A Very Old Whiting Sanish Well Goes Over One Million Bbls -- August 7, 2023

Locator: 45377B.

The well:

• 17158, 4,184, Whiting, Richardson Federal 11-9H, Sanish, t10/08; F; cum 995K 10/21; see this post; cum 1.000125 million bbls 6/22; just came off line 7/22; cum 1.002338 6/23;

Recent production:

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
BAKKEN	6-2023	30	1356	1404	483	1029	969	0
BAKKEN	5-2023	22	857	693	340	715	672	0
BAKKEN	4-2023	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	3-2023	0	0	14	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	2-2023	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	1-2023	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	12-2022	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	11-2022	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	10-2022	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	9-2022	1	1	64	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	8-2022	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	7-2022	5	44	42	46	352	343	0
BAKKEN	6-2022	30	522	536	91	4504	4444	0
BAKKEN	5-2022	31	695	724	123	4660	4598	0
BAKKEN	4-2022	21	485	437	69	3373	2297	1037
BAKKEN	3-2022	31	623	643	157	3497	3435	0
BAKKEN	2-2022	28	562	570	234	3087	3010	22
BAKKEN	1-2022	31	711	714	241	4195	4133	0
BAKKEN	12-2021	31	779	768	265	4566	4504	0

Warren Buffett Is Lovin' It -- Apple Stock Buybacks Remain In Full Swing -- August 7, 2023

Locator: 45376AAPL.

Link here.

When it comes to stock buybacks, Apple (AAPL) and Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway are on the same page.

For more than a decade, Apple has made good on its history-making buyback plans, spending more than $573 billion on share repurchases since 2012. And in its most recent quarter, Apple spent another $18 billion on buybacks despite a third straight quarter in a row of declining revenues.

It's clear that Apple's buybacks have benefited Berkshire's bottom line. Buffett himself has said as much, telegraphing that he very clearly believes in Apple's consistent buyback program.

"At Apple and Amex, repurchases increased Berkshire’s ownership a bit without any cost to us," Buffett wrote in Berkshire's annual shareholders letter this year. "The math isn’t complicated: When the share count goes down, your interest in our many businesses goes up. Every small bit helps if repurchases are made at value-accretive prices. Just as surely, when a company overpays for repurchases, the continuing shareholders lose."

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Amazon Prime Video Sports

Surf Girls Hawai'i. Exactly what the title says.

Women's championship, North Shore, O'ahu, Hawai'i.

Pipeline, Sunset.

I may be a bit distracted the rest of this evening. LOL.

I'm lovin' it.

Market Insider Today -- August 7, 2023

Locator: 45375DOOMANDGLOOM.

Link here -- dynamic.

JPMorgan pushes recession into 2024.

Comes a day after BofA said the same thing, but added, "if a recession comes at all."

And into the breach steps Gary Gensler.

I guess we're going from Goldilocks economy --> soft landing --> no recession --> short-shallow recession --> recession --> Great Depression --> next financial crisis.

What next? Armageddon? The four horsemen of the apocalypse? Revelations? A meteor? A black hole?

Yes, There's A Bubble, But It Ain't In AI -- EVs Vs AI -- LCID Vs PLTR -- August 7, 2023

Locator: 45374EVS.

Disruptive: EVs: 

• link here. Scorecard. 
• cash burn

Lucid: 2Q23.

Throwing good money after bad.

Link here.

Barron's link here.

And they talk about a "bubble" in AI. LOL.

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AI

This is the difference between AI and EVs.

Palantir: this has been all the rage for the past week. Don't confuse "Palantir" with "Peloton."

Link here.

From the linked article:

Palantir reported $28 million, or 1 cent per share, in net income, compared with a net loss of $179 million, or 9 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter. 

The data-analytics company said third-quarter revenue will likely be between $553 million and $557 million, ahead of the $552 million expected by analysts. The midpoint of the guidance implies 16% growth, a sequential acceleration after three years of gradual deceleration. 

“We anticipate that we will become eligible for inclusion in the S&P 500 after we report our financial results for Q3 2023 in early November,” CEO Alex Karp wrote in a letter to shareholders. “At that point, we will have been profitable on a cumulative basis over the preceding four quarters.” 

Palantir lifted its forecast for adjusted income from operations for the year to over $576 million, compared with a range of $506 million to $556 million in May. 

The company said its board approved a buyback program for the first time, with a capacity of up to $1 billion. 

Government revenue accounted for 57% of total sales. During the quarter Palantir announced a contract from the U.S. Special Operations Command that could be worth up to $463 million. The company’s fastest area of growth was international government revenue, which increased 31% to $76 million.

You're a conservative, cautious, smart, well-informed investor. Which would you prefer, LCID or PLTR?

Oh, LCID, huh?

Let me ask you again:  You're a conservative, cautious, smart, well-informed investor. Which would you prefer, LCID or PLTR?

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.  

Again, all my posts are done quickly. There will be typographical and content errors in all my posts. If any of my posts are important to you, go to the source.

Wind At A Crisis -- August 7, 2023

Locator: 45373WIND.

Story of the week: wind energy in crisis. First it was Siemens; now a feature story in The WSJ. 

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ERCOT Today

Easily held. Dynamic.

Dallas - Fort Worth, Texas -- Boomtown -- Axios -- August 7, 2023

Locator: 45372TX.

Dallas - Ft Worth: boomtown.

• Population: imagine San Diego, San Jose, New Orleans, Pittsburgh and Boise all rolled up into the same metropolitan area.
• Zoom in: That would give you a sense of just how many people now live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area's major cities, which aside from the titular pair also include Arlington, Plano and Garland. 
• The big picture: Dallas-Fort Worth is one of the country's fastest growing metropolitan areas. The region added more people than any other U.S. metro between 2021 and 2022, with 170,396 new residents. 
• Zoom out: Texas is one of six states benefiting from a massive southward wealth migration, which is pulling the U.S. economic center away from the Northeast.
• By the numbers: 
•  265 businesses have either relocated or expanded to Dallas-Fort Worth since 2020. 
• Dallas accounted for 59 of those moves. 
• Among the biggest: Caterpillar, which last year relocated its headquarters from suburban Chicago to Irving.
• Irving, a suburb near DFW Airport, has seen more than 20 business expansions and relocations in the past three years.

"The six states" not named, but possibly: the two Carolinas; Georgia; Florida; Tennessee; and, Texas?

Yup, see this article.

Five DUCs Reported Completed; No New Permits -- August 7, 2023

Locator: 45371B.

Dallas - Ft Worth: boomtown.

Carbon emissions rise: reason? China. Link here.

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs: 38.

WTI: $82.42.

No new permits.

Two permits canceled:

• 38374, Eagle Operating, Willy Miranda, McKenzie County
• 36009, Lime Rock, State 30-31-2TFH, Mountrail;

Five producing wells (DUCs) reported as completed:

• 39284, 1,105, CLR, Smouse 6-28H,
• 39285, 1,367, CLR, Smouse 7-28H,
• 39286, 1,345, CLR, Smouse 8-28H,
• 37697, 121, BR, Ole 2-1-29MBH,
• 37897, 160, BR, Ole 2-1-29MTH,

Rambling Comments — Nothing About The Bakken — August 7, 2023

Locator: 45370BLOG.

Story of the week: wind energy in crisis. First it was Siemens; now a feature story in The WSJ.

Trump: racketeering charges in Georgia?

AI: stock-picker’s market. What most folks don’t seem to realize: their inherent moats. Some tech companies have moats around moats.

AI bubble: nothing in common with the dot.com bubble. Simple question: how many F-150s get sold if there’s a shortage of chips?/ How many F-150s get sold if bringmefood.com fails? Quick: name the three AI companies that went public last year and are now worth (market cap) more than SNOW. This is not rocket science.

Chips, semiconductor: link here.

• Home page for tech: link here.
• The cloud: link here.  
• Streaming: link here. Streaming wars.
• Spatial computing: link here.

Re-posting: I never did get back to this. Maybe later today.

Locator: 45275TECH.

Link here.

I'll post later why this is an important stat.

The Market; Apple -- August 7, 2023

Locator: 45369TECH.

Chips, semiconductor: link here.

• Home page for tech: link here.

Link here (MacRumors).

Based on the social media comments regarding this story, it appears most folks have not heard of TQM and W. Edwards Demings. 

From the MacRumors linked article above:

The iPhone 15 Pro is widely rumored to feature the A17 Bionic chip – Apple's first chip manufactured with a 3nm fabrication process. 

The 3nm node allows transistors to be even more densely packed, resulting in better performance and efficiency.Since Apple's orders from TSMC are so large, it can apparently justify absorbing the cost of defective chips. 

Apple's willingness to be the supplier's first customer for new manufacturing processes helps it pay for the research and development of new nodes, as well as the facilities to make them. 

The size of Apple's orders also enable TSMC to more quickly learn how to improve and scale up a node during mass production. Once production and yield issues with manufacturing 3nm chips improves and other customers seek the technology, TSMC can demand higher prices from those clients, as well as charge for defective dies. 

Introduction of upgraded chip technology like 3nm involves the production of a high number of defective chips until the manufacturing process can be perfected. 

According to The Information, TSMC is only charging Apple for "known good dies," with no fee for defective chips. This is highly unconventional, since TSMC clients usually have to pay for the wafer and all of the dies it contains, including any defective ones.

***********************

The Market In Late Afternoon Trading

Meanwhile, a lot of folks are finding AAPL at a bargain (?). 

Remember, BRK is about 40% AAPL and yet BRK is surging, up about $13 / share, last time I looked. 

For The Archives -- Nothing About The Bakken -- August 7, 2023

Locator: 45368EV.

Trump: having lost earlier to E. Jean Carroll, Trump has now lost again. Trump's counterclaim against Carroll was dismissed, which means the DA can now get a deposition. This seems to have happened fairly quickly -- Trump known to be able to prolong proceedings -- which suggests we might see a "race" among judges to keep things moving along. Judges don't like to be seen as "second-best" or "johnnies-come-lately." I assume it would be difficult for "one set" of lawyers to handle all the cases piling up against Trump.

The Texas grid: will be close today. ERCOT asking for "help" in conserving electricity between 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. We'll turn off almost all our electricity this afternoon. We maintain apartment at about 83°F.

Speaking of electricity: one of the state's destination points, Buc-ee's has EV charging stations, and most of them are Tesla superchargers. It is amazing how many Teslas I see in north Texas. Not only at Buc-ee's but at "every" mall there are Tesla supercharging stations.

BRK-B and Buffet: are everywhere today.

• 346 --> 366: 6% gain.

Covid-19. The gift that keeps on giving. 

Sophia's mother has tested positive for Covid-19, again. I believe this is her third "episode." She "never" has "any symptoms." She has never gotten sick from Covid-19 as far as I know. I'm not sure why she tests herself, perhaps a low-grade fever. She will be working from home until the test reverts to "negative." 

She is a PhD nurse, psychiatric, and has an incredibly busy client load but she loves working from home. So, there you go. No one else in the family has ever tested positive except for her husband who contracted a fairly severe case some years ago, near the height of the epidemic but since then, nothing. I was with her in the swimming pool yesterday (and see her daily) and neither my wife nor I have ever tested positive. 

******************************

The Book Club

Kerouac: The Definitive Biography, Paul Maher, Jr., c. 2004.

Notes.

Alexander Hamilton. Notes.

• Hamilton: An American Biography, Tony Williams, c. 2018.
• Alexander Hamilton: Revolutionary, Martha Brockenbrough, c. 2017.

Notes.

On My Plate Today -- Re-Posting -- August 7, 2023

Locator: 45367BLOG.

Energy:

• high gasoline prices spark new concern in Washington -- can't wait to hear what SecEnergy Granhholm has to say on this; link here.

Mideast:

• Saudi posts 38% drop in earnings, 2Q23; link here.

Renewable:

• wind: Siemens -- oh, no. Link here.

Beyond the pale:

• what am I missing? "BMW's XM at $160,000 is not for everyone": link here.
• pro athletes do way better than most US CEOs; link here.

Economy:

• jobs: part-time now in vogue; full-time hiring declining at fastest pace since April, 2020 (no analysis, just the chart): link here. I have no idea what to make of it; simply background noise; transition?
• US inflation data may offer some comfort to JPow; link here.

Investing:

• Icahn Enterprises plunge: link here.
  
• Apple Services surge: link here. The comments at the link suggest incredibly naive readers ...
  
• exceed: Netflix, MC, Activision, Spotify, Peloton combined
• AI-ready data centers poised for fast growth; link here. Featured: CoreWeave.
  
• BRK: two stocks to hold and own forever -- AAPL, Kroger; link here.
• 2Q23 earnings: worst in years. My take? It's a stock-pickers' market. Link here.
• Nvidia: link here.

Ukraine:

• 1917: link here.
• huge push to the south; circling Donetsk; moving closer to the Crimean

Miscellaneous:

• Daimler Truck CFO, age 52, dies in accident: link here.

Fact-Check:

• Fact-check: Ford 150 Raptor R -- $150K: https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/ford-f-150-raptor-r-hot-costs.

Sports:

• Dechambeau: moving over to the LIV -- smartest business decision, ever -- 
• note: the golfer "lives down the street" from me -- whoo-hoo!

Nvidia vs BRK: re-posting.

********************************

Family

**************************************
The Art Page

In the style of Claude Monet. This was how Monet's "Water Lilies" series began.

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Texas In August

From last night:

Market Today -- August 7, 2023

Locator: 45366INV.

Tyson: slumping 8% pre-market.

IEP: link here. On track to lose another 4% today.

BRK-B: surging. Up over $4.00 / share, pre-market.

CVX: up a bit. Trading just below $160.

NVDA: surging; up $3.70 in pre-market.

China's second largest chip foundry surges in debut: link here.

Jumping the shark? Link here. Technical analysis: analyst simply used a straight-edge and a pencil. Phoned it in. For the archives. 2034? That's about the time the only new cars being sold in the USA will be EVs said no one ever.

Apple Services Surge -- August 7, 2023

Locator: 45365AAPL.

Story here:

• Apple Services surge: link here. The comments at the link suggest incredibly naive readers ...
  
• exceed: Netflix, MC, Activision, Spotify, Peloton combined

Screenshots:

Apple Services revenue beats Netflix -- that's enough for me -- think about that.

***************************

The Art Page

After visiting the Modern Art Museum in Ft Worth, TX, Sophia, age 9, tries her hand at abstract.

A Closer Look At IEP -- August 7, 2023

Locator: 45364INV.

Updates

August 13, 2023: I guess it's time to pile on Carl Icahn. From The WSJ: 

Original Post

Amazing?

• Icahn Enterprises plunge: link here.

Ticker:

Most recently, last Friday, plummeted 23% in one day:

Down 13% in one month:

Down 53% in one year:

On My Plate Today -- August 7, 2023

Locator: 45363BLOG.

Energy:

• high gasoline prices spark new concern in Washington -- can't wait to hear what SecEnergy Granhholm has to say on this; link here.

Mideast:

• Saudi posts 38% drop in earnings, 2Q23; link here.

Renewable:

• wind: Siemens -- oh, no. Link here.

Beyond the pale:

• what am I missing? "BMW's XM at $160,000 is not for everyone": link here.
• pro athletes do way better than most US CEOs; link here.

Economy:

• jobs: part-time now in vogue; full-time hiring declining at fastest pace since April, 2020 (no analysis, just the chart): link here. I have no idea what to make of it; simply background noise; transition?
• US inflation data may offer some comfort to JPow; link here.

Investing:

• Icahn Enterprises plunge: link here.
  
• Apple Services surge: link here. The comments at the link suggest incredibly naive readers ...
  
• exceed: Netflix, MC, Activision, Spotify, Peloton combined
• AI-ready data centers poised for fast growth; link here. Featured: CoreWeave.
  
• BRK: two stocks to hold and own forever -- AAPL, Kroger; link here.
• 2Q23 earnings: worst in years. My take? It's a stock-pickers' market. Link here.
• Nvidia: link here.

Ukraine:

• 1917: link here.
• huge push to the south; circling Donetsk; moving closer to the Crimean

Miscellaneous:

• Daimler Truck CFO, age 52, dies in accident: link here.

Fact-Check:

• Fact-check: Ford 150 Raptor R -- $150K: https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/ford-f-150-raptor-r-hot-costs.

Sports:

• Dechambeau: moving over to the LIV -- smartest business decision, ever -- 
• note: the golfer "lives down the street" from me -- whoo-hoo!

Nvidia vs BRK: re-posting.

********************************

Family

**************************************
The Art Page

In the style of Claude Monet. This was how Monet's "Water Lilies" series began.

**********************************

Texas In August

From last night:

Change In States' Share Of US GDP: ND, UTAH Lead -- August 7, 2023

Locator: 45362ECON.

Link here.

Incredible:

• tops: North Dakota and Utah -- 20%+
• then: Texas, Colorado, Idaho, Washington State: 10%+
• then: far west, and Atlantic southeast

Bad news:

• the old "rust belt" is getting more rusty
• Minnesota, east to Maine, New York, Pennsylvania
• Kentucky, north to Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, New York

*************************

North Dakota In The News Over At Oilprice.com

Link here. Dynamic link. This will change often during the day.

Story here by Charles Kennedy.