Barron's Is Reading The Blog -- December 22, 2023

Locator: 46377BRK.

I about fell off my chair when I saw the headline for this story flash across my screen:

From the linked story:

Berkshire Hathaway stock is having a disappointing finish to 2023, putting Warren Buffett’s conglomerate behind the S&P 500 over the past 10 years. 

The Class A shares have lagged behind the S&P 500 by about nine percentage points during the current quarter and now are up about 16% in 2023. That compares with a roughly 26% total return for the index. 

The shares are up an annualized 12% in the last 10 years, slightly behind the 12.2% yearly total return, including dividends, for the index. Berkshire also is behind the S&P 500 over the past five years with a 13.4% annualized return, compared with 16.4% for the index., according to Bloomberg calculations. Berkshire’s Class A shares were up 0.3% Friday to $542,600 while the Class B stock was 0.1% higher at $356.47.

The best thing about this article: Barron's is doing the same thing I'm doing -- shortening the timeline to something reasonable. Instead of looking at BRK and investment decisions over the past 30 or 40 years, Barron's is looking at the most recent five years and the most recent ten years. 

When you really cut to the chase, BRK can be looked at "pre-2016" and "post-2016." 

I dare someone to take out AAPL from the BRK portfolio and calculate the return since 2016. In the past ten years AAPL paid a dividend and provided a return of almost 80,000%. In that same period, BRK comes in at zero.

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Back to the Bakken -- re-posting from earlier

WTI: $73.52.

Active rigs: 34.

Two new permits, #40399 - #40400, inclusive:

• Operators: MRO, Hess
• Fields: Reunion Bay (Mountrail); Sorkness (Mountrail)
• Comments:
• Hess has a permit for an EN-Starla well, SESW 9-157-93; 
• to be sited 580 FSL and 2126 FWL;
• MRO has a permit for a Donkin USA well, SESW 33-152N-93W; 
• to be sited 317 FSL and 1794 FWL;

Four permits renewed:

• Grayson Mill (3): three Tufto permits;
• Oasis: a Barro permit, Burke County, Black Slough;

One producing well (a DUC) reported as completed:

• 24622, 2,147, MRO, Skip 31-29H, Dunn County;

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Gimme, Gimme, Gimme