Apple -- A Fanboy's Perspective -- December 1, 2020

Re-posting.

Something tells me that this needs to have a stand-alone post.

I understand none of this but something tells me this is huge when the two biggest "SoC" companies team up.

• we'll start with The WSJ article;
• then the CNBC story on this;
• then from the horse's mouth, as they say.

Additional background.

If folks are following this closely, they should be able to see some incredibly interesting things happening over at Apple. 

The "mini" has perplexed everyone for quite some time. All of a sudden it really, really, really makes sense. Think about it. Parallel computing.

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More Apple -- But Unrelated

Microsoft teams getting Apple's CarPlay integration and device swapping for calls. Link here.

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CNBC: I haven't watched CNBC in months but after yesterday and today on the stock market, I just had to tune in to see what CNBC was talking about. I sort of enjoyed Fast Money and I sort of enjoyed a few minutes of Jim Cramer. I doubt I will start watching either of them on a regular basis, but if we continue to have days like yesterday and today, I may watch Fast Money and Mad Money again, at least bits and pieces. [It should be noted that Melissa on Fast Money does not own a car and does not drive. She made that very clear on her show today. Same with Andrew Sorkin, I believe.]

Anyway, if you are a "fanboy" like I am, or have invested in AAPL, you might enjoy this, Cramer's look at Apple.

AAPL's all-time high, I believe, is 138.

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.

Cramer, on AAPL, FB, et al -- 

"This is the point on the calendar when money managers crowd into the year’s biggest winners to show their clients how smart they are,” he said. “That means winners like Facebook, like Amazon, like Apple, like Netflix, and of course, you know, I think Google, should keep winning, at least for the next four weeks.”

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Ready Steady Go 

Wow, wow, wow. This is so incredibly good on so many levels. Link here if you want to read more about the video.

The Rolling Stones (okay, Mick Jagger). 

The Beatles in the audience and backing up PJ Proby. 

There's no favorite but I was thrilled to see Cilla Black. 

Long, Long Time -- December 1, 2020

I mentioned earlier I would come back to this. 

And so I have. 

Long, long time:

• Jerry Jeff Walker: Long, Long Time, 1989 -- for the backstory:  
• Linda Ronstadt: Long, Long Time, 1970 -- for the whole story; 
• Linda Ronstadt: Long, Long Time -- song facts;

In the first video, Jerry Jeff Walker talks about his friend Gary B. White. The two of them were in a band together. While the former was writing Mr Bojangles, the latter was writing Long, Long Time which Linda Ronstadt made famous. Gary White is mentioned in this wiki entry.  

It's always fun to read the social media comments at YouTube. For the first linked video, one example:

Thanks for posting this. It's wonderful to hear the background story of this great composition. Jerry Jeff Walker shifted a couple of lines, still makes sense though. All cover versions of this song has slight variations in the lyrics. After listening to Larry Santos & Rod McKuen cover versions also, I'm convinced that it's Linda Ronstadt's version that really launched the song. Funny how even a good song needs just the right mix of great voice and arrangement to truly shine.

Now, compare that to Linda Ronstadt and the version that made her and the song famous.  

Long, Long Time, Linda Ronstadt

I addition to everything else, what always amazes me is how someone like Linda Ronstadt "discovered" this song, and then sang it the way it needed to be sung. As someone said, she sang it as if she had written the song herself and had actually lived it. 

And then finally, this comment over at the third link:

Gary [White] was originally from Texas. 

He and his wife, Annie, were good friends of mine in the sixties. 

We lived in Greenwich Village and used to hang out at The Kettle of Fish on MacDougal Street. It was next to The Gaslight Cafe, a mecca of the Folk Music scene. Just about everyone got their start there. 

Gary is a great singer-songwriter who played bass, guitar and piano. He used to belong to a band called Circus Maximus with Jerry Jeff Walker. [See wiki entry for Circus Maximus.]

Gary wrote a lot of other beautiful tunes. Linda was on the "scene" back then, and also a good friend of Gary's. They all three moved to California, Laurel Canyon. They asked me to go with them. How different my life would have been if I had. I never saw him again, but sometimes think about them and wonder how they are. Some people you just never forget! They were great people. :)

What amazes me about Jerry Jeff Walked: passed himself off as Texan. He hailed from New York (1), and best I can figure it, Texas was his fourth home, after Florida (2) and Louisiana (3). 

What a great country. 

I  have a cross country trip scheduled with my wife later this year. I'm going to drive her nuts with all this trivia. She doesn't like country music until she listens to it and then loves the tunes I find for her. LOL.

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Socrates and Plato

Socrates never wrote a thing. Plato, his student, wrote everything down. Reading Plato, one does not know when one is reading Socrates or reading Plato. 

That was the first thought I  had when I happened upon this video about half way through:

Todd Snider, Jerry Jeff Walker, et al 

Todd Snider absolutely adored Jerry Jeff Walker and told all the stories we otherwise might not know.

Had it not been for Plato, we may not have known that much about Socrates either. 

Flashback -- The Stohler Wells -- December 1, 2020

Flashback, for the archives.

Rancher Oscar Stohler was skeptical about striking a fortune when drilling started on his western North Dakota farm.

But in 2008, the discovery of crude oil on his land made the modest farmer — who still prefers his old truck and farm cap — a millionaire. Stohler and other farmers in North Dakota have earned millions by owning land rich with oil.

Oscar Stohler was raised in a sod house in western North Dakota and ranched there for nearly seven decades. He never gave much thought to what lay below the grass that fattened his cattle.

When oilmen wanted to drill there last year, Stohler, 83, doubted oil would be found two miles underground on his property. He even joked about it.

“I told them if they hit oil, I was going to buy a Cadillac convertible and put those big horns on the front and wear a 10-gallon hat,” Stohler recalled.

He still drives his old pickup and wears a mesh farm cap — but it’s by choice.

In less than a year, Stohler and his wife, Lorene, 82, have become millionaires from the production of one well on their land near Dunn Center, a mile or so from the sod home where Oscar grew up. A second well has begun producing on their property and another is being drilled — all aimed at the Bakken shale formation, a rich deposit that the U.S. Geological Survey calls the largest continuous oil accumulation it has ever assessed.

See first comment at this post.

MRO With Four New Permits In Bailey Oil Field; Six DUCs Reported -- December 1, 2020

Active rigs:

$44.55↓	12/1/2020	12/01/2019	12/01/2018	12/01/2017	12/01/2016
Active Rigs	14	57	66	54	39

Four new permits, #37994 - #37997, inclusive:

• Operator: MRO
• Field: Bailey (Dunn)
• Comments:
• this is huge; Bailey is one of MRO's field in the Bakken
• permits for four wells in sections 3/4-146-94
• the Konstantin and Frederick, in section 3, will be between 512' and 518' FNL, and between 343' and 382' FWL
• meanwhile, the Christoph and Philliop wells will be between 300' FNL and 285' FNL, and between 402' and 439' FEL;
• exciting; see below;
  

Six permits are renewed:

• Hunt (3): an Oakland, Trulson, and a Halliday permit, all in Mountrail County;
• Oasis (3): two Borden Federal permits and one Wren Federal  permit, all in Williams County

Look at this! Six producing wells (DUCs) reported as completed:

• 36098, drl/A, CLR, Gordon Federal 10-5H1, Haystack Butte, t--; cum --;
• 36099, drl/A, CLR, Gordon Federal 9-5H, Haystack Butte, t--; cum --;
• 36055, drl/A, CLR, Gordon Federal 14-8H1, Haystack Butte, t--; cum --;
• 36056, drl/A, CLR, Gordon Federal 15-8H, Haystack Butte, t--; cum --;
• 35858, drl/A, Newfield, Kummer 149-98-3-10-10HLW, Pembroke, t--; cum 7,693 bbls over 6 days extrapolates to 38,465 bbls over 30 days;
• 35859, loc/A, Newfield, Kummer 149-98-3-10-3H, Pembroke, t--; cum 11,208 bbls over 6 days extrapolates to 56,040 bbls over 30 days;

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MRO Permits -- See Above

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Other Wells In The Graphics Above

The Stohler wells or how I made $52 million overnight. Link here. If that link breaks, this is an alternate link.

The wells:

• 16459, 457, MRO, OScar Stohler 41-4H, Bailey, t10/08; cum 592K 10/20; huge jump in 6/17;

• 22342, 1,142, MRO, Lorene Stohler 11-3TFH, Bailey, t9/12; cum 89K 10/20;
  22341, 1,520, MRO, Lorene Stohler 11-3H, Bailey, t10/12; cum 370K 10/20;
  30274, 1,813, MRO, Klee 11-3TFH, Baileyi, t10/12; cum 370K 10/20;

• 16333, 235/AB, MRO, Stohler 21-3H, Baile, t2/07; cum 442K 2/18;
  

The iGeneration Technology Is ... Simply Put ... Incredible -- December 1, 2020

Breaking: HP (the printer company) is moving HQ from San Jose, CA, to Houston, TX. Link here.

Original Post

I just love "this" technology.

Yesterday, or rather last evening, after the Heineken / Tecate story broke, I was curious about Lagunitas. That brand has always intrigued me for various reasons. I have not paid attention to the brewery. So, last evening, I did a quick internet search on Lagunitas. 

Guess what popped up on my Yahoo!Finance home page today? LOL. 

Unless you are also searching for Lagunitas, I doubt this is on your Yahoo!Finance home page.

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Not Ready For Prime Time

A reader sent me this Tesla note. I replied, not ready for prime time:

I'm surprised it was only a $100-deposit for a high-end E-truck. That's almost "no-risk" and a no-brainer for the rich and famous. They get their bragging rights; they get their name on the list in case they really do want the E-truck; and at the end of the day, all they lose is a $100 if they change their mind.

What Elon Musk needs to do next is turn this into a subscription service: a $100/month to hold that reservation. A $100/month is also a no-brainer for the rich and famous.

And $100 is clearly not out of line. Neptune Cremation Services -- or whatever they are called -- provides a "policy" that guarantees full cremation series, interest-free, and only $50/month until full amount paid off. If one dies before the full amount is paid off, the heirs make up the difference. My father-in-law had that done for both him and his wife -- bought the "policy" many years before he died, and we had no funeral expenses.

One begins to wonder if mainstream auto manufacturers might consider the same deal. It's hard for me to put a $100/month in the bank to save for a new Honda (I would rather put the money into an investment; and a bank pays no interest) but if the Honda dealer gave me a guaranteed 20% discount (or whatever) on the list price of a new Honda five years from now (and I could buy earlier if I wanted), I might consider it.

Wow, there are just so many business models out there. Wouldn't Honda love $100/month from all its potential customers, and then a guaranteed (almost guaranteed) sale five years from now.

I wonder if a third-party entrepreneur with deep pockets might not think of doing this?

Notes From All Over -- Part 1 -- December 1, 2020

Dow posts biggest monthly gain since 1987. I believe this is for any month, not just November, but I could be wrong. 

Great example of someone who never got over it and someone with a really, really small mind ...

... and tends to take things out of context:

And for "ms anonymous": things likely to get better and better. After all, Covid-19 will disappear during the Biden administration. It has to. The campaign for the mid-term election begins in less than a year. 

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Chinese Flu Watch

US: 

From Johns Hopkins.

This is quite remarkable. The "brown" is:

• shrinking, and shrinking fast; and,
• thinning where it still exists.

In addition. the reversal of the top five is quite remarkable. 

Denmark: culling the minks. 

Germany: its model is not working.

Clearing Off The Desktop -- December 1, 2020

I understand none of this but something tells me this is huge when the two biggest "SoC" companies team up.

• we'll start with The WSJ article;
• then the CNBC story on this;
• then from the horse's mouth, as they say.

Additional background.  

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More Apple -- But Unrelated

Microsoft teams getting Apple's CarPlay integration and device swapping for calls. Link here.

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Notes From All Over: The Celebrity Edition

I was going to feature these overnight but I decided to wait. I will talk about these later, perhaps tonight.

Long, long time:

• Jerry Jeff Walker: Long, Long Time, 1989 -- for the backstory:  
• Linda Ronstadt: Long, Long Time, 1970 -- for the whole story; 
• Linda Ronstadt: Long, Long Time -- song facts;

"The most interesting accountant in the world":

• Part I;
• Part II;
• eagerly waiting for Part III.

Up and comer: Ryan Clark.
One of the best: you know you've made it big when you are referred to by your initials only.

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The Movie Page

Holy mackerel! On TCM right now, While The City Sleeps. Talk about an incredible cast, and then on top of that, directed by Fritz Lang. Wow. And to think I would have missed this had I not changed my usual routine this a.m. LOL.

Hess Reports Another Nice Well: 100K In Six Months -- December 1, 2020

Breaking: US Senate confirms Trump's FERC picks. 

Active rigs:

$44.40	12/1/2020	12/01/2019	12/01/2018	12/01/2017	12/01/2016
Active Rigs	14	57	66	54	39

One well coming off the confidential list -- Tuesday, December 1:

• 29469, drl/A, Hess, TI-Beauty Valley-158-95-1423H-3, Tioga, t--; cum 95K 9/20

RBN Energy: top-tier crude oil-focused producers mergein new upstream consolidation wave.

It’s no surprise that the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic early this year shut down upstream mergers & acquisition (M&A) activity, just as it did America’s corporate offices, restaurants, entertainment venues, and schools. U.S. M&A deal flow slowed to a trickle in the first half of 2020 as companies’ valuations dropped along with bid prices and E&P executives struggled to realign expenditures with dwindling cash flows. But, as we’ve seen in the past, energy-commodity price crashes eventually spur a resurgence in M&A activity. The dam finally broke in late July, when Chevron announced a $13 billion takeover of Noble Energy, followed in short order by other, major corporate consolidations that brought the deal value total for the last five months to nearly $50 billion. This time was different in one important way, though: Instead of the strong preying on the weak, the strong merged with the strong in low-premium, all-stock transactions. Today, we analyze this new paradigm and delve into the details of the high-value deals.

First, some perspective on the history of upstream-sector M&A. Since the breakup of Standard Oil’s monopoly over a century ago, the oil industry has evolved in response to changing price environments. From their common ancestor, the Seven Sisters continued to dominate the oil patch. Today’s major integrated companies and large, independent E&Ps were generally formed in three waves of consolidation that followed major price crashes. The first was in the early to mid-1980s, when oil prices began to fall from the peak in those days near $40/bbl. The pieces that were to become today’s super-majors began to come together with the mergers of Phillips Petroleum/General American, Standard Oil (CA)/Gulf Oil, Texaco/Getty Oil, Mobil/Superior Oil, Royal Dutch/Shell Oil, and BP/Standard Oil (OH). The second oil price plunge in the late 1990s led to the merger wave that largely finished the process of forming the industry’s giants, with BP grabbing ARCO and Amoco, Exxon merging with Mobil, Total acquiring PetroFina and Elf Acquitaine, and Chevron buying Texaco. Large E&Ps followed suit in the early 2000s, as Anadarko bought Union Pacific Resources and Kerr-McGee, Devon snatched Mitchell Energy and Ocean Energy, Alberta Energy and Pan Canadian merged to form Encana (now Ovintiv), ConocoPhillips purchased Burlington Resources, and Pioneer Natural Resources nabbed Evergreen Resources.

Blogging Will Be Delayed -- Market Action Is Overwhelming -- Enjoying The Scenery -- December 1, 2020

On top of this, many companies are paying their quarterly dividends today.