Themes, 2020 -- Commentary

For Investors

Link here. 

Post-Biden Election

Could China move on Taiwan in 2021? 

Re-locations: tracked here. 

US politics: tracked here. 

Batteries: link here.

Prior to Biden Election

Periodically I post a commentary to bring readers up to date with regard to my interests other than the Bakken. These are the major stories that currently interest me. This post will be linked at the block of commentaries at the sidebar at the right.

Covid-19 pandemic:

• counterintuitively, the pandemic accelerated US (global?) 2030 into 2020;
• was the market's worse "black swan" in decades actually a soaring eagle in disguise?

Commuting Americans:

• where do we stand, August 31, 2020, eight months into the pandemic?

Saving(s) rate: 

• top financial story coming out of the pandemic?
  

Mass transportation: dead

• California bullet train: another nail in the coffin, the pandemic;
  
• could see huge growth in automobile sector; this one' s a hard one to call right now
• people may not even want to carpool
• however, "working from home" offsets the enthusiasm for the automobile sector;
  

All things shale

• who owns the Permian? The majors or the independents?
  
• why fracking activity has not increased as oil prices recovered, Oilprice; what a joke: oil prices have not recovered; remain in trading range between $38 and $42;
• the world loves shale oil; US exports hitting all-time records; many sources to choose from; but it's WTI "they" want; I think folks forget that US light oil (WTI) has always been the gold standard;
  

Refineries going away.

• Shell to reduce number of refineries from 16 to 4 between 2020 and 2024
• China to eclipse the US as the largest refiner in the world;
  

US stock market investing. 

• platform trading, story lines, August 16, 2020
• some call it greed; I call it millennials’ FOMO  (fear of missing out)
• shortest recession on record; ultra-rich have already recovered their wealth
• interestingly enough, it's not just the ultra-rich, it's the entire investing class
• the gap between the investing class and the non-investing class will continue to widen
  

How Covid-19-changes America

• How Covid-19 changes America, blog site;
• big corporations (McDonald's) will outlast -- and then -- outperform mom-and-pop retail
• mom-and-pop retail / big corporate America -- the gap will widen; 
• it's sad to say this, but it's very possible loss of mom-and-pop restaurants will only improve bottom line for large franchise restaurants;
  
• Amazon will crush small retailers;
• McDonald's; Chipotles Domino's will crush Annie's Hometown Burgers;
  
• huge amounts of money will flow to small pharma and Big Pharma
• NYC may no longer be the "economic engine" for the US;
  
• it behooves one political party in the US to convince Americans the country is nowhere near ready to move on; it behooves the other political party to take the opposite tack;
• leading indicators:
• Waffle House is back (previously reported); Walmart to extend store hours at more locations as pandemic fears fade; for link to this story, google it;
• China's diesel demand set to jump to record this year; multiple sources;
  

The big migration, commercial and residential, the meme.

• of those who can, Americans are moving from high-tax states to low-tax states:
• Cities on the ropes that should not be: NYC, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis
• Zillow: exposes dramatic exodus out of San Francisco real estate; ZeroHedge;
• Colorado sets housing sales record (people buying homes in Colorado, not leaving); the state reported a monthly record of 10,771 home sales in July, 2020
• the exoduses (sic) from New York and California resulting in more and more home buying in Colorado; for story, google subject;
• NYC faces record vacancies, lower rent prices after resident exodus; google subject to find story;
• Amazon considering relocating some Seattle employees outside the city; google the subject to find the story;
• Tesla's Elon Musk moving some parts of Tesla to Texas; 
• Goldman Sachs considering moving one of its biggest divisions to either Florida or Texas;
  
• I would like to see United Van Lines data;
• too much is being blamed on the pandemic, including the "great migration"; folks fleeing some states;
• Portland: for the most part, the demonstrations were peaceful; LOL; for the most part, bombs dropped during WWII were not nuclear bombs;
  

Corporate moves: California to Texas

• HP (the printer company) announces move from San Jose, CA, to Houston, TX, Dec 1, 2020
• Schwab left San Francisco for DFW area
• GS division moving to Florida, maybe Texas
  
• Tesla moving from California to Texas
  

NYC: another national lock down will be the final nail in this city's coffin.

Saudi Arabia in deep doo-doo;

• Saudi Aramco delays major programs to diversify; cash-poor;
  
• Kuwait, Iraq lack funds to pay government employees beyond October, 2020;
  
• Saudi wealth fund moves billion from blue chip companies to ETFs -- WSJ
  
• country bought blue chip companies trading at historic lows, hit hard by Covid-19;
• quick profit, and funds were moved from those blue chip companies to ETFs
• the prince: day-trading?

Mexico going down the road to Venezuela:

• Pemex in deep trouble;
• SRE's LNG export terminal on west coast of Baja California could be sign AMLO has some common sense; doesn't want to go down the road Venezuela took;
  

 The US grid:

• renewables: the scam
• power outages in California and EVs not even in the mix yet; ISO California; 
• rolling blackouts associated with:
  
• third-world countries
• piss-poor planning
• renewable energy scams
  

Forest management:

• lease it (grazing);
• log it; or,
• lose it (wildfires)
  

Investing in general:

• gap between haves and have-nots will widen;
• investors will have huge decade, 2021 - 2031
• streaming -- Disney investors' day, December 10, 2020
  
• definitions:
• debt equity, CLR; debt equity, OXY: 
• debt-to-eqity ratio: D/E
  
• gearing ratio: definition;
  
• huge amounts of money will flow to small pharma and Big Pharma, 2020 - 2020;
• CureVac doesn't rule out accelerated approval for Covid-19 vaccine; interesting, interesting story; connecting the dots;
• German biotechnology firm
• expects to put its vaccine on the market in mid-2021
• CureVac: backed by Bill Gates
• CureVac: listed ont eh NASDAQ three days ago, Friday, August 14, 2020, raising $213 million;
• ticker symbol: CVAC
• closing price on first day of trading: $55.90; up 250%)
• five companies with huge free cash flow; Investopedia, updated August 15, 2020
• of the five companies listed, one is a) an outlier; and, b) shows up on many other lists 
• did Warren Buffett just bet against the US economy; I think it's a non-story but that doesn't mean it's not confusing; my understanding is that Berkshire Hathaway deals less than $1 billion are seldom made by Buffett/Munger themselves, but rather their lieutenants; if so, that would explain a lot; I think if one understands my dad's investing philosophy in his advanced age, one might understand Buffett's investing philosophy at his advanced age;

American companies that fascinate me:

• Amazon, Apple, LEGO, SRE,
  
• certain companies in the Bakken: Slawson, Bruin, CLR, Whiting, XTO, MRO, others;
  

Companies that don't fascinate me:

• Facebook, Microsoft, Google

EVs are not on my radar scope: new page here.

Graphics, miscellaneous:

• top ten car producing countries, 1950 - 2015;

**********************************Flashback

This was from Bloomberg, posted October 9, 2019, "the flood." The original post is linked at the sidebar at the right under "Commentary."

Re-posting. This is an incredibly good article on so many levels.

Flood of cash for investors:

Big Oil's renewable shift seen flooding investors with cash -- Bloomberg. Early this week COP made a huge announcement along this same line. COP is linked at the sidebar at the right. The story has a data point that I brought up years ago and no one else has mentioned it until now. [Obviously it's been mentioned before/elsewhere but I've not been able to find other examples.]

So, the story.

The lede:

Shareholders of global oil giants will be “drowned” in cash from dividends and buybacks for the next 20 years as the firms shift their capital structure to finance renewable projects, according to Rystad Energy.

Majors such as Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. have traditionally had to hoard cash as they looked to their own balance sheets to fund billion-dollar megaprojects, founder Jarand Rystad said at his firm’s annual summit in Singapore.

That will change as they gravitate to wind and solar projects, which tap debt markets backed by project financing for as much as 95% of their cost, he said.

The shift will create huge amounts of surplus cash that majors can return to investors as they increasingly tap pension funds and other lenders for lower-risk renewable projects, said Rystad. It underscores the massive changes oil and gas giants will need to undertake as they transition to wind and solar projects, the fastest-growing sources of energy.

Again, this is from Bloomberg, not a source that is usually inappropriately exuberant about Big Oil. LOL.

It would be interesting for the analysts who wrote the article above (and the studies that led to the story) respond. My hunch is that though things look bleak right now, the final chapter has not yet been written on this subject.

• how oil could skyrocket by 138%; I thought this article was "nuts" but since then the writer has posted an update, and he seems quite credible;
  

Disclaimer: I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken.