Old news. I completely missed it. A reader sent me the story.
McKesson -- a Fortune 500 company -- has moved its headquarters from San Francisco to Dallas.
McKesson topped the the
list of largest San Francisco-based companies, based on revenue.
McKesson ranks No. 6 on the Fortune 500. The second-largest San
Francisco-based company, based on revenue, is Wells Fargo,
which is exempt from the city’s gross receipts taxes, as required by
state law. The city declined to identify specific companies that get the
exemption.
Third on the list of
largest San Francisco-based companies is payments giant Visa,
which moved its headquarters officially to One Market St. several years
ago. Visa did not respond to a question on whether it’s subject to the
city’s gross receipts taxes.
Sounds errily like Toyota North America moving its headquarters from Los Angeles to Plano, on the north side of DFW.
As I've said many times on the blog, I've never seen so much construction as I'm seeing on the north side of DFW.
Link here to the McKesson story; and, here. Because of other things going on in San Francisco (like tech and Silicon Valley) and the size of Los Angeles, I doubt either city will miss one or two big companies. But the reader notes that a city like Portland, OR, can hardly afford the loss of (m)any downtown businesses. And it's our shared belief that Portland is looking to San Francisco for guidance on how to "run" a city.
By the way, no wonder Warren Buffett likes Wells Fargo: the company is exempt from San Francisco's gross receipts taxes. Wow, what a deal.
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AAPL vs TSLA
Tesla and Apple both reported in the last 24 hours: Apple, Inc., reported yesterday; Tesla reported today. Apple looks stronger than ever. Tesla? The tea leaves suggest 2019 will be "the year," one way or the other.
Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, job, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or what you think you may have read here.
Note: I am the original Apple Fanboy. Fanboy #3 to be exact.
January 31, 2019: Elon must have been unhappy with how the earnings call was handled. LOL. From Bloomberg this morning: Tesla's bombshell CFO exit spoils pivot to more sober Musk.
Elon
Musk appeared to be putting the days of unpredictability in the
rearview mirror. Then he spooked Tesla Inc. investors with another
surprise executive exit.
The
chief executive officer vowed on an earnings call to cut costs and
manage Tesla’s cash as it enters a slower-growth period. Instead of
madcap Musk, investors heard from a more measured CEO who had just
missed analysts’ estimates for quarterly profit. He even made multiple
mentions of the possibility there could be a recession.
But
after all the talk of tougher times and tightening the wallet, Musk’s
penchant for blindsiding shareholders reemerged. With mere minutes left
on the call, he revealed Chief Financial Officer Deepak Ahuja will
retire a second time, reinforcing Tesla’s reputation for having an
active revolving door of top executives.
The electric-car maker’s shares dropped as much as 2.8 percent shortly after the open of regular trading Thursday.
“The
CFO’s surprise retirement just adds to a wave” of recent departures,
said Michael Dean, an analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence.
We should know later the free cash flow as of the end of December, 2018, later this evening.
Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, job, travel, or relationship decisions based on anything you read here or think you may have read here.
Murex renewed two permits, Michael Douglas and Patricia Ann, both in Williams County (a little trivia: Patrician Ann ("Tisha") Sterling played opposite Michael Douglas in PBS Playhouse, one episode, 1969).
Twelve producing wells (DUCs) reported as completed:
32897, n/d, CLR, Colter ...
32895, n/d, CLR, Colter ...
32894, n/d, CLR, Colter ...
32893, n/d, CLR, Colter ...
32892, n/d, CLR, Colter ...
34910, 1,546, Abraxas, Rav-Wiley 2H,
33954, 1,819, Abraxas, Rav-Wiley 1H,
33953, 1,432, Abraxas, Ravin 14H,
33952, 2,3365, Abraxas, Ravin 13H,
32531, 1,134, Petro-Hunt, USA 153-95-4A-9-6H,
32533, 946, Petro-Hunt, USA 153-95-4B-9-4H,
34613, 3,146, WPX, Benson 3HC; follow up on neighboring wells -- 27070, 27068, 27069, and particularly, 18948, and 22629; some are still off-line; one showed no jump in production; one shows a subtle jump; need to check dates; all to be done later;
Later, 4:01 p.m. Central Time: just minutes after posting the note below, I see that the WeatherChannel has re-framed their question. I guess the producer(s) were told that the game inside a stadium with a retractable roof because the new question is: will they retract the room on the dome?Wow, talk about sophomoric.
Original Post
Before we get started, the dumbest question that WeatherChannel reporters are asking this week?
Before guessing, remember: the WeatherChannel is based out of Atlanta, tends to focus on Atlanta, and the Super Bowl will be played in Atlanta this Sunday.
The question: how will the weather affect the Super Bowl this Sunday?
Well, duh, the polar vortex will have swung through Atlanta well before the weekend. The forecast is for 62 degrees and dry.
Oh, yeah, and one other thing: helllllooooo.... the game is indoors -- but the roof of the dome can be retracted .... but if it's really, really cold, and/or raining, why would they want to do that?
The top seven hits when asked if The Farmers' Almanac predicted the 2019 polar vortex:
most said it would be a warmer than usual, wet winter
the ones that predicted that it would be colder than normal, also said lots of snow (which did not occur with this polar vortex)
not one mentioned the polar vortex in its predictions
only one even mentioned "polar vortex" but it was in a sidebar and not a prediction
Less than six months before we got hit with the polar vortex, no one predicted it ... as far as I can tell, and yet we know that the earth will be 2.7 degrees warmer one hundred years from now. The science is settled.
I have edited my original note regarding this subject. My position has not changed, but after receiving correspondence from reader(s), I thought it best to remove the "emotional" component of my original note.
This is the #1 reason why I was disappointed to learn that the Williston school bond issue was defeated.
The faint print in the caption: "The Williston High School Wonderettes dance team, who qualified for the finals in jazz, pom, and hip-hop for the first time ever in statewide competition, will soon be taking their skills to nationals. Let's wish these ladies good luck!"
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G-Technology
Someone asked me about "g-technology.
From wiki:
G-Technology is a brand of external storage products designed and marketed for the Macintosh, creative pro, photography and A/V markets. Its USB, FireWire, eSATA, SAS, SCSI Thunderbolt, and Fibre Channel systems support all levels of audio/video production. It is owned by HGST, a subsidiary of Western Digital.
Macintosh, of course, everyone know: Apple, Inc. Steve Jobs, et al.
But "FireWire"? Yup. Apple, also. From wiki:
IEEE 1394 is an interface standard for a serial bus for high-speed communications and isochronous real-time data transfer. It was developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s by Apple, which called it FireWire.
The 1394 interface is also known by the brands i.LINK (Sony), and Lynx (Texas Instruments).
The copper cable it uses in its most common implementation can be up to 15 ft long.
Power is also carried over this cable, allowing devices with moderate power requirements to operate without a separate power supply.
FireWire is also available in Cat 5 and optical fiber versions.
The 1394 interface is comparable to USB, though USB requires a master controller and has greater market share.
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Can You Imagine?
From Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman, James Gleick, c. 1992.
In 1948, the world's top physicists met in Pocono, Pennsylvania.
At the time, they had built "the bomb" but they did not understand the physics. The mass of the electron was unknown. A quick glance gave a reasonable number but a hard look gave infinity -- nonsense. The very idea of mass was unsettled: mass was not exactly "stuff," but it was not exactly "energy," either.
As the Pocono meeting began, Oppenheimer had reached the peak of his public glory, having risen as hero of the atomic bomb project and not yet having fallen as the antihero of hte 1950s security trials.
He was the meeting's nominal chairman, but more accomplished physicists were scattered about the room:
Niels Bohr, the father of the quantum theory, on hand from his institute in Denmark; Enrico Fermi, creator of the nuclear chain reaction, from his laboratory in Chicago; Paul A. M. Dirac, the British theorist whose famous equation for the electron had helped set the stage for the present crisis.
It went without saying that they were Nobel laureates; apart from Oppenheimer almost everyone in the room either had won or would win this honor. A few Europeans were absent, as was Albert Einstein, settling into his statesmanlike retirement, but with these exceptions the Pocono conclave represented the whole priesthood of modern physics.
When I was growing up in the northwest corner of North Dakota it was "normal" to expect
February to be the coldest month of winter, and generally it never got above zero
degrees (32 degrees below zero) for the entire month, day or night.
Above zero degrees it was relatively nice.
Once
it got below minus ten degrees it really didn't matter how cold it got. It all felt the same. I find it
interesting that I really don't remember the cold weather. Sort of like
hearing that women don't remember childbirth. (I doubt that's entirely true.)
For the most part, it was very, very cold in February in North Dakota, but it was dry, no precipitation (no snow). Because it was below freezing from the get-go (as they say), from December on, and because it didn't "rain" in the winter in North Dakota, we did not have any problem with "black ice" or any color ice for that matter -- except icicles, which were not a problem but just something interesting to watch.
I remember, vividly, how warm our houses and stores were. I never thought about where that energy came from; we were very, very fortunate that when I was growing up, energy was dispatchable, available, and affordable. It is interesting to look back that we never, never, never had a power outage during the middle of the winter. The utilities, I suppose, MDU and REA, did an incredible job.
Disclaimer: I had a summer job with MDU the summer between my freshman year and sophomore year at college. Wow, I was treated well. Dad got me the job; he had connections. Was it fair that he got me the job through his connections? Probably. I've always felt a little bit guilty about that, but on the other hand, he was paying for my college and he was looking out for himself as much as he was looking out for me. Life is not fair.
Time for some music.
The Class of '57, The Statler Brothers
If there is any song that "defines" my growing up in Williston, that was it.
Where was I? Oh, that's right: cold, utilities, no power outages.
What I enjoyed most watching out the front window during the coldest stretches: the one or two (cedar or Bohemian) waxwings that would flit in among the "evergreen" hedges along the house. How they survived the winter, I will never know. I don't recall throwing out birdseed for them. My hunch is that Mom did not have the extra "pin" money to buy bird feed. I would have been five or six years old. My brother would have been in the playpen that was placed in front of the picture window; it seems we always had a playpen in our living room when I was growing up.
Now, one of my favorite things to do every morning before I take Sophia to school -- put out a couple slices of bread and lots of wild bird seed on the patio outside her window. I put two pair of binoculars on the window sill which she really enjoys. The highlight of the morning is when a pair of cardinals show up.
Wow, what a digression.
Again, for the granddaughters.
List of birds found in North Dakota. At the link, I did not see any reference to "snow birds." Those are the birds that fly to Phoenix every winter.
What Condition Is My Condition In? Kenny Rogers and the First Edition
Super Bowl, best quotes from The Big Lebowski. #11 was posted earlier. Today, #10, #9, and #8:
10. This aggression will not stand.
9. It really tied the room together.
8. It's Sandro, about Biennale.
*********************************
The Book Page
A History of the Arab Peoples: Albert Hourani, c. 1991.
The path of the mystics, p. 72:
The science and theology, law and tradition all began with what was given in the Qur'an, and ended by reinforcing the claims of Islam and heightening the barrier between it and the other monotheistic religiosn to which it was kin. There were other strands of thoughts, however ...
One of them was that line of thought and practice which is commonly called "mysticism"; the Arabic equivalent to this word is tasawwful (from which comes the anglicized form Sufism) possibly derived from the robes of wool (suf) which one of the early groups was supposed to have worn.
It is no generally agreed that it drew its inspiration from the Qur'an. A believer meditating on its meaning might be filled witha sense of the overwhelming transcendence of God and the total dependence of all creatures on Him: God the all-powerful, the inscrutable, guiding those who had faith in Him, for all His greatness was present and near to every human soul which relied on Him, "nearer to you than the vein in your neck."
The Qur'an contains potent images of the nearness of God to man, and the way in which man can respond. Before the world was created, God is said to have made a covenant (mithaq) with human beings. He asked them, "Am I not your Lord?" and they answered, "Yes, we testify."
[Do I hear an "amen"?]
In his life Muhammad is said to have made a mysterious journey, first to Jerusalem and then to Paradise, where he was allowed to approach to a certain distance from God and have a vision of His face.
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Connecting the Dots
I don't think it's all that hard to connect these two dots recently in the headlines:
it is now legal in New York for non-physicians to "end the life" of a delivered, living newborn if the "plan all along was to abort that fetus"; and,
the plan to remove "so help you God" from a congressional oath
If the end-all and be-all is simply what we have in the "here and now" that's sort of where we end up.
Later: Virginian tries to "out-do" New York on abortion. A Virginia legislator is advocating for post-delivery abortion. I guess the mom gets a chance to look at the live born and then decide if she wants the baby to live. Sort of reminds me of the stories from the classical Greek and Roman era. Link here.
Weather. Wow, I'm really embarrassed. After all that talk about how cold it was going to be in north Texas -- nope. For roughnecks, it is shirtsleeve weather down here; for the rest of us, a sweater or jacket. Absolutely beautiful weather. The "polar vortex" apparently got hung up at the Oklahoma/Texas state line. It will reach 53 degrees today and by the end of the week back in the mid-70s.
Regular unleaded gasoline: $2.89 on the way to Starbucks this morning (DFW area).
WTI: wonderful -- oil just went over $54. Up 1.37%; up 73 cents; now trading at $54.04. Nice to see.
NOG: up slightly, trading at $2.505.
AAPL: up 4%; up about $6; trading at $161. Well down from its highs but a pretty good earnings report ... considering.
Disclaimer: I am Apple Fanboy #3. Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, job, travel, or relationship decision based on what you read here or think you may have read here.
Maps. Wow, if you like interactive maps, you will love the Bloomberg look at how American uses its land (surface land). Link here. Enjoy. Sort of interactive, I guess.
Race to the bottom. From Victor Davis Hanson. Not for snowflakes. Link here. It begins:
We are currently witnessing a quite strange series of North
Korean–like reeducation confessionals, from repenting erstwhile liberals
and now presidential hopefuls such as Joe Biden, Tulsi Gabbard, Kamala
Harris, and Kirsten Gillibrand. They and other would-be candidates
parade before show cameras to apologize for their prior incorrect
heresies, including their erstwhile support for drug laws, tough
sentencing, and border enforcement.
By the way, there's a reason Kamala Harris has gotten out in front with "Medicare For All." But we'll wait on that.
Scott Adams: wow, when he gets off politics and into a) public health policy; b) medicine; c) global warming, he often comes off as an idiot. His arguments on persuasion and politics are interesting but once he gets off-topic -- wow, he starts to lose it.
Wells coming off confidential list -- yet to be reported -- Wednesday, January 30, 2019: 101 wells for the month; 101 wells for the quarter
34199, 1,981, CLR, Norway 7-5H1, Fancy Buttes, t10/18; cum 15K over 9 days;
34006, 2,161, CLR, Radermecher 6-22H1, Camel Butte, a huge well, 43K in one month; the Radermecher wells are tracked here; t9/18; cum 85K 11/18; one month with 43K;
34003, SI/NC, Hess, SC-1WX-152-99-0809H-5, Banks, no production data,
33985, 940, Oasis, Dawson 5494 43-12 11T, Alkali Creek, t9/18; cum 93K 11/18;
33983, 784, Oasis, Dawson 5494 43-12 9T, Alkali Creek, t9/18; cum 71K 11/18;
33537, SI/NC, CLR, Holstein Federal 15-25H1, Elm Tree, producing, albeit very little,
31988, SI/NC, Petro-Hunt, Anderson 152-96-35D-26-1HS, Clear Creek, no production data,
Tuesday, January 29, 2019: 94 wells for the month; 94 wells for the quarter
34002, SI/NC, Hess, SC-1WX-152-99-0809H-4, Banks, no production data,
34001, SI/NC, Hess, SC-1WX-152-99-0809H-3, Banks, no production data,
The market is used to crude oil spreads in the Permian Basin being
volatile. Fast-paced production growth, the addition of new takeaway
pipelines — and the rapid filling of those new pipes — have all impacted
in-basin pricing, and we’ve seen differentials from the Permian to its
downstream markets — Cushing, OK, and the Gulf Coast — widen and narrow
as supply and demand fundamentals have changed. But recently, things
have gotten a lot wilder. In September 2018, the Midland discount to WTI
at Cushing blew out to almost $18/bbl, then narrowed to less than
$6/bbl only three weeks later, thanks largely to the start-up of Plains
All American’s much-ballyhooed, 350-Mb/d Sunrise Expansion. As Sunrise
started to fill up, price differentials initially widened for a brief
period of time. But, as we kicked off 2019, the Midland-Cushing spread
quickly shrank further and then flipped, with Midland last Friday
(January 25) trading at a $1/bbl premium to Cushing crude. You might wonder, how the heck did that
happen? In today’s blog, we discuss how things play out when abundant
supply dries up like a prune and traders are suddenly caught in a tight
market. Archived.
West Texas Intermediate (WTI) is a light, sweet crude
oil produced in the United States that is priced at the crude oil
trading hub of Cushing, Oklahoma. WTI is used as a benchmark for other
types of crude oil produced in the United States, such as Mars, a
medium, sour crude produced in the Gulf of Mexico, and Bakken, a light,
sweet crude produced in North Dakota. WTI is also used as a benchmark
for imported crude oil that is produced in Canada, Mexico, and South
America.
WTI
A wide variety of benchmark crude oils worldwide are considered to be light. The most prominent in North America is West Texas Intermediate (WTI):
API gravity of 39.6° API; lighter than Brent, but not by much
sulfur: 0.24% (sweet oil is defined as oil with sulfur content less than 0.5%)
Platts will add Norway's Troll to the basket of four British and
Norwegian crude grades which is already uses to assess dated Brent from
January 1, 2018
this will join Brent, Forties, Oseberg, Ekofisk, or BFOE as they are known
Troll: a light, sweet crude; operated by Statoil (also contributes
to the Oseberg, Statfjord, Gullfaks, Grane and Asgard streams)
the most commonly referenced benchmark oil from Europe is Brent Crude, which is
38.06° API
Dubai Crude
the third most commonly quoted benchmark is Dubai Crude, which is 31° API
this is considered light by Arabian standards but would not be considered light if produced in the U.S.
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Others
Saudia Arabia's Ghawar field:
the largest oil field in the world, Saudi Arabia's Ghawar field
light crude oils ranging from 33° API to 40° API (see above; most would consider Saudi oil to be medium/heavy; and sour
36 to 44 degrees API. The quality of this oil is excellent, almost
identical to WTI. The benchmark crude oil is West Texas Intermediate,
which is 40 degrees API sweet crude. It is the benchmark because it
requires the least amount of processing in a modern refinery to make the
most valuable products, unleaded gasoline and diesel fuel.
Crude oil found in Iraq varies significantly in quality, with API gravities generally ranging from 22° (heavy) to 35° (medium - light).
Over 70% of national oil reserves are below 28° API and the
International Energy Agency (IEA) predicted in its 2012 report on Iraq
that future production is likely to include a larger share of heavier crudes.
However some of the crudes produced at the Taq Taq field in the norther
semi-autonomous Kurdistan region are as light as 48° API, dubbed by
Reuters as "champagne crude." See Taq Taq here.
California: heavy oil; pdf here -- old data, from 2004, but type of oil probably has not changed
Kern County: heavy oil with 1.2% sulfur; accounts for 75% of California's on-shore production
Los Angeles Basin: heavy oil; sulfur content 1.7% to 2.0%
Off-shore: intermediate for the most part, 18° (heavy) to 36° (medium-light)
Net crude exporter Petroecuador issued a tender to import 30 million
barrels of light sweet crude over the course of a year in an attempt to
maximize diesel and gasoline production when its Esmeraldas refinery
comes back online in the fourth quarter, market sources said Tuesday.
Petroecuador
is seeking 30 million barrels of low sulfur crude oil with an API
gravity of 28 degrees to be delivered in a one-year period, according to
a tender issued late Monday.
The state-owned oil company is
seeking the barrels "in order to optimize the Esmeraldas refinery
operations, once the revamping has been complete," the tender said.
Venezuela: heavy oil, similar to Canadian oil sands.
