Notes From All Over -- Early Morning Edition -- December 3, 2020

First things first: third-world nation out west. Headline: southern California braces for area's biggest power cuts this year. Link here. 

• Power shutoffs have begun that could wind up affecting more than 1M people in southern California, as high winds raise the risk of live wires sparking wildfires. 
• Southern California Edison says it cut electricity to 9,313 homes and businesses as of 6:49 p.m. local time, last night, December 2, 2020, which it says could be the first power outages among more than 272K customer accounts in eight counties, or 816K people based on the size of the average household, which would comprise the region's largest safety blackout this year.
• Sempra Energy's San Diego Gas & Electric utility also warns that 88,700 homes and businesses, or more than 260K people, could lose power tonight (December 2, 2020)  or tomorrow morning (December 3, 2020), and possibly remain dark through Sunday or Monday. 
• Dry winds strong enough to knock down power lines are forecast to hit southern California through Thursday, exposing more than 6.4M people to critical fire weather, says the National Weather Service and the U.S. Storm Prediction Center. 
• Edison cut power to thousands of customers on Thanksgiving because of high winds, as utilities across the state have cut power repeatedly to power lines from falling into dry brush.

Someday I will draw you a picture why this happening. It all has to do with renewable energy. Well, at least most of it has to do with the push for renewable energy. Do you remember these stories twenty years ago -- California utilities cutting power in California? You have to ask yourself, what changed?

Pipeline capacity exceeded: no, not crude oil or natural gas. The holiday delivery pipeline. There were so many on-line orders UPS stopped picking up packages at Big Box stores. Link here. 

UPS slaps shipping limits on Gap, Nike to manage e-commerce surge. Delivery giant instructed drivers not to pick up some packages on Cyber Monday as pandemic fueled online shopping.  

United Parcel Service Inc. imposed shipping restrictions on some large retailers such as Gap Inc. GPS -3.37% and Nike Inc. this week, an early sign that the pandemic-fueled online shopping season is stretching delivery networks to their limits.

The delivery giant on Cyber Monday notified drivers across the U.S. to stop picking up packages at six retailers, including L.L. Bean Inc., Hot Topic Inc., Newegg Inc. and Macy’s Inc., M 5.38% according to an internal message viewed by The Wall Street Journal and confirmed by UPS workers in different regions. “No exceptions,” the message said.

The move comes during a holiday season when retailers are increasingly dependent on delivery companies to move online orders, as store traffic has plummeted during the coronavirus pandemic—a dynamic that has shifted power significantly. UPS and rival FedEx Corp. have raised prices and promised to hold merchants to volume agreements.

The temporary limits, which some drivers say they haven’t seen during previous holiday seasons, are a sign that UPS is metering the flow of packages into its network to preserve its performance during one of the busiest shipping weeks of the year. The National Retail Federation estimated that online shopping jumped 44% over a recent five-day stretch that included Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Market: Wall Street is already increasing its 2021 price targets. Why 2021 provides a "perfect backdrop" for the stock market. This was in my e-mail -- a daily note from Yahoo!Finance. I never read the article, but it's interesting to see the headline.

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.  

By the way, I do agree. It's going to be an incredible year for investors. Without question the gap between the haves and the have-nots will widen. The investor class will continue to do very, very well. And, again, the mid-term elections will force the Dems to get the economy going. I only watch TCM and sports-talk television (with some occasional exceptions) and it's going to be fun to watch the ESPN folks (and everyone else in media, I suppose) change the narrative on Covid-19 once the new administration is in place. 

Speaking of which. I see this as a bit of desperation. Former president Obama says he will "take" the Chinese flu virus vaccine and do it on live television to build confidence. Desperation? I see the Dems desperate to turn this narrative around. It will be fun to watch. I still see solitary walkers at 5;00 a.m. wearing masks. Given me a break. And, oh, by the way, you really think Obama will be getting anything other than normal saline injected? 

And we move on. 

Note: there will be more typographical and content errors than usual this morning. My spellchecker and grammerly authority, Sophia ,is sleeping in this morning. She's a bit "under-the-weather" as they say.