Only A Cursory Look At Berkshire Following The Annual Meeting But This Caught My Attention -- April 30, 2022

Berkshire Hathaway increased its holdings of Chevron in 1Q22: multiple sources. From Barron's:

But this from thestreet back in February 14, 2022:

I'll let others sort this out, but if I'm reading this correctly, someone seems to be mistaken. But again, I often misread things.

CVX was trading for about $157 on Friday, at the close, April 29, 2022.

Only two stocks were prominently mentioned at the 2022 annual meeting: Chevron and Activision.

But look at the Chevron headlines:

• Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway made big bet on energy as first-quarter operating profits edged higher -- Barron's
• Warren Buffett is betting more on Chevron -- Bloomberg
• Warren Buffett significantly increases Chevron bet, now in Berkshire's top four positions -- CNBC
  

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Warren, Charlie On Oil 

Link here. 

Some see this as $250-WTI.

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Another Melancholy Evening

Watching Farewell, My Lovely, twice in three nights. 

Another melancholy evening: it has nothing to do with the Bakken, the market. 

They should have filmed Farewell, My Lovely in black-and-white, not color. Color truly ruined it. Other than that, it's a perfect movie. Awards. 

Exact date movie was set: June 29, 1941. Also, here.

The book was published in 1940.

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Best Chocolate

Bang for buck, Lindt is the best.

Tell me if I'm wrong. Again, talking "bang for buck."

Kate Weiser is best but not for "bang for buck." One doesn't buy Kate Weiser for self; Kate Weiser is for the love of one's life.

Beating A Dead Horse But This Will Be The US Energy Story This Summer -- April 30, 2022

Link here.

If You Want To See Disinformation And Chart Illiteracy -- Start Here -- April 30, 2022

Updates

May 1, 2022: when I first saw this Bloomberg story, I knew it was disinformation and probably planted by the IEA or OPEC or Saudi Arabia. Now I know I'm right. Link here.  

Original Post 

And again, ask about "the agenda" when reading the linked article.

Link here. 

Go through the thread at the link. So many story lines. 

But first, and foremost, fracking per se is not causing the problem. Huge disinformation. And where is Oklahoma on the list? 

North America: earthquakes yesterday, a very, very typical earthquake day in America. All earthquakes posted for yesterday; none in Texas; closest to Texas, one in Oklahoma, well-known for minor quakes:

There's Going To Be Some Soul-Searching / Come To Jesus Meetings This Next Week Over At Ford And Amazon -- April 30, 2022

Both Ford and Amazon took huge 1Q22 hits with their Rivian investment. 

For Ford, perhaps not unexpected, since those who invest in automobile industry understand the EV situation, but it seems to have really taken Amazon investors by surprise.

How is the Rivian debacle being reported? Look at this:

I knew it was bad; I didn't know it was this bad, nor did analysts in their early reporting. It was only a bit later in the day after the initial numbers came out that the fog became to clear. 

Amazon was absolutely crushed by analysts when the latter realized what had just happened. Amazon's reputation was crushed; their market cap was crushed. Bezos lost as much as $20 billion -- on paper ... but I doubt it affected his credit rating. Or his lifestyle.

I think twenty, thirty years from now when the books are written on the EV industry folks are going to ask why "they" went with luxury sedans and pickup trucks before going after the low-hanging fruit: last-mile and last-ten-mile local van delivery. Where Tesla is with S, X, and Y, Amazon should be that far along with last-ten-mile-EV-delivery vans. 

The tea leaves suggest it will easily be another five years, I don't think as long as ten years, before Amazon is "mature" with EV van deliveries. Wow, what a mistake. 

Don't even get me started with the US Postal Service.

I don't think there's anyway to sugarcoat this.

ATLIS: Wants To Compete With Rivian -- April 30, 2022

I track EVs at this post; the "scorecard" tracks the principal operator, the company providing the software (often to include the semiconductors), the "deep pocket" backer. 

It appears Arizona is becoming an EV-manufacturer center for the US. Detroit (the metonym) will be a big EV player, of course, but it looks like Arizona wants to be the "Detroit" for EVs. 

Or maybe better said, three centers for EV excellence: Detroit, Arizona, and Austin. But then there's also George, Alabama, the Carolinas, which I might lump together as the "Southeast," giving us four centers for EV excellence: Detroit, Austin, Arizona, and the Southeast.

I don't know, maybe other folks have a better understanding of all this. 

Maybe readers can help me with this: EV pickups. Who's building them? I can think of three: Tesla, Detroit (Ford being the most visible), and Rivian.

Now, there's a fourth: Atlis. Atlis Motor Vehicles website. The website will explain how "everyday" folks can invest in this start-up.

It looks like Atlis is a battery company first, and a pick-up company second. They'll sell / market their batteries through their pick-up trucks.

ATLIS Regulation A+ crowdfunding. 

ATLIS is Arizona-based. Will eventually go public but folks can invest now. 

Apparently, Atlis is comparing itself to Rivian.

This is probably as good a site as any for quickly bringing us up-to-date with Atlis.

Three business units:

• energy: batteries
• XP platform: the "base" platform for their vehicles; a modular platform;
• XT Pickup Truck: the pick-up truck "we see"

Apparently the XT Pickup has reached "body-in-white" stage. The body will be built / manufactured by Schwab Industries which is based in Michigan. The body will be shipped to Arizona where the body will be placed on the XP Platform.

Schwab, apparently also has an interest in space but I'm not what the connection is as of yet. 

I'll be adding Atlis to the EV scorecard.

The XP Platform will be built / manufactured "in-house" by the Atlis team "to ensure quality. 

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.

All my posts are done quickly: there will be content and typographical errors. If anything on any of my posts is important to you, go to the source. If/when I find typographical / content errors, I will correct them.  

Stocks To Watch Next Week -- April 30, 2022

Weekly, on Saturdays, SeekingAlpha has a nice look at stocks to watch in the following week. I track those postings here.

This past week was a great week for earnings reports, and interestingly enough, it continues into next week. Also, some nice dividend increases:

April 30, 2022: next week, stocks to watch --

• earnings: WMB; MPC; AMD; SBUX; MDRN; UBER; COP; LCID; DASH; ENB
• IPOs: Bausch + Lomb (BLCO); 
• projected dividend increases: FANG (from 60 cents to 70 cents); Devon (from $1.00 to $1.15); Baxter (from 28 cents to 32 cents
  

Natural Gas Fill Rate -- April 30, 2022

Fill rate.

I forgot to post this graph this past week; a reader reminded me. 

My reply:

Thank you. I had forgotten to post that.

Two weeks ago (or maybe three), the fill curve had not yet turned "up" which concerned a lot of folks because by now it should be filling. Some thought it might go below the five-year minimum.

It looks like it won't go below the 5-year minimum and won't set a new "low" record. It has started to turn up.

One thing I've learned about natural gas: besides being very, very seasonal, producers can fill very quickly if they need to. Unlike crude oil which seems to take awhile from spud to pipeline, natural gas wells can be drilled quickly, etc, etc.

So, although natural gas will be expensive and there may be some headline stories on regional shortages, I still think the real story is going to be diesel.

The Book Page And ISO NY -- April 30, 2022

I do not know the geography of the northeast (US) very well. Some years ago I picked up a copy of The Battle for New York, Barnet Schecter, c. 2002 more for the geography of New York state than for the history. 

The map inside the front and back covers of the hardcover sold me. 

This history is incredible; the geography is even better. Really, really fun to read. I'm re-reading it for the second time now. 

My notes, though very incomplete, are here.

ISO NY: 

Putin's War -- We Are In This For The Long Haul -- April 30, 2022

Link here. 

There are a number of story lines here. Most folks are fixated on the fact this suggests the member countries of the EU are united; Russia unable to break up the EU, one of his primary goals, it is often stated. 

This is what jumps out at me: "we're" in this for the long haul. The EU sees the war in Ukraine and after-effects of the war lasting a very long time. 

Again, to beat a dead horse, the Russians will still sell a lot of (all?) the oil they have for export, but the real issue is Russia's ability to maintain their oil fields without western technology.

Canada's Clearwater Play -- Random Update -- April 30, 2022

I track other plays / other formations at the sidebar at the right. 

On Saturday, twitter had a "breathless" tweet on Clearwater (Canada). I was curious. Had I noted Clearwater before on the blog. Yup: here. Here's the wiki entry on the Clearwater formation, early Cretaceous.