End Game For Putin -- Some Interesting Links, New(s) Stories, And WTI Moving -- September 21, 2023

Locator: 45519B.

Featured personality of the Day: Leona Woods.

AAPL: I continue to add AAPL to my portfolio at every opportunity, but things may not be as sanguine as one might think.

I'm starting to have second thoughts. In the big scheme of things, I think "I'm okay," but if it's not one thing, it's another. Now, it's the Qualcomm story once again. That story never goes away. Another link in response to the WSJ story. 

The good news? I don't know if there is any. I suppose if Huawei and Samsung could do it, Apple can do it. My hunch: Apple is farther along than folks think but Apple a) has a lot on its plate already; b) has a reasonable contract / source; and, c) feels their modem is not yet meeting Apple's standards. I really don't know, but 2026 should be a most interesting year for Qaulcomm.

And if Apple is only three years behind, that's fine. Enough of this, time to  move on.

Two top stories today:

• Chinese coal imports surging, even by historical standards, and that's saying a lot;
• shortly before Goldman Sachs Group Inc. officially sold the last of its coal assets, two of its top commodity traders left to strike out on their own. Now they’ve made a fortune with a controversial bet on the polluting fuel.

Russia's oil's fortunes may be turning a corner as it finds new buyers, like Brazil (which says more about Brazil than about Russia:

At one point, its key Urals export grade was trading more than 50% below Dated Brent, according to data from Argus Media. Before the invasion, typical discounts were less than 5%, based on quality differentials.

WTI: with the Fed's comments yesterday, and the market's reaction following those remarks, I never expected to see WTI move up strongly this morning. But it did, but it has since pulled back some. Thoughts:

• Putin has a huge problem at home: refined products spiking in price; it's not often Putin puts his consumers first but, as telegraphed earlier this week, Russia will curb gasoline and diesel exports "to stabilize prices."
• Putin watching his empire hopes fade -- WSJ
• Peter Zeihan comments.

Russia:

Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh agreed Wednesday to disarm and discuss reintegration with Azerbaijan following a swift but deadly assault by Azerbaijani forces, a capitulation that signals the end of decades of ethnic-Armenian rule in the enclave and the rapid decline of Russian influence in the former Soviet Union territories.

The terms of the cease-fire lay groundwork that could bring to a close the autonomous rule by the population of Nagorno-Karabakh, which was won from Baku in a bloody yearslong war after the fall of the Soviet empire.

Peter Zeihan: Russia on a precipice? 

UAW: previous tea leaves unchanged, but they could be really, really wrong;

• how far will Ford let F-150 inventory drop?
• but is supply chain a bigger problem than the strike?
• if you are the CEO would you rather blame the decline in F-150 sales due to mismanagement of the supply chain, or blame it on the UAW?
  

Soft landing vs recession: everything, all of a sudden, suggests "a very hard landing" -- except jet fuel delivered as reported in yesterday's EIA weekly petroleum report.

Well, I didn't wake up dead and I feel great. As noted earlier, I got my Covid-19 "booster" yesterday -- these aren't "boosters" -- these are new vaccines to better match newer variants. My "to do list" with regard to vaccines:

Beer: while shopping in Market Street yesterday, after getting our Covid-19 shots, I checked out the beer aisle.