You know, if my financial advisor told me we were in a recession and .... well, this is not an investment site, so I'm not going there.
From earlier today:
Wednesday, February 15, 2023
Petroshale's Nine-Well Pad In Bear Den -- February 15, 2023
These three producing wells (DUCs) were reported as completed:
- 36891, 693, Petroshale, Carson Federal 3TFH, Bear Den, no production data,
- 36892, 245, Petroshale, Bowie Federal 3MBH, Bear Den, no production data,
- 38013, 619, Petroshale, Thompson Federal 4TFH, Bear Den, no production data,
It's going to take awhile to sort these wells out.
The maps and narrative will be at this post. That post has been completed.
Four New Permits; Three DUCs Reported As Completed -- Wednesday, February 15, 2023
Ohio derailment: exactly what do the reporters taking USDOT to task think that agency (USDOT) should have done immediately after the derailment? Asking for a reader. It's my understanding there was no human loss of life, and air quality is fine in "eastern Ohio." Folks have been allowed to return to their homes. No links; story everywhere.
Covid: with regard to Covid, it looks like Japan is finally out of the woods. Completely out of touch and tone-deaf, the US CDC continues to push masks, despite evidence "supporting" what we knew all along: masks do/did not make a difference. Time for Americans to push back; of course, they won't. Masks are a great security blanket for a lot of Americans. And for the immunocompromised masks may play a role in mitigating transmission. For that reason, I continue to wear a mask where large groups of folks tend to congregate. Airlines seem to be managing this issue quite nicely. By the way, that "Norway vs Sweden" story. Sweden had almost 3x the number of deaths due to Covid than Norway, per capita.
Gasoline demand, link here:
Breaking: 7:58 p.m. CT:
EVs: in round numbers -- EVs: link here. Scorecard.
- 2023:
- Tesla: 1.1 million EVs
- F: 500,000 EVs
- GM:
- 2026:
- Tesla:
- F: 2 million
- GM:
From Alex Kimani, link here, but it's not gonna happen in this environment:
Last month, Citi said that the time might be right for a U.S. oil giant such as Chevron or Exxon Mobil to buy either BP Plc., Shell Plc, or TotalEnergies which the Wall Street bank reckons are trading at a massive 40% discount.
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Investors And Reading
Palantir:
Charlie Munger of BRK: never stop reading.
From The New Yorker, February 13 & 20, 2023 "Greetings from Austin, by Lawrence Wright, p. 34++.
Joe Lonsdale, a venture capitalist who co-founded Palantir, the data-analysis company, and started the investment-technology firm 8VC, among many other enterprises, came to Austin from Silicon Valley.
“I like Texas,” he told me. “There’s this spirit of the Texas frontier—strong people confronting challenges and doing so boldly.” That’s the myth I grew up with, but it still has the power to summon entrepreneurs like Lonsdale.
He worries that Austin’s rising cost of living disenfranchises the very people who made the city so distinct.
“You want to have lots of hippies around because they make the music and the food better,” he told me. “But you just don’t want them in government.”
After attending Stanford, Lonsdale became an intern at Peter Thiel’s PayPal, and got to know three future billionaires now living in Austin: Luke Nosek, Ken Howery, and Elon Musk. (Musk has claimed to live in a forty-five-thousand-dollar tract house in Boca Chica Village, at the bottom tip of Texas, to be close to his rocket company’s launch site, but he’s also been seen staying in friends’ mansions in Austin.)
Called the “PayPal mafia,” they have brought with them the disruptive self-image and libertarian politics that characterized their Silicon Valley ventures.
Palantir, which is based in Denver but has offices in Austin, typifies the moral complexity of the current tech culture.
The company has been criticized for allowing U.S. immigration authorities to use its sophisticated software to arrest parents of undocumented children, and for working with the N.S.A. to improve software that the agency used to spy on American citizens.
But during the pandemic the government tracked outbreaks by analyzing COVID-19 data with Palantir software, and the company’s algorithms are reportedly being used in Ukraine to monitor Russian troop deployments. David Ignatius, of the Washington Post, described Palantir’s code as “the most advanced intelligence and battle-management software ever seen in combat.”
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Back to the Bakken
Active rigs: 46.
WTI: $78.59.
Natural gas: $2.471.
Four new permits, #39661 - #39664, inclusive:
- Operators: CLR (2); Lime Rock Resources (2)
- Fields: Cedar Coulee (Dunn); Stanley (Mountrail)
- Comments:
- Lime Rock Resources has permits for a Lucky well and a Dusty well, NENE 30-155-91,
- the former to be sited 295 FNL and 388 FEL; and Dusty to be sited 308 FNL and 350 FEL;
- CLR has permits for a Thorvald well and a Gale well, both in Cedar Coulee, NWNW 32-147-96;
- with Thorvald to be sited 498 FNL and 244 FWL and Gale to be sited 493 FNL and 289 FWL
Three producing wells (DUCs) reported as completed (see this note):
- 36891, 693, Petroshale, Carson Federal 3TFH, Bear Den, no production data,
- 36892, 245, Petroshale, Bowie Federal 3MBH, Bear Den, no production data,
- 38013, 619, Petroshale, Thompson Federal 4TFH,, Bear Den, no production data,
Weekly EIA Petroleum Report -- February 15, 2023
Weekly EIA petroleum report, link here:
- US crude oil in storage: a whopping 8% above the five-year average;
- US crude oil in storage increased by a staggering 16.3 million bbls;
- on top of that, the US imported almost 4% more crude oil over the past four weeks than a year ago;
- refiners have stepped way back, working at only 86.5% of their capacity; gee -- do you think there's a relationship between refining and crude oil in storage?
- distillate fuel inventories decreased by 13 million bbls last week and are back to 15% below their five-year average;
- finally, jet fuel product was up 5.7% compared with same four-week period last year.
So, why is gasoline still so expensive?
The Market -- February 15, 2023
AAPL: headed to $177? Last year it was headed to $200 and then reality reared its ugly head. But at $177? It's been there before (or very close).
NVDA: the large cap rally is largely about these three stocks.
Kraft: easily beats, but fears the future.
F: reimagined -- this is the story. Barron's has the same story behind a paywall.
- CEO predicts Tesla will build more storefront kiosks but still few service centers
- unlike ICE vehicles, EVs need little routine maintenance, like regular oil changes;
- Tesla sees service centers as money-losers
- traditional ICE service centers: huge money machines
- Ford: will split itself into two entities
- Ford Model e for EVs
- Ford Blue for ICE vehicles
- dealers expected to specialize in one or the other
- EV certified Ford dealers will sell EVs at fixed prices under strict standards,
- lower-tier EV dealers will only be allowed to sell those vehicles in small batches with no online presence or inventory, though they will be able to provide EV loaners for customers.
- as for the automaker’s luxury arm – Lincoln – it’s expected to receive its own unique set of standards that haven’t been revealed yet.
Remember: We're In A Recession -- February 15, 2023
JPow or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Embrace Inflation
"Wednesday's robust retail retail sales figures, along with a strong January job report, suggest that the economy remains durable, perhaps even strengthening, and at little risk of succumbing to a recession anytime soon."
US consumer: checking and savings accounts still hold more cash than they did pre-pandemic. Think about that. -- February 15, 2023.
Updates
Later, 11:36 a.m. CT, link here:
Original Post
US consumer: checking and savings accounts still hold more cash than they did pre-pandemic. Think about that. -- February 15, 2023.
Oil: is this a change from last year's forecast? Link here.
Tesla: very, very surprising. Doing very, very well. I'm impressed.
Remember, we're in a recession:
Biden not getting the credit he deserves:
Can you imagine if the US deployed 97% of its entire army in South Korea?
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Cost Renewables
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Sophia's First Medal
Montney Update -- February 15, 2023
Chinese resuming Russian crude buyers: link here. Not violating the terms of the price cap mechanism:
State oil refining giants PetroChina and Sinopec are back on the market for Urals and are buying it at deep discounts via trading companies that handle the payments to Russian oil exporters and arrange the shipping and insurance services, according to Reuters’ sources.
The top state refiners in China are not violating the terms of the price cap mechanism and are not using Western tankers or insurance, either, the sources added.Such trades are beneficial for the Chinese refiners as they import crude at much lower prices than on the international markets, raising their profits from processing cheap crude at a time when China’s oil demand is set for a recovery after the end of the zero-Covid policy in the world’s largest crude oil importer. The trade is beneficial for Russia, to an extent, too—Moscow has a new major outlet for Urals, which used to go mostly to the European market prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Western sanctions on Russia’s crude oil exports.
However, the much cheaper Urals compared to a year ago is reducing Russia’s budget revenues, to which oil is a major contributor. See next data point / link.
Russian economy: update.
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Back to the Bakken
Active rigs: 47.
Peter Zeihan newsletter.
WTI: $78.17.
Natural gas: $2.536.
Thursday, February 16, 2023: 42 for the month; 112 for the quarter, 112 for the year
38883, conf, WPX, Palo Pinto 20-17-8HY,
39006, conf, CLR, Rhonda 4-28H1,
38882, conf, WPX, Palo Pinto 20-17HB,
38430, conf, Whiting, Lindley 41-7-2H,
38425, conf, Hess, HA-Dahl-LE-152-95-0706H-1,
RBN Energy: British Columbia's Montney gas play revived with new First Nations agreement. Archived. Montney is tracked here.
Natural gas production in Western Canada has been enjoying a steady revival in recent years, heavily assisted by enormous growth in the unconventional Montney gas formation. A sizable portion of this formation lies in the westernmost province of British Columbia, but also underlies a large contiguous land area in that province which has been the subject of land access and development issues with the province’s First Nations residents. As a result of a legal decision made in June 2021, future natural gas production growth was thrown into question as new well licenses, crucial for future gas well development, were placed on hold until a new agreement could be reached. In the nick of time, a new agreement was announced last month. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the implications on future natural gas drilling and production.
Russian Economy -- An Incredibly Bleak Report — February 15, 2023
Today, from CNBC: a fairly long (for CNBC) update:
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Earlier
The Russian budget: https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/analyses/2022-12-12/russias-war-budget-2023-2025. Archived. This is an incredibly bleak report / analysis.
Russian National Wealth Fund -- Russia's sovereign wealth fund: wiki.
Russia's sovereign wealth fund: wiki.
Jan 18 (Reuters) - Russia's National Wealth Fund shrank to $148.4 billion as of Jan. 1, down $38.1 billion in a month, as the government took out cash to plug its budget deficit, data showed on Wednesday. The ministry said it had spent 2.41 trillion roubles ($35.1 billion) from the NWF, a rainy day fund that accumulates oil revenues, to cover the deficit in December. Along with heavy state borrowing at domestic debt auctions, the NWF - which was originally intended to support the pension system - has become the main source of financing for the budget deficit since Russia invaded Ukraine last year and was hit by waves of unprecedented Western sanctions.
On top of this, Russia has announced it will cut crude oil production by 500,000 bbls beginning in March, 2023.
AAPL And Buffett — February 15, 2023
Locator: 10002Buffett.
Bought more ….
Lots of links:
- Josh Funk, Yahooo!Finance
- quick sale of TSM, Charlotte Yang, Cindy Wang, Bloomberg:
- full list; Brian Baker, Bankrate:
- little-known stock portfolio; one of the better links, Markets Insider
- Fox Business: https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/buffetts-firm-adds-more-apple-slashes-chipmaker-adds-banks
- excellent; with list, ZeroHedge:
- Akane Otani, The Wall Street Journal:
From The WSJ:
Warren Buffett‘s Berkshire Hathaway sold more shares than it bought in the final quarter of 2022. The Omaha, Nebraska-based company added to its positions in Apple Inc., Louisiana-Pacific Corp. and Paramount Global in the final three months of the year while trimming its positions in eight companies, including U.S. Bancorp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.
The moves were revealed in Berkshire’s 13F filing, a form that institutional investors that manage more than $100 million are required to file to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission within 45 days of the end of each quarter. The filing only reflects investors’ equity holdings as of the end of the previous quarter—not necessarily what their portfolios look like today. Still, many investors view Berkshire’s 13Fs as a way to get a sense of how Mr. Buffett, Mr. Buffett’s deputies and his right-hand man Charlie Munger are approaching the markets.
Unlike during the third quarter, Berkshire didn’t open new positions in any companies in the final three months of the year. Because of Mr. Buffett’s prominence, shares of companies that Berkshire has opened new positions in sometimes get a boost following the disclosure.
The company reduced its position in chip maker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing by 51.8 million shares, or roughly 86%, a notable move considering Berkshire only began investing in the company during the third quarter.
It also decreased its stakes in financial stocks U.S. Bancorp, Bank of New York Mellon Corp., and Ally Financial. Analysts had been questioning if Berkshire would further cut its stake in financial stocks since it reduced its stake in the Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp, which it had been invested in since 2006, by more than half last year.
Berkshire also trimmed its position in videogame maker Activision-Blizzard Inc., Chevron Corp., healthcare company McKesson Corp. and grocery-chain Kroger Co
Despite the move, Chevron remains one of Berkshire’s five biggest holdings, following Apple and Bank of America Corp.
The most interesting data point:
Without question, this was the most interesting story this quarter; it has been posted previously but it looks like few are following it: link here.
Buffett also owns an under-the-radar stock portfolio worth $5.9 billion through Berkshire Hathaway. The portfolio is managed by New England Asset Management, which provides investment management services that are tailored to insurance companies.
New England Asset Management was acquired by General Re in 1995. Then, in 1998, Berkshire Hathaway acquired General Re for $22 billion, making New England Asset Management a wholly owned subsidiary of Buffett's conglomerate.
While Buffett has no influence over the $6 billion portfolio managed by New England Asset Management, the portfolio does have some striking similarities to Buffett's $300 billion stock portfolio.
For one, it's extremely concentrated, with its top 10 positions making up 92% of the portfolio. The top 10 holdings of Berkshire Hathaway's main stock portfolio make up 87% of its assets.
The top ten:
- Cisco: $9 million
- JP Morgan: $11 million
- Bank of New York Mellon: $12 million
- Microsoft: $13 million
- Diageo: $39 million
- HP: $410 million
- Chevron: $638 million
- US Bancorp: $668 million
- Bank of America: $687 million
- Apple: $2.84 billion
When one looks at that holding, one understands why Buffett sold what he sold from BRK in most recent quarter. It also shows that Buffett owns even more AAPL than most might think.