The BR Dodge wells in Dimmick Lake. These wells are tracked here. Almost all well have just come off line. File reports / FracFocus suggests drl/NC wells have been recently fracked. I will post data this evening. See this post.
17263: a million-bbl well that jumped from 1,000 bbls/month to 4,000 bbls/month after 13 years of production;
17502: MRO, Mark Sandstrom, huge re-frack; t12/08; cum 559K 11/20; off line3/20; remains off line 4/20; back on line 8/20;
Earlier this week it was noted that a couple of railroads had increased their dividend, not unexpected. Now, today, we get a third. Canadian National Railway (CNI) has increased its quarterly dividend to 48.03 cents.
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.
Cheniere also announced a dividend increase, to 65.5 cents and is now paying 6.6%.
This would make my dad smile: Tractor Supply announced an increase in its dividend, now paying 52 cents, yielding 1.35%.
Valero Energy did not change its dividend, still paying 98 cents, yielding almost 7%.
************************************** Remodeled Tesla Model S
Do you think that there will be a permanent downward shift in gasoline
demand because of the concurrent shift in people working from home (even
after everyone (or enough) get vaccinated)? That's how I read the "gasoline demand" this past week. If you take millions of people off the roads daily and
then keep them off the roads, that would explain a dramatic reduction in
demand.
My answer:
There will be a permanent downward shift in gasoline demand in the US. The question is how steep will the slope be and at what level will gasoline demand reset?
We have to make sure we are on the same timeline.
I've maintained that the pandemic in the US telescoped the years 2020 - 2035 to 2020 - 2025.
With regard to gasoline demand:
free market capitalism: folks will always be looking for better mileage;
government mandates (CAFE standards): improved mileage mandated; Kyoto protocol back in play;
government and mainstream media advocacy: ditto; that will translate into policies, incentives
US population: minimal growth
whether or not manufacturing returns to the US that won't affect gasoline demand all that much
increased e-commerce
delivery vans: low-hanging fruit gasoline and diesel fleets convert to EV fleets
delivery by drones
In general, things don't change very quickly, so we will see gasoline demand trend toward historical levels by late 2022, if not a bit sooner, but after that annual gasoline demand will taper back to the level we are currently seeing. Might not see "final" reset until 2035.
************************************ Look What They've Done To My Song
Best quote I've seen in the last 24 hours: It’s worth being older now, to have been young then.
Investing 101: a re-look, and why aren't folks talking about this?
I had this in the queue to post a couple of weeks ago and then trashed it for a variety of reasons, but after the Schwab Webex call yesterday, it seems worthwhile to put it back in the queue. We'll discuss it later.
There are three things why some folks don't like MLPs:
K-1's
taxes on dividends
Canadian companies
Quick responses:
by the time folks are ready to be investing in MLPs, it might behoove them to hire someone to do their taxes. Anyone who raises the K-1 issue with me speaks volumes. I assume these are the same folks that change the oil in their own cars.
the US Congress solved the problem with taxes on dividends; that is no longer an issue; it hasn't been an issue for decades;
there are plenty of non-Canadian MLPs in which to invest;
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.
I've blogged about this book on several occasions. Several years ago I borrowed this book from my brother-in-law, Jorge: The Age of Entanglement: When Quantum Physics Was Reborn, Louisa Gilder, c. 2008. I took it home and loved it. Some time later, I learned that, in fact, the book did not belong to my brother-in-law but belonged to one of his daughters, my niece, and she wanted it back. Well, suffice it to say, I had marked it up and dog-eared it and whatever, so I ended up buying a brand new copy and sending it to her, my niece. LOL.
Now, while I had the book on loan from my brother-in-law, one would say that there was only one book on loan. However, when it turned out that my niece had loaned the book to her dad and then I borrowed it from him, some might suggest there were actually two copies on loan. Both individuals could call for the copy to be returned, and if they both wanted it the same day for some peculiar reason, two copies had to be found.
To the best of my knowledge, if I borrow a book from the city library, there is nothing in the fine print that says I can't, in turn, loan it to Sophia to read. The library sees one copy on loan. From 30,000 feet, someone else sees two copies on loan.
Just a parable, of sorts, I suppose. But a true story, nonetheless.
Apple/AAPL's P/E: trending toward 40 (way too pricey)
Microsoft/ MSFT's P/E: 37 just right
Tesla: wait until next year when Tesla has some actual competition. I thought it was a pretty good earnings report; not sure why all the negativity. Beat on revenue; well short on EPS estimates. It seems investors worried about EPS; CEO worried about revenue.
Disclaimer: there will be content and typographical errors on this page. See reader's comment at bottom of the post.
So, let's start here.
Like the Dude's rug, "gasoline demand" really pulled together the events of yesterday.
I've said several times on the blog, if I had to choose one metric, one metric only, that told me how the US economy was doing, it would be gasoline demand.
With the pandemic, that may change.
The "recovery" is K-shaped. The upward leg is reflected in the Apple metrics. The downward leg is reflected in the gasoline demand metrics.
Unfortunately I won't catch Melissa's "Fast Money" today or tomorrow. She had a fascinating show yesterday following a most turbulent day on the Dow. Look at the plunge on Dow yesterday:
Melissa's "panelists' said the market plunge was due to GME and the spike in the volatility index. Sure. The volatility index is the one metric that every home-gamer and professional trader alike follow, above everything else. LOL.
Quick: without looking. What's the volatility index today? Does anyone even know what that metric actually measures?
The market was reversing direction and paring its losses early in the afternoon right up until the moment Jay Powell started concluding his prepared remarks. It became even worse during the Q&A portion: the Dow reversed direction again, and plunged, trending toward a 1000-point drop. It was so obvious, even on mute, even a caveman could see the train wreck developing.
CNBC showed it in real time, but my hunch is the panelists missed it because they were prepping for the "Melissa show" and weren't watching in real time what the rest of us saw. If one did not see it in real time, one would have completely missed it. Anybody who suggests differently tells me they were not watching it in real time.
Based on the CNBC crawlers -- I had the television on mute -- prepping for my own Webex call with Schwab and simultaneously helping Sophia log on to her own Webex call -- based on the CNBC crawlers, Jay Powell was providing no warm fuzzies about the pandemic or the US economy. CNBC's crawler, which usually suggests what the producers think is most important, said that Jay Powell admitted he had not yet met with the new CEO/CIC. Say what? What could be more important right now than the US economy during the pandemic.
Up until he spoke, everything coming out of Washington suggested, with regard to the pandemic, we had turned the corner. Not only would we vaccinate 100 million Americans in 100 days, the new CEO/CIC said we would vaccinate 300 million Americans by the end of the summer. The media was tripping all over themselves telling us how good things had turned now that "orange-man-bad" was out.
Based on the crawlers, Jay Powell wasn't buying it. He wasn't giving us any warm fuzzies. He suggested much more needed to be done and the Fed was standing by to help, although savvy investors knew/know that the Fed has very few (if any) arrows remaining in its collective quiver to do anything (except increase its purchase of US equities). Or if that's not politically correct, the Fed has very few tools remaining in its collective toolbox.
The one piece that I was missing when I suggested that yesterday on the blog was "gasoline demand."
The graphic was bad enough; then I added the "red line." Wow, it's atrocious. This is not how a recovering economy looks. Turn the page, and peel back the onion, and all the economic data supports/reflects/corroborates this "gasoline demand" metric. Even the governor of California has seen this chart and removed the "stay-at-home" order -- of course, the "recall effort" probably moved him as much as the economic data.
The "gasoline demand" chart really pulls together the events of yesterday.
The dude abides.
As tears go by. Generally songs "by committee" don't do well:
As Tears Go By, Marianne Faithful,
written by Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Rolling Stones' manager Andrew Loog Oldham.
With regard to short trading and GME, a reader who is in the business provided this note:
In order to short a stock, it must be held in a margin account. Additionally the client has to sign a hypothecation agreement allowing the shares to be loaned. Also, a stock can only be shorted on an uptick which is usually a purchase. In my practice, when I shorted, I called the trade desk to have them borrow the shares. Often, there were no shares available. Rules are in place to prevent these short situations. However, these rules are obviously not being followed. Hedge funds and wall street give too much to politicians, so here we are.
Part of my response: I still can't explain the 140% number: the percent of shares said to be shorted as reported by Yahoo!Finance.
However, now after reading the above note from the reader, I can see how it occurs.
Later: here we go. It's called "naked short selling." I had heard that term before but never understood now. A huge "thank you" to a reader who explained it to me.
Naked shorting is the illegal practice of short selling shares that have not been affirmatively determined to exist.
Ordinarily, traders must borrow a stock, or determine that it can be
borrowed, before they sell it short. So naked shorting refers to short
pressure on a stock that may be larger than the tradable shares in the
market. Despite being made illegal after the 2008 - 2009 financial crisis, naked shorting continues to happen because of loopholes in rules and
discrepancies between paper and electronic trading systems.
For those who think this is important, remember, "GME" happened under Biden's watch. It is interesting that Melissa and her crew, as well as Jim Cramer, conveniently ignored explaining it to their audience, which suggests to me they are complicit, at least at some level.
In addition to the four panelists and their regular guests, both Melissa and Jim Cramer have had many guests on their programs, all of whom knew what was going on and failed to mention it.
Before we get started: I can't provide the specifics for obvious reasons, but it's always a great day when one of the best energy blogs in the world, takes ideas from the milliondollarway blog, not once, but twice. And we move on.
Fast and furious:
Goldman Sachs: Biden's federal land, water leasing is bullish for the drilling industry. Agree.
seven incredible Apple stories (pending; stand-along post)
Miley Cyrus marathon
Comment: there was a lot of talk recently that Texas might go blue. It might. But with the federal ban on new oil and gas leasing, it set back that effort tremendously. Even MSNBC is reporting stories that Texas democrats are not happy with that development. Is there any one thing that could have gotten more attention from the Texan democrats? LOL. Well, I suppose there is one other thing: if they "tear down that wall."
****************************************** Back to the Bakken
Active rigs:
$53.30
1/28/2021
01/28/2020
01/28/2019
01/28/2018
01/28/2017
Active Rigs
13
53
65
57
38
Number of active rigs inside the reservation: 5
Finally, a well coming off the confidential list -- Thursday, January 28, 2021:
36812, drl/A, Hess, TI-Hanson-158-94-0706H-1, 33-061-04553, Tioga, first production, 7/20; t--; cum 66K 11/20; a moderately good well; a great well considering its location; fracked 6/21/20 - 7/2/220; 7.8 million gallons of water; 86% water by mass:
Based on the response we received to our first-ever hydrogen blog last
fall, it’s fair to say we didn’t waste this space on a fringe subject.
To be honest, the level of interest in hydrogen far exceeded our
expectations, and suggested that we might have even been a little bit
late to the party — but fashionably so, if you ask us. In the weeks
since then, we’ve spent a fair amount of time distilling the tremendous
amount of news flow and reading material that was either sent our way or
popped up in the daily news feeds.
You could go a lot of different
directions with hydrogen and it’s still very easy, in our view, to get
lost in the forest of green energy technology. So, as we are wont to do,
we have stuck to our simple approach of tackling this fuel just like we
do with hydrocarbons, and we are first turning our attention upstream.
Today, we continue our series on hydrogen with a look at the top
production methods for the fuel.
A huge "thank you" to a reader for sending me this graphic.
It's been my feeling that the tornado story has been changing over the years. I remember my mother talking about tornadoes in Iowa when she was growing up back in the '40s, and how anxious she was about them in North Dakota in the 50s, and yet now, even with all the sensationalism in weather reporting, tornadoes just don't seem to be a "thing" any more. Certainly not as interesting as GME.
And then this:
There's only one way this chart could have been made better: add a y-axis to the right and a line showing the change in US population (or better yet, US GDP) over same period of time.
in 1983, US population: 231 million.
in 2020, US population: 331 million
Can you imagine how this graphic would have been much different had much more US manufacturing now accomplished in Chinese, India, Vietnam, and Mexico been brought back to the US? LOL. One really has to thank companies like Apple moving their manufacturing operations overseas to minimize CO2 emissions here in the US.
China, to keep up with the energy demand required for all that manufacturing is building coal power plants as fast as they can. Meanwhile, the US is shutting natural gas because we have too much.
