kansas is a central distribution point, it flows to storage elsewhere. This year, there are large supplies in the Gulf; in 2013, there were limited supplies U.S.-wide. We also had a bit of a delay in corn harvest. But, again, (grain) drying isn't the big use, it is home and ag (building) heating. So you are likely to have a short-run crunch as supplies adjust this year, whereas in 2013, we simply didn't have it."