Notes From All Over -- Early Morning Edition -- August 12, 2020

Another incredibly busy day; several must-read stories popped up overnight.

Markets: could hit new all-time highs today.

Flaring:

• best story all day; 
• may be behind paywall, but somehow it showed up on my iPad (by the way, that happens a lot: stores that should be behind a paywall are behind a paywall on my laptop, but show up on my iPad); again, if one googles the headline, it seems one can get past the paywall; discussed this years ago;
• fall in US gas flaring gives cause for optimism: look who is posting that story, of all things, a Euro-based publication: Financial Times;
• global gas flaring hit its highest level in a decade last year; large part due to shale;
• but more recent data: in the past twelve months, gas flaring in the US actually declined by 70 percent (a nice round number, interestingly); numbers provided by the Earth Observation Group at the Payne Institute for Public Policy (EOG-PIPP);
• decline not driven by policy, Covid-19, or suddenly improved operations
• driven by investors demanding greater capital discipline from a sector known for exuberant spending
• better operators will survive the current demand-destruction environment; better operators better at managing their resources, including flaring
• well completions:
• August, 2019: peaked at 1,425 wells
• May, 2020: just 461 wells were completed
• finally, the FT recognizes the important of "completion" of wells, not simply number of rigs, or number of wells drilled: "completing, as its name suggests, is one of the last steps in monetising a well -- thus a strong driver for companies to maintain, even as they reduce spending" -- wow -- such an insight -- we've been discussing that for years:
• completions: also the most expensive step (now; it wasn't always that way) -- completions comprise up to 70 percent of well costs for onshore basins;
• summary: drop in flaring due to drop in completions
• basins cited: the Permian in Texas and the Bakken in North Dakota;
• much more at the site if you can get to it;

Housing market:

• mortgage applications jumped 7%
• every type: 30-year; 15-year; jumbo
• rates rising
• supply issue: huge demand; limited supply; prices rising;
  

Cable ratings:

• Fox News leads the pack in prime time -- NY Times; I expected this one to be behind a paywall, but it is not not, at least for now
• Fox News ratings surge, leading 'Primetime Pack" despite boycotts, as CNN, MSNBC lag -- ZeroHedge;

Economy:

• Waffle House is back; re-opened; almost back to full capacity -- Fox News: less than 20 Waffle House restaurants remain closed;
• NYC: in deep doo-doo; wealthy residents fleeing; in droves; in addition to everything else, folks now working from home -- in Connecticut, in New Jersey, upstate, Long Island
  

Oil:

• API yesterday:
• forecast: a "modest" draw of 2.875 million bbls; again, the false precision
• actual: a "considerable" draw of 8.587 million bbls;
• distiallate: down by 2.949 million bbls compared to last week's 3.824-million-barrel build
• so, we wait for today's EIA data
• WTI right now: 42.32, up 1.7%;

DAPL:

• I've lost interest in this story; what will be, will be; however, I can't pass up a link to S&P Global Platts: jumping the shark -- DAPL proponents cite risk of famine, floods, fires, and fatalities;

Wuhan flu:

• why it may affect children less -- ZeroHedge: 

This new study detailed in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on May 20, discovered that the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), which grows in abundance as the individual grows, might be the reason that less than two percent of all individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2 - the virus that causes the COVID-19 disease - are children.

• like the US space program in the 1960s, the medical response to Covid-19 will have huge positive spin-offs for entire US health industry: research; diagnosis; treatment; public policy; etc; 
• this is a big, big deal;
  
• millennial "attitude" vs the attitude of baby boomers
  

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

Market:

• on "record-watch" -- missed new records yesterday but could see them today;
• Moderna surges: Trump announces US government will buy 100 million doses at $15.25/dose;
• comment: keep your eye on Pfizer
• more and more talk about this "strange recession"; the buzz is changing and it's changing quickly;
• keep your eye on OXY-WT;
• huge splits coming -- both on August 31, 2020: AAPL (4-1) and TSLA (5-1); 
• TSLA can turn on a dime; made announcement much later than Apple; and will execute the split on the same day as AAP, and do one better (5 -1 vs 4 - 1) 
• every so often I get very, very excited about the market; this is one of those times; it appears that regardless of the election outcome, the market is going to do very, very well;
  

Biggest fumble:

• Big 10, Pac-12 both kill 2020-2021 season; was a risk management decision;
• not sure what the other three Power 5 conferences will do;
• looks like ACC will stay open in a "hybrid" model
• understands risks of no supervision vs 100% supervision 
• no "supervision" for six months will result in huge amount of risky behavior
• one must remember the structure that college sports provides, and one can argue that the majority of college athletes come from backgrounds where they have not had structure, no mentors, no role models, etc.
• Kash-&-Kari will support this decision by the Pac-12 and Big 10; University of Minnesota is part of the Big 10
  
• when this is all over and folks look back on this five years from now, this will be viewed as huge mistake (to shut down college sports); huge, huge mistake;
  
• biggest argument: with a full football season, the tens of thousands of football players would have been monitored daily and very, very, closely; now, 10's of thousands of young (mostly black) men will be going out to bars in droves -- at least that's the risks
• what are tens of thousands of young, hyper-sexed men going to do for six months? this is going to be a huge story before it's all over
• if I can find the source, I will link it: the number of young, black men that are going to be affected;
  
• keep eyes on Sturgis Rally to see if 250,000 rallies (well above college football game attendance) affect change in growth rate of Covid-19-related hospitalizations (not cases)
• I don't have a dog in this fight; I don't even care to watch NCAA football any more, not even the bowl games -- all 640 of them;
  

Politics:

• the market can accept Democratic administration, but not a full sweep -- talking head; I agree;

Bad public policy:

• eating less meat;
• meat: huge source of zinc
• zinc: critical for immune system
• zinc: not stored in body; daily requirements needed
• where does Kamala Harris stand on meat? eat less meat -- although in her defense, it sounds like she is simply being politically correct and couldn't care less one way or the other; she will simply do what the lobbyists and those who surround her tell her to do
  

Lego:

• surging in my household; LOL