Notes From All Over -- Another Huge Day For The Market -- July 22, 2021

Wells Fargo: watching the CNBC interview with former Wells Fargo CEO was incredibly painful. What a doofus. I now understand why Wells Fargo had so many problems in the past decade or so. It begs the question: what did Warren Buffett see in this guy to hold all that Wells Fargo stock so long. The CNBC talking heads were absolutely incredulous.

It's no wonder that an all-female Wells Fargo Advisors team managing almost $1 billion in assets left to join Insigneo, an independent broker-dealer and registered investment advisory firm. Link here to Barron's. 

The departing team adds to the exodus of international advisors leaving Wells Fargo after the bank announced in April it was exiting the international segment to focus on its core business.

Covid-19: Louisiana in deep doo-doo. What Louisiana can teach us.

• Covid cases sure in Louisiana; more breakthrough infections; link to nola;
• Louisiana hits third-highest number of Covid-19 cases reported in a day; link to local network;
• bad, bad news for Louisiana, google search;
• bad, bad news for Louisiana, google search, again;
• quite incredible, and not in a good way, link to woldometers; 

The Olympics:

• Dr Jill Biden has just arrived in Tokyo;
• thoroughly on edge; The WSJ; 

Trade:

• China and the US are shipping goods to each other at the briskest pace in year; link here;

UNP: simply incredible. Will get back to this later, if I have time.

• on top of everything else, the recent flooding in China wiped out a gazillion bushels of wheat harvest this year in China;
• quote: up $5.58 at 10:00 a.m. CT, July 22, 2021, after 2Q21 earnings announced;
• stock jumps after earnings reported;
• press release;
• remember: UNP recently slowed trains from West Coast to Illinois to allow infrastructure to catch up;
  

JNJ:

• strong 2Q21; link here;
• JNJ has some significant headwinds; not sure where I stand on JNJ as an investment;

ATT:

• lifts revenue expectations on wireless growth; link to The WSJ;

INTC:

• poised for earnings drop; link to The WSJ;

AAPL:

• today?
• big jump today; up 1.42% up $2.07 /share; trading at $147.48

Target - Ulta: "store-within-a-store"

• big story; link here;
• I first mentioned Ulta months ago;
• list of first 50 Target stores to "get" Ulta; link here;
• by the way, this is another great example of why paywalls are detrimental: I saw the headline story, but the story was behind a paywall; I found the story elsewhere; I didn't see any ads at the story where there was a paywall; I saw a lot of ads at the sites with the same story and no paywall;

Energy:

• global warming (think air conditioning) and cold snaps (think natural gas heating) will drive energy;
• British Gas profits more than double after cold snap; link here;
• large cap energy stocks poised for short squeeze (much higher prices) -- JPMorgan via oilprice;
• US crude oil exports reached record levels in 2020 -- wasn't 2020 the year of the global lockdown? -- and US crude oil exports remain high in 2021; remember: Saudi Arabia is exporting only 5 million bopd; link here;
• vehicle miles driven on US highways in week ending July 18, 2021, was one percent above the same week in 2019 (pre-Covid-19); link here;
• Pacific Northwest: June 2021 heatwave resulted in more demand for electricity; link here;
  

Dividends:

• PSXP: history; 87.5 cents; announces increase in dividend: link here;
• DFS: increased dividend, also; previously reported;
• BK: increased dividend, also; previously reported;