See You Later Today -- January 10, 2023

Today is so slow, I'm not going to blog until the end-of-day report unless something big needs to be reported.

Good luck to all.

New feature: Bloomberg law. Work stoppages / strike action: The most heavily besieged employer was Starbucks, which faced at least 107 union-initiated strikes in 2022.

For some unknown reason the EIA data has been released, but the dashboards have not been updated.  

EIA dashboards:

• EIA pdf, Bakken: https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/drilling/pdf/bakken.pdf
• EIA, pdf, Permian: https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/drilling/pdf/permian.pdf
• EIA, pdf, Eagle Ford: https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/drilling/pdf/eagleford.pdf

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Meanwhile, We're Going Higher
Need To Destroy More Jobs

A shot across the bow.

At best: simply, "higher for longer."

At worst: "much higher for much longer."

The good news: for those with investing / disposable income and a 30-year horizon, another year of accumulating shares at discount prices. 

Whoo-hoo.

On this news: WTI jumps a buck; now trading at $75.57.

• DVN: which had been in the red, is now in the green.

In the cat-bird seat: those who focused on dividend-paying stocks for the past two years. 

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The Medical Page

Link here. Archived.

Dr Prasad and I are on the same page of music. However, I have no problem with masking and support it, in the right venues / circumstances.

For the last few weeks, the media has been filled with stories about what The New York Times has described as our latest “viral onslaught.” It’s been dubbed a “tripledemic”—a combination of Covid-19, influenza, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which is being blamed for high rates of illness and an excess of hospitalizations, especially among children.

The message is clear: fear winter respiratory viruses, and take every possible precaution you can. It’s time to slap on those N95s once more, avoid crowds, and socialize outdoors if possible.  

But the best available evidence contradicts the narrative from the media and many public health officials. The precautions being recommended are essentially unproven—akin to burning an incense stick, or wearing garlic to ward off vampires. 

The way to think of the tripledemic is that it’s just another example of what we used to call normal life. And the insistence on never-ending precautions in the face of inevitable exposure to germs is not only medically misguided, it also threatens to stigmatize the most mundane human interactions.