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Thursday, December 10, 2020

Notes From All Over -- December 10, 2020

Re-posting from December 4, 2020:

Ford: the ICE is dead. Long live the ICE! Over at Fox News:

In the spirit of monster movies, Ford is working on a sequel to its “Godzilla” engine. 
The appropriately nicknamed 7.3-liter V8 debuted on the 2020 F-Series Super Duty pickup but is also available for purchase as an a la carte crate engine for racing and custom car applications priced at $8,150. 
In stock form, the iron-block, pushrod motor is rated at 430 hp and 475 lb-ft of torque, but tuners have already cranked it up to over 700 hp without even having to use a supercharger. 
Ford is clearly aware of the powerplant’s potential – and the potential profits it can make by selling an even more potent version of it. 
Ford Performance Product Manager Mike Goodwin recently told the Performance Racing Industry news outlet that his division is working on a “super-secret project” it calls the “Megazilla” that will be more powerful than the current mill. 
He didn’t provide any details about how Ford plans to achieve that, but Fiat Chrysler’s Mopar division has set a high bar for large-displacement crate engines with its 1,000 hp supercharged 7.0-liter “Hellephant” HEMI V8. 

Now this, from today, Fox Business:

Ram is charging into the end of 2020 on the back of the world’s most powerful pickup. 

The newly-introduced 2021 Ram 1500 TRX features a 702 horsepower version of the supercharged “Hellcat” V8 found in the Dodge Challenger muscle car and is quicker than any full-size truck in production today.

The next most-powerful light-duty pickups for 2021 are the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra, which are available with 420 horsepower V8s.

If it seems like Ram went a little overboard to outshine its rivals, that’s because it did.

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. 

AAPL: could surge 61% to $200 -- Motley Fool, link here.

Amazon: wants to train 29 million people to work in the cloud. The WSJ.

As technology reshapes roles, Amazon plans to train 100,000 workers in new skills, from machine learning to nursing. This is a very, very interesting story.

The prospects for such retraining initiatives remain uncertain. Many companies are assessing whether it is more economical to train their current workers or lay them off in favor of new hires with the needed skills. Those who have studied retraining programs said the “reskilling” can boost employee morale and keep workers from leaving a company, but that not everybody has the capacity or will to prepare themselves for a new role.

Amazon’s promise to upgrade the skills of its workforce—reported by The Wall Street Journal Thursday—represents one of the biggest corporate retraining initiatives on record, and breaks down to about $7,000 per worker, or about $1,200 a year through 2025. By comparison, large employers with 10,000 workers or more that were surveyed by the Association for Talent Development reported spending an average of $500 per worker on training in 2017.

Amazon said it would retrain 100,000 workers in total by expanding existing training programs and rolling out new ones meant to help its employees move into more-advanced jobs inside the company or find new careers outside of it. The training is voluntary and mostly free for employees and won’t obligate participants to remain at Amazon, the Seattle-based company said.

The common theme seems to be that the Covid-19 pandemic has telescoped 2020 --> 2035 to 2020 --> 2025. 

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Market


Companies Relocating To Texas -- Interactive Chart

Locator: 10001T.

Interactive relocation chart is here.

Updates

January 114, 2024: Apple's Siri evaluation team will move to Austin, TX.

August 29, 2023: California's Thermomix moves to DFW

November 13 2022: Oneworld Alliance announces move from Manhattan, NYC, to Fort Worth, Texas

August 1, 2022: Wells Fargo announces "regional center" in Irving, TX. It appears to be a regional center for all of the US except the three states on the west coast, Alaska, and Hawaii.

June 25, 2022: Chevron (California) finally moving to Texas

June 24, 2022: two companies --

  • Caterpillar: moving from Chicago to Irving, TX (DFW area)
  • ATI (formerly Allegheny): moving from Pittsburgh to Dallas, TX

March 4, 2022: parts of Sea-Lead Shipping leaving California for Florida.

January 21, 2022: despite having HQ in the Bay area, California, Intel announced today it will be building its first new chip plant in Ohio for an astounding $20 million. Link here. Intel to delay building this new chip plant; waiting for "goodies" from Congress. June 23, 2022. Link here.

June 30, 2021: JPMorgan to establish Dallas campus; second in size to NYC.  

January 15, 2021: NRA  leaves  NYC; on way to  Texas.

January 15, 2021: Digital Realty will relocate its corporate headquarters from San Francisco to Austin, TX.

January 9, 2021: U-Haul annual report (2020) -- Tennessee claims first spot for first time ever; Texas in top 2 for fifth straight year;

January 4, 2021: Virtu Financial -- departs NYC, heads to Florida. At this point, it looks like only some employees moving. Companies like Elliot Management and Goldman Sachs have also moved some offices to Florida. As usual, The Zero Hedge headline is a bit misleading. Virtu not leaving NYC entirely.

December 30, 2020: Schwab -- official change of address -- January 1, 2021.  Westlake, TX, north of Ft Worth, Texas .

December 26, 2020: CKD Corporation, Japan-based, is building its first US production site in Austin, TX. Texas ranks first in a survey as the top state for foreign direct investment; Texas is also the top Free Trade Zone in the country. The company produces a variety of automation tecnhology products used in many industries, including automotive, packaging and medical. Its new manufacturing facility will produce fluid control components for the semiconductor industry. Can anyone say "Tesla"?

December 26, 2020: where corporations and consumers moved in 2020. June, 2020: biggest month for individual relocations; July, 2020: biggest month for corporate moves. Corporations: to Texas; consumers to Florida. Allied Van Lines, Magnet States Report. 

December 13, 2020: not Texas, but Deutsche Bank suggests there could be huge "bank" moves from Manhattan to Jacksonville, FL, and possibly, Cary, North Carolina, over the next five years. 

December 11, 2020: Oracle announces it will move headquarters from Redwood City, California (Silicon Valley) to Austin, TX.  

Original Post 

From 2021:

  • Digital Realty relocates from San Francisco, to Austin, TX;

From 2020:

Link here 

These are just the companies that have relocated in calendar year 2020. Elon Musk companies do not yet appear on the list:


From 2019, notable companies:

  • Aeromax Industries, Canoga Park, CA, to Ft Worth;
  • Charles Schwab, San Francisco, CA, to Westlake (north of Ft Worth);
  • European Wax Center, from Hallandale Beach, FL, to Plano, TX;
  • Murphy Oil Corporation, from El Dorado, AR, to Houston;
  • SignEasy, from San Francisco, CA, to Dallas;

From 2018, notable companies:

  • McKesson, from San Fransisco, CA, to Irving, TX;
  • PGA of America, from Palm Beach Gardens, FL, to Frisco, TX;

From 2017, notable companies:

  • Boeing Gobal Services, new, to Plano, TX;
  • Oculus Health, from Portsmouth, NH, to Irving, TX;
  • Pei Wei, from Scottsdale, AZ, to Irving, TX;
  • Rochester Rattlers, from Rochester, NY, to Frisco, TX;

MRO With Six New Permits In Bailey Oil Field -- December 10, 2020

Active rigs:

$46.91
12/10/202012/10/201912/10/201812/10/201712/10/2016
Active Rigs1554645340

Six new permits:

  • Operator: MRO (see graphic below)
  • Field: Bailey
  • Comments:
    • MRO has permits for a six-well pad in NENE 18-146-94
    • wells will be 241 FNL and between 1221 and 1021 FEL, Bailey oil field
      • 38017, MRO, Bean USA 31-18H, NENE 18-146-94, 241 FNL 1221 FEL, Bailey;
      • 38018, MRO, Borrud USA 31-18TFH, NENE 18-146-94, 241 FNL 1181 FEL, Bailey;
      • 38019, MRO, Chester USA 31-18TFH, NENE 18-146-94, 241 FNL 1141 FEL, Bailey;
      • 38020, MRO, Ellis USA 34-7TFH, NENE 18-146-94, 241 FNL 1101 FEL, Bailey;
      • 38021, MRO, Ott USA 44-7TFH, NENE 18-146-94, 241 FNL 1061 FEL, Bailey;
      • 38022, MRO, Sallie USA 44-7H, NENE 18-146-94, 241 FNL 1021 FEL, Bailey;

One producing well (a DUC) reported as completed:

  • 36020, SI/A, CLR, Nadia 7-19H1, Jim Creek, t--; cum 38K over 27 days; fracked 2/27/20 - 3/10/20; 7.5 million gallons of water; 85.7% water by mass;

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The New MRO Permits

Producing wells in the general area:

  • 16807, 305, MRO, Geroge Tuhy 11-18H, Bailey, t2/08; cum 177K 10/ 20; off line for about a year; came back on line 9/20 with minimal production;
  • 16666, 502, MRO, Bob Tuhy 44-19H, Bailey, t11/08; cum 465K 10/10; this well was re-fracked in the summer of 2015 and had a 10-fold jump in production; see this note; I am unaware of any other field in the Bakken where an operator has been so aggressive in re-fracks;

Off To The Races -- Chinese Flu Update -- North Dakota Back In The Top Five -- December 10, 2020

Link here

Top five, weekly new cases per 100,000 people, rolling 7-day average:

  • Rhode Island, back to number 1, at 877
  • ND, surges all the way back to number 2 -- could it take the #1 spot tomorrow; currently at 789;
  • then Indiana, #3; Ohio, #4; and, surprisingly, Alaska enters the list at #5 (not sure which day AK entered the list; noted it for first time today, although it may have been here earlier;

At the link, the "brown" map is much less brown and clearly moving to the southwest, four corners area of the US appears to be the darkest. Texas, Florida, New England, and the Pacific Northwest all pretty light in color.

The US county with perhaps the greatest number of cases per capita and the greatest number of Covid-19 related deaths per capita: Southwest Utah county:

  • one in three people have been diagnosed with Covid-19;
  • one in 383 people have died due to Covid-19 related causes;

Compare with NYC area:

  • one in 24 people have been diagnosed with Covid-19;
  • one in 400 people have died due to Covid-19 related causes;

Penetration rate (herd immunity); link here:

  • North Dakota continues to lead the pack, #1; at 11.3% with history of Covid-19;
  • South Dakota, #2, but lags significantly at 9.9%
  • after that, penetration rates across the US drop off significantly;
  • Iowa, #3, at 8%
  • Nebraska, #4, at 7.4%
  • Wisconsin, #5, at 7.2%
  • USA: at 4.8%
  • imagine the headlines when the following states hit 10% penetration:
    • Florida: 5%
    • Texas: 4.8%
    • New York: 4%
    • California: 3.6%

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SkyWatch

Off To The Races -- None Of This Makes Sense -- But I'm Not Complaining -- December 10, 2020

Updates

1:08 p.m. CT: priced at $62 or thereabouts, trades to $150. 

11:17 a.m. CT: biggest bull on Wall Street, JPMorgan's Dubravko Lakos has so many reasons why to be bullish. I'm sure his interview will be available on CNBC later. Next six to twelve months will be big. 4400 is base case for Lakos for end of 2021. Right now, S&P 500 at 3670. At 4400, that's a 20% gain. And that's the base case.

Later, 11:15 a.m. CT: I've never seen "Josh" on CNBC so incredibly bullish on the market. Usually he's a "Debbie Downer." Hates exuberance. But today on CNBC, I've never seen him so bullish. His final line: good luck for those trying to fight this market. He noted that Starbucks -- shut down by lock downs -- has hit an all-time high today: trading at $105, up 4% today.

Original Post

Fascinating, fascinating week

Note: there will be content and typographical errors on this page. In addition, much of this stuff is posted and undated/untimed. Things change. If this is important to you, go to the source.  

Comment: still way to early to say, but indications are that yesterday's "sell-off" was one of the shortest, fastest, "sell-off" events in .... the last three months ... AirBNB priced at $68/share, yet to have first trade. CEO must still be unloading the truck that just delivered the champagne, lobster, and caviar.

Oil:

  • WTI: up over 4%; up almost $2/bbl; trading at $47.42
  • Brent: up almost 4%; up almost $2/bbl; trading near $51
  • OPEC: down, down, down

Natural gas:

  • Henry Hub (I assume): up over 5%; trading at $2.565

Oil equities:

  • OAS: up another 3% today; as low as $36.76 last week; now at $39.50;
  • PXD: up almost 4% today; as low as $109 last week; now flirting with $120;
  • CXO: up 3% today; $61, yesterday; $64, today;
  • CVX: up over 4% today; $89, yesterday; over $94, today; pays almost 6%;
  • COP: up over 3% today; under $42 yesterday; now at $44 today;
  • XOM: don't even want to look;


  • ENB: up almost 2%; as low as $32.83 yesterday; today over $34; 
  • EPD: up almost 3%; as low as $20.50 yesterday; today over $21.25;
  • KMI: a laggard; up only 1%; pays over 7%;

Covid-19:

  • JNJ: down today; $152;
  • PFE: up slightly today; $42
  • MRK: flat at $83.50

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.

Costa Azul Moves To The Top At Sidebar At The Right -- December 10, 2020

How big a story is Costa Azul? The story is now followed here and it is linked at the top of the sidebar at the right (note: the sidebar is dynamic). 

When I first saw this story, I suggested it might be the biggest energy story of the year. It certainly must be the biggest LNG export story of the year.

RBN Energy must think so, too. It devoted a blog to Costa Azul today.

RBN Energy: Proximity drives Costa Azul LNG export project forward. Archived.

Closing midstream deals has been a bit of a challenge in 2020, to say the least. In fact, this has been a year when many projects have been sidelined or cancelled outright, with most decisions on even the best prospects getting pushed to next year. But it hasn’t been all bad news. In a few cases, assets with advantages have made it across the finish line, even in the land of liquefied natural gas (LNG) export projects. Despite this summer’s collapse in U.S. LNG exports, driven by a compression of the spreads in global gas prices, Sempra Energy recently announced that it is going ahead with Phase 1 at its Costa Azul liquefaction project in Mexico’s Baja California. How did they pull this off in such a tumultuous year? Well, Costa Azul isn’t your everyday LNG export project. Today, we detail the most recent U.S. LNG export project to receive a final investment decision (FID) to proceed.

Breaching Market Rules? LOL -- December 10, 2020

Bloomberg link here. Archived.

"Did they breach market rules -- or simply pull off one of the greatest trades ever?" 

Oh, give me a break. "Did they breach market rules?" All's fair in love and war. And for heaven's sake, this is the oil market -- I am surprised to learn that there are "market rules." LOL. 

********************************
For Sophia

Spanish.

Ser vs estar.

Link here

DOCTOR vs PLACE. 

Ser vs estar. 

The difference between nosotros and nosotras is gender. Nosotros is used to refer to a group of men only or a group made up of men and women. Even if there are ninety-nine women and only one man in a group, you still use nosotros. Nosotras is feminine and is only used when the entire group is female.

Hess Reports A Nice Sorenson Well Today -- December 10, 2020

Active rigs:

$45.87
12/10/202012/10/201912/10/201812/10/201712/10/2016
Active Rigs1554645340

One well is coming off the confidential list today -- Thursday, December 10, 2020: 12 for the month; 68 for the quarter, 733 for the year

  • 36534, drl/A, Hess, EN-Sorenson B-155-94-3526H-10, Alkali Creek, t--; cum 101K 10/20;
PoolDateDaysBBLS OilRunsBBLS WaterMCF ProdMCF SoldVent/Flare
BAKKEN10-20202415298153132058627422273260
BAKKEN9-20203017880178812480929045289560
BAKKEN8-20202920327203462149228670285780
BAKKEN7-20203124980249512483037324372230
BAKKEN6-20202122802226661613827281272190


RBN Energy: Proximity drives Costa Azul LNG export project forward.

Closing midstream deals has been a bit of a challenge in 2020, to say the least. In fact, this has been a year when many projects have been sidelined or cancelled outright, with most decisions on even the best prospects getting pushed to next year. But it hasn’t been all bad news. In a few cases, assets with advantages have made it across the finish line, even in the land of liquefied natural gas (LNG) export projects. Despite this summer’s collapse in U.S. LNG exports, driven by a compression of the spreads in global gas prices, Sempra Energy recently announced that it is going ahead with Phase 1 at its Costa Azul liquefaction project in Mexico’s Baja California. How did they pull this off in such a tumultuous year? Well, Costa Azul isn’t your everyday LNG export project. Today, we detail the most recent U.S. LNG export project to receive a final investment decision (FID) to proceed.

This Should Have Been On The Literature Blog But I Decided To Post It Here To Get My Mind Off Today's (Yesterday's) Market -- December 10, 2020

Wow, this is amazing. Over the years I have subscribed to The New York Review of Books. I don't know when I first subscribed. Maybe ten years ago. I often let the subscription lapse: it becomes way too political and non-interesting, and it becomes way too expensive. Then after not renewing for six months or so they start sending me offers to renew for $10 instead of the $100 rate or whatever it is.

The interesting thing: whether I subscribe or not, I have never lost my userid or password to TNYROB. I tried it tonight just for the fun of it and it worked. I last tried it on June 4, 2016. [Yes, I keep track of such things.] I generally also keep track of when I first establish an online account but in this case I did not.

Whatever.

The "holiday issue," unfortunately, is a dud. It feels about the same thickness and it appears to have the same number of essays as any other issue, but the content is sorely lacking. There was one bright spot; an essay/review of a series of paperback books on "animals" of all things.

From the essay:

For the past seventeen years, Reaktion Books has been publishing a series of volumes under the general rubric “Animal”—attractive duodecimos in uniform paperback editions, printed in color on heavy stock.
There are ninety-eight of them so far, from Albatross to Zebra, by way of Bedbug, Leech, and Swan. [To browse these ninety-eight books, click here.]
I first came across the series in 2010, when an advanced reader’s copy of Camel showed up in my mailbox, a book whose outlook—arid and elliptically comic—seems at one with its subject. It’s hard not to like a profusely illustrated book that recommends Rose Macaulay’s The Towers of Trebizond, quotes the work of Al-Jahiz (“the Arab world’s greatest ever essayist”), and describes the sound that camel ticks make when tossed into the campfire. 
I’ve now read thirty-five of the Animal books. 
Not all of them live up to the standard of Camel, which was written by Robert Irwin. 
But the series shows no sign of flagging, and one of the best is also the most recent: Human by Amanda Rees and Charlotte Sleigh.  
Each volume in the series runs to about two hundred pages and includes nearly all the things that invite the phrase “a real book”: index, footnotes, acknowledgments, dedication, and a bibliography whose quality depends on the author (Sardine, superb; Turtle, tragic). 
And they remind the reader how complex the eye’s interaction with the page is, how much work we do, without noticing, while reading illustrated books. For instance, the Batman postage stamps reproduced in Bat are nearly actual size. But the original Audubon engraving of a pelican is vastly bigger than its half-page reproduction in Pelican
The Animal books are filled with images—“96 illustrations, 52 in colour” says the back cover of Human—and as the pages turn it would be wonderful to see the images magically expand and contract to their real, worldly dimensions. But they don’t (not even in the e-book versions). And so the eye darts in and out, back and forth from picture to text (where the eye is more or less natively at home), nearly always with a little ocular wistfulness, a wish that it could see more fully, more intricately, more majestically. Most of the illustrations illustrate. But many are so small that they merely provoke the desire to see.

The illustrations are absolutely superb, so superb that I might order one or two of the books in the series on birds just to see how good these books really are. At $19.95/copy one can hardly go wrong, and with all the "cash back" I have at Amazon, I will get these books "for free." I seldom pay for books at Amazon any more. 

It's amazing. I pay for my airline ticket with a credit card -- I have no other choice -- and I get "cash back" in my Amazon account. What a great country. 

Anyway, I wrote all that to simply say that my new favorite word is duodecimos. I had known that word from before but I had forgotten. 

I think I first learned about it when studying the meaning of folio or quarto when I was in m Shakespeare phase some years ago. Link here to "book size." 

It all begins with the folio, a sheet of paper 12 inches by 19 inches. 

Going down that rabbit hole, one comes across another word I used to know (and love): incunabula.

An incunable, or sometimes incunabulum (plural incunables or incunabula, respectively), is a book, pamphlet, or broadside printed in Europe before 1501.

The year 1501 is completely arbitrary, established by a Dutch physician and humanist back in 1569. A former term for incunable is "fifteener," in the meaning of "fifteenth-century edition."

Back to Reaktion Books and the Animal series, I will order the "raptor" books: eagle, falcon, and owl. Alas, there is no book on hawk (yet). I will also get the book Vulture, even though vultures are technically not raptors. Interestingly enough, they are more closely aligned with the storks. My hunch is when the storks host their family reunions, they dread seeing their cousins the vultures show up.