Apple, Walmart, Ulta, And OPEC -- Good Morning -- Nothing About The Bakken -- January 29, 2022

One question: is there any future for a cellphone company who now takes the lead in China? Or is this the beginning of an end for its well-known competitor?

EOG and Eagle Ford: link here. Be sure to read through the thread to the possible / likely explanation (which I suspect is wrong).

Chevron: miss. Folks are missing the story. Hopefully, I will find time to get back to this one; there's an interesting side to this story.

Just how "rich" is America: link here. 

• revenues of the 13 OPEC members
• export all their crude oil production
• at $100 / bbl
• total revenue would almost equal combined revenue of TWO American companies:
• Walmart; and, drum roll ...
• Apple 

Ulta Beauty: best ever article ever in The Wall Street Journal. Link here. On mentors and mentorship for CEOs. 

Stocks to watch next week: link here. Just a few mentioned:

• ABBV (think JNJ); AMD (think XLNX); GOOG; SBUX (think struggling; $10-coffee; and, unionization); XOM (think CVX: best of breed).

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Apple

Apple: this analyst gets it.  "Scary demand."

Apple: perhaps this weekend, if I find the time, I will post the top ten things that blew me away in Apple's 1Q22 earnings / conference call. For now, until I find something else, #1, link here, from The Wall Street Journal:

Apple's iPhone 13:

Signs of Apple’s improved China performance had been emerging since the iPhone 12 with 5G cellular connectivity made its debut in late 2020. They picked up pace when the iPhone 13 lineup was introduced in September. During the iPhone 13’s debut in China, it rose to first place in the market that initial week, according to Counterpoint Research.

Strong sales in the final three months of 2021 continued, allowing the company to capture the top position in the country, with 23% of the market compared with 16% a year earlier.

Meanwhile, Huawei, once Apple’s biggest rival in China for the premium smartphone market, fell to 7% of the market from 23%. U.S. sanctions have curbed Huawei’s ability to buy chips and use American software, such as Alphabet Inc.’s Android operating system, reducing its supply of phones and prompting users to ditch the brand.