Tuesday, November 5, 2019

Notes From All Over, Part 1 -- November 5, 2019

Retail wars: apparently Walmart is more than holding its own against Amazon. A bit of fluff, but this article is very interesting:

Amazon just raised the bar by lowering the price -- to zero -- Amazon is eliminating the $14.99 fee for grocery delivery fee to Prime members. That is truly huge. I suspect Prime membership costs will go up this next year, but Prime seems to be an incredibly good value. Eliminating that grocery-delivery fee will wreak havoc in some markets -- although it's offset by perceived "whole paycheck" moniker for Whole Foods. That $14.99 fee is a monthly fee. The #1 item ordered from Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods: bananas.
Walmart grocery delivery fees, the options (google search, November 5, 2019):
  • $9.99 per delivery; or,
  • annual fee: $98 (about the price of a Prime membership which gets you so much more)
  • monthly fee: $12.95
Nacho president: link here. Look at the amount of money spent.

Chinese tariff war winding down? Stories, links everywhere. This, and much more, has already been baked into the market.

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.

Politics: more and more stories suggest Trump is stronger than ever in battleground states. The non-stop bickering in Washington has become background noise. Big test for Trump supporters in some states today. Biggest ballot issue in Texas: "bolting" shut the talk of any state income tax. Proposition 4 is badly titled. Vote "FOR" the proposition if against state income tax; vote "AGAINST" the proposition if you favor the idea of a state income tax.

Keystone (not the XL) pipeline remains closed. Crews continue clean-up in northeastern North Dakota. Source of leak not yet found.

Oil inventory report, Z4 Research estimates:
  • US crude oil in storage: up 2.7 million bbls
  • API data out later this afternoon
  • EIA date out tomorrow, Wednedsday
Markets:
  • after record-setting day yesterday, all major indices in the green in pre-market trading
  • most interesting for me: OXY -- if share prices hold, it speaks volumes for this company
    • says it will reduce CAPEX by 40% and yet production will increase slightly (2%) -- I've seen the same thing across the Bakken; producing more while cutting CAPEX; so we'll see
Oil: OPEC's world oil outlook -- OPEC's market share will shrink for years amid a flood of US shale supplies; link at Bloomberg; says decline for OPEC oil will slide about 7% over the next four years (through 2024).

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