Locator: 45473POLITICS.
FOX NEWS:
There are eleven headline stories over at FOX NEWS. All day, nothing on the Georgia Ten.
Finally, one of the stories addresses the Georgia Ten -- and it's all about a mugshot of Rudy Giuliani. That's it: a story of the mugshot.
The lead story: details about trips Joe Biden took with Hunter Biden back in .... 2010?
Not one story about the Georgia Ten --- except as noted for the mugshot.
MSNBC ratings will surge.
Locator: 45472TRICARE.
This is really, really amazing. Medicare will not cover health care costs if not approved by FDA and/or other government agencies -- there are exceptions.
However, "we" all know that there are a lot of medications, diagnostic, and therapeutic procedures that are beneficial and due to the FDA glacial bureaucracy have simply not approve them. The retired general officers managing Tricare know this and have taken the bull by the horns.
See above.
I am very, very impressed.
For those over retired military 65+, Medicare is "first" payer, and then Tricare covers that which Medicare does not pay. The co-pays are practically zero and the one-year deductible is inconsequential. The premiums for both are pricey but those premiums are paid out of benefits so beneficiaries don't actually have to write a check in most cases.
For active duty military and their spouses, of course, Tricare covers "everything."
****************************
Coverage, Billing, Payments
Absolutely 100% transparent and 100% "seamless."
And that's a fact, Jack.
Locator: 45471B.
Gasoline prices are at "recent"highs.
The Biden administration is "monitoring" this. What concerns them most?
Gasoline demand and status, link here, three charts:
Refiners, weekly EIA petroleum report:
******************************
Commentary
The Biden administration says they are monitoring the three graphics above. What are they monitoring? What are they worried about?
I'm thinking back to August 17, 2017, to September 3, 2017.
Locator: 45470B.
Gasoline demand and status, link here, three charts:
Weekly EIA petroleum report:
*********************************
Back to the Bakken
Active rigs: 33.
WTI: $78.89.
One new permit, #39036, a SWD:
One producing well (a DUC) reported as completed:
Locator: 45469INV.
From Yahoo!Finance, five year, BRK-B vs NVDA:
From the blog, earlier, 10-year return, posted several time over the past year, a ten-year return of select stocks:
This slide continues to haunt me.
This is going to be a race among three:
Later, this pops up:
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.
Locator: 45468TECH.
Chips, semiconductor: link here.
Sound bite: whatever the AI sector ultimately is -- billions or trillions? Nvidia will own 80% and no one is even close to cutting into that for several years. Not even close. Some people are suggesting $600 billion for the hardware alone.
This caught a lot of folks off-guard. From the blog yesterday:
One might want to look at this again:
July 28, 2023: update -- wiki will update this chart within six months -- INTC getting a lot of press right now, but INTC can only do much through cost-cutting and resting on laurels. The cloud-- where INTC seems to be concentrating right now (Ericsson, 5G) -- has a lot of players: GOOG, AMAZON, AAPL, MSFT, just to name a few . Meanwhile, INTC struggles 10nm chips while AAPL has moved on to 2nm.
Next closest: AMD.
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.
We haven't even talked "stock split" yet.
This reminds me a lot of AAPL some twenty years ago.
And, speaking of AAPL, Tim Cook will not mention: headsets; gaming; artificial intelligence.
Locator: 45467INV.
CNBC: wow, it's amazing how fast their stories change! Talking heads are:
CNBC: all of a sudden it's the "Goldilocks" economy over at CNBC.
Autodesk: pops, 6.6%; up $13.45; trading at $18.
SNOW: down half-a-percent / one percent after hours. Will report shortly.
Splunk: spiking after hours; up 8%.
a
**********************************
Awaiting NVDA
NVDA: at close --
NVDA: after hours
Earnings:
After earnings:
Think about this:
the tech companies like Apple, MSFT, AMZN, have very, very, very deep pockets
those companies will spend what it takes to get all the NVDA blades they can get
******************************
Re-Posting
Previous:
Pre-market, Wednesday, August 23, 2023: up $3 after falling $13 yesterday.
Close today: NVDA could close up or down as much as $30.
Why I think NVDA will beat estimates today, perhaps by a wide margin:
Today's numbers don't matter: my exact sentiments. Link here.
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.
Locator: 45466INV.
Re-posting.
Locator: 45423MMF.
Locator: 45423ECON.
Updates
August 23, 2023: The WSJ now reporting the same story. LOL.
Original Post
Clearly, in uncharted waters.
My favorite chart, link here.
Locator: 45463INV.
Updates
August 24, 2023: are folks even paying attention? The "Qs" are in the news every day it seems, as the "end-all to be-all" it seems. But look at this, with a $50,000 investment in Invesco's QQQ, you have $6,000 in APPL and $44,000 in 98 other individual stocks, none of which by themselves will move the QQQ needle. Why not just put $10,000 in each of the top five each quarter and re-balance every quarter? Yes, on a quarterly basis, not a lot of diversification, but with quarterly re-balancing based on educated "guesses," the diversification improves over time.
August 24, 2023: again, the QQQ has approximately 100 individual equity holdings (see below). Look what an investor can do with an investment of $5,000 or $50,000 in the top ten holdings at the same percentages. On the other side, look at the trivial amount a $500 billion mutual fund would get if it sold all of its Nvidia at the end of the quarter to lock in profit so the manager would get. her bonus -- it would not even move the needle on the fund's return. One has to remember, the fund also bought this equity at some point in the past.
August 24, 2023: why in the world would a serious investor invest in an ETF? Take QQQ, as an example?
Like BRK, the top ten holdings in QQQ make up about 50% of total dollar value. The next 90 holdings make up the other 50% and not one of the next 90 holdings will ever move the needle for QQQ. And one pays a fee for an ETF. Why not simply start a new Schwab account (free, no fees, no minimu), "buy" the top ten holdings of any ETF one likes, and re-balance every quarter based on what the ETF is doing.
Original Post
I've never understood the fascination with ETFs. It seems to me, "real" investors could do better.
Example: Invesco QQQ.
Two data points that make me question the fascination of ETFs.
Total expense ratio: 0.20%.
Approximately one hundred holdings. Here are the top 52 before I got bored and quit tallying.
|
QQQ |
July 26, 2023 |
|
Apple |
11.62% |
|
MSFT |
9.95% |
|
AMZN |
5.05% |
|
Nvidia |
4.30% |
|
Meta |
3.48% |
|
Tesla |
3.21% |
|
Broadcom |
3.13% |
|
GOOG - A |
2.77% |
|
GOOG - B |
2.75% |
|
Pepsi |
2.16% |
|
Costco |
2.05% |
|
Adobe |
1.97% |
|
Cisco |
1.79% |
|
Netflix |
1.56% |
|
AMD |
1.49% |
|
Comcast |
1.47% |
|
T-Mobile |
1.40% |
|
Texas Instruuments |
1.38% |
|
INTC |
1.38% |
|
Honeywell |
1.14% |
|
QCOM |
1.40% |
|
Intuuit |
1.14% |
|
Amgen |
1.03% |
|
Starbucks |
0.97% |
|
Applied Materials |
0.96% |
|
Intuitiv Surgical |
0.95% |
|
Booking Holdings |
0.89% |
|
Mondelez |
0.83% |
|
Automatic Data Processing |
0.81% |
|
Analog Devices |
0.80% |
|
Gilead |
0.79% |
|
Vretex Pharm |
0.75% |
|
Lam Research |
0.71% |
|
PayPal |
0.67% |
|
Regeneron Pharm |
0.64% |
|
Palo Alto Networks |
0.61% |
|
Micron |
0.59% |
|
Synopsys |
0.57% |
|
CSX |
0.55% |
|
Cadence Design |
0.53% |
|
KLA |
0.53% |
|
Fortinet |
0.50% |
|
AirBnB |
0.50% |
|
Monster Beverage |
0.50% |
|
ASML |
0.49% |
|
Charter Comm |
0.49% |
|
Marriott |
0.49% |
|
MercadoLibre |
0.49% |
|
O’Reilly Auto |
0.48% |
|
NXP Semi |
0.47% |
|
Marvell Tech |
0.45% |
|
Cintas |
0.43% |
*******************************
The Book Club
Edvard Muunch, Behind the Scream, Sue Prideaux, c. 2005.
Locator: 45461AI.
Updates
Later, 11:38 a.m. CT: apparently google has fixed the problem.
Original Post
Problems?
On Firefox and Safari, if you use "Google" and google "ticker NVDA" this is what you get. It makes absolutely no sense. This has been going on all morning.
Yahoo!Finance has it right:
Locator: 45460GW.
I particularly enjoy the comments from the Algore crowd. How does one spell the plural of doofus?
Locator: 45459INV.
Big Pharma: it's back. MRNA was up 5% yesterday. PFE, flat.
Abercrombie and Fitch soars. Shares up 20%. Apparently thieves don’t like what ANF sells.
Foot Locker, Pelton: both plunge 30% on earnings, guidance.
Nike:
Dick's:
Locator: 45457WTI.
Re-posting from earlier this morning:
WTI: oh, boy! $78.51.
Do folks remember how "oil bulls" told us during the entire first half off 2023, WTI was going to trend much higher in the second half, some saying as high as $100? Well, so far, we're trending lower. That's why I quit following "Josh" over at twitter. He became more and more irrelevant if not completely wrong. I can only take so much. Sort of like Jim Cramer over at CNBC. Yes, I know it's the summer doldrums and we just have to wait for October. [Later: Bloomberg is saying the very same thing. I'll post that later.]
Now, from Bloomberg in their early morning daily note.
Since the start of the year, oil watchers have widely predicted that prices would end 2023 on a high note. That forecast is looking more and more precarious.
After surging to a six-month high above $88 a barrel in London two weeks ago, the rally has fizzled out. On Wednesday, international benchmark Brent was trading below $83.
In theory, inventories should be depleting at the fastest clip in two years as China’s post-pandemic rebound and output cuts by OPEC+ tighten the market. But as analysts at Julius Baer Group Ltd. said this week: “The oil market is just about adequately supplied, and the much-awaited tightening is still pending.”
Debate has swayed in recent weeks on whether the market’s foil was supply or demand. The answer now appears to be both.
Consumption is under pressure as China, the world’s biggest oil importer, contends with crises ranging from youth unemployment to turmoil in its property and shadow banking sectors. A top executive suggests the nation’s fuel use may have maxed out for the year.
Also from Bloomberg: remember all that talk that China could hold back exports of rare metals needed for the EV sector. Chart of the day:
Locator: 45456B.
TMX pipeline: likely to start "later" in 1Q24. Link to Argus.
Dot's Pretzels: to exit Velva, ND. Link here.
Lake Mead: follow-up in ten days. Link here.
***********************
Back to the Bakken
WTI: oh, boy! $78.51. Do folks remember how "oil bulls" told us during the entire first half off 2023, WTI was going to trend much higher in the second half, some saying as high as $100? Well, so far, we're trending lower. That's why I quit following "Josh" over at twitter. He became more and more irrelevant if not completely wrong. I can only take so much. Sort of like Jim Cramer over at CNBC. Yes, I know it's the summer doldrums and we just have to wait for October. [Later: Bloomberg is saying the very same thing. I'll post that later.]
Thursday, August 24, 2023: 44 for the month; 246 for the quarter, 491 for the year
38993, conf, Hess, TI-Stenbak-158-95-2526H-8,
37932, conf, BR, Parrish 3C TFH,
Wednesday, August 23, 2023: 42 for the month; 244 for the quarter, 489 for the year
39448, conf, CLR, Edward 8-23H1,
RBN Energy: understanding North American crude oil markets in the export era. Archived.
There’s a lot going on in North American crude oil markets these days. Exports are running strong. Midland WTI is now deliverable into Brent (but only if it meets specs). Pipelines from the Permian to Corpus Christi are maxed out, pushing incremental production to Houston. The price differential between WTI at Midland and Houston is nearing zero. And the value of heavy Western Canadian Select (WCS) delivered to the U.S. continues to bounce all over the place. Are these unrelated, random events in the quirky U.S. physical crude market, or are they logical developments linked by the economics of refinery preferences, quality shifts, export demand, and logistics? As you might expect, we think it’s the latter. Believe it or not, crude markets sometimes do behave rationally — and, from time to time, even predictably. That’s what we explore in today’s RBN blog.