Notes From All Over, Part 2, Sense Of Urgency In China -- January 16, 2020

DUCs: lots of articles this week about DUCs dropping in number. The NDIC's Director's Cut will be out tomorrow. I track Bakken DUCs here. 

IMO 2020:

China. China's economy in deep trouble? From Fox Business News today --

• China to report GDP tonight: expected to be lowest in 30 years
• China's largest utility writes: economic growth could fall to 4$ over the next five year

China: later, WSJ -- China's slowing growth underlines stress facing its economy in 2020.

Natural gas fill:

Bank of New York (BNY Mellon) - BK:

• shares plunge 8%
• down $4.05; trading at $46.64
• from Zacks:
• adjusted earnings: $1.01; surpassed forecast of 99 cents
• earnings reflect a rise of nearly 2% from the prior-year quarter
• net income applicable to common shareholders was $1.39 billion or $1.52/share, up from $832 million or 84 cents per share recorded in the prior-year quarter
• for full year, 2019, earnings per share of $4.02 surpassed forecast, $3.99
• for full year net income applicable to common shareholders was $4.27 billion or $4.51/share, up from $4.10 billion or $4.04 per share recorded in 2018 
• despite that beat, shares plunged 8%
• the "whisper" numbers must have been a lot greater than the two-cent beat 

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. 

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The Book Page

From The Viking Wars: War and Peace in Kin Alfred's Britain, 789 - 955, Max Adams, c. 2018.

I had not heard of quarter days before. From wiki:

In British and Irish tradition, the quarter days were the four dates in each year on which servants were hired, school terms started, and rents were due. They fell on four religious festivals roughly three months apart and close to the two solstices and two equinoxes.

The English quarter days are

• Lady Day (25 March) 
• Midsummer Day (24 June) 
• Michaelmas (29 September) 
• Christmas (25 December)

But this is what fascinates me:

There is a mnemonic for remembering on which day of the month the first three quarter-days fall (Christmas being easy to recall): Every quarter day is twenty-something, and the second digit of the day of the month is the number of letters in the month's name. So March has five letters and Lady Day is 25 March; similarly June has four letters and September nine, with Midsummer Day and Michaelmas falling on the 24th and 29th respectively.

I've finished this book but will keep it on "top shelf" as a reference book. It's an incredible book for those interested in the trivia of this period in English (British?) and Scandinavian history. I doubt many folks will read it straight through; it's a real slog, but as a reference book, it's outstanding.

One of the things I appreciated most was the author's use of words and terms, no matter how obscure or archaic, without digressing with definitions. He simply assumed, I guess, we either knew what these words meant, or we could look them up for ourselves.

An example, and another pearl, from page 437:

A meeting is to be held in each wapentake, and the twelve leading thegns, and with them the reeve, are to come forward and swear on the relics that are put into their hands that they will accuse no innocent man nor conceal any guilty one.

This is generally held to enshrine the concept of a jury system, unknown in English law before this date but secure in its Scandinavian origins. 

From the Wantage Code, 997, King Æöelred II.

"Wapentake" -- link here.  Pronounce this as "weapon-take" and the etymology seems clear.