Notes From All Over -- Monday Pre-Market Edition -- August 10, 2020

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. 

Fudging numbers: the EIA reported 1.4 million more bbls of oil production per day in May than was actually produced -- Focus on Fracking -- weekly edition posted; link here. 

Riots: in Chicago; over victim wounded by police; police response unprepared; 

Standing Rock: stops bikers from using highways to get to Sturgis; a non-story until the bikers in Sturgis get bored

The perfect equity portfolio:

• grossly overweighted in AAPL
• portfolio "goes up" even on days AAPL "falls"
• note: today, AAPL is up $5/share in pre-market trading
  

Rig counts, from Westwood unconventionals:

• Permian Basin -1.6% to 122 rigs compared to last week's 124 rigs 
• Eagle Ford -8.3% to 11 rigs compared to last week's 12 rigs 
• Williston stayed flat at 11 rigs 
• Haynesville stayed flat at 32 rigs 
• Marcellus stayed flat at 25 rigs 
• Cana Woodford stayed flat at 6 rigs 
• DJ-Niobrara stayed flat at 4 rigs 
• Powder River stayed flat at 0 rigs 
• Utica stayed stayed flat at 6 rigs

Permits

• A Bakken permit costs how much?
• A permit to drill a natural gas well in Pennsylvania costs how much?

Fast and furious:

• ICYMI: EIA reports that crude oil production in May has a record monthly decrease; link here; see Focus on Fracking link above, or click here to go direclty to FOF; 
  
• Meng's mysterious exit; 
• Dow Jones futures: surge; Trump extends unemployment benefits; Investor's Business Daily;
• Tracking the wrong metric -- Bloomberg;
• Exxon tears up debt-fueled plan -- Rigzone;
• Warren Buffett signals big shift in investing stance, Berkshire reports, paywall; Investor's Business Daily; record buybacks of his own stock;
  

Apple:

• AAPL rallies after one analyst raises target to "street-high" $515; supply chain info suggests higher iPHone 12 forecast --MarcketWatch;  
• Apple goes to war with gaming industry, TechCrunch via Yahoo!Finance;
• Smelling blood in the water, Facebook and Microsoft clash with Apple amid antitrust probes -- Yahoo!Finance;
• The largest fund in New Jersey's embattled pension sold Apple, Microsoft, and GE stock in the second quarter; paywall; Barron's;
• Even as AAPL nears $2 trillion market cap, the stock may still be a buy; paywall, Barron's;
  
• 
  

Saudi Arabia: 

• in deep trouble; sticks to dividend pledge despite plunge in earnings; paywall, Financial Times, 
• Saudi Aramco's earning show why Apple is now the world's most valuable company; paywall, Barron's; 
  
• Saudi Aramco's first-half profits plummet 50%; CEO calls results "solid"; MarketWatch,  
• Saudi Arabia turns off America's oil taps again; Bloomberg;  
• quick: what US state depends most on Saudi Arabian oil?
• US oil imports from Saudi Arabia, tracked here, EIA;