Texas Rangers Lead The Series 2 - 1 — October 30, 2023

Locator: 45872SPORTS. 

Tonight, Rangers, 3. The other guys, 1.

The Rangers got three runs in the third inning. The other guys got their lone run in the eighth.

From The WSJ:

PHOENIX—Before the 2021 season, the Texas Rangers arrived at a conclusion that two years later seems impossible to fathom: that Adolis García wasn’t one of the 40 best players in their organization. 

The Rangers needed a spot for a free-agent pitcher named Mike Foltynewicz. They made room by removing García from the roster, allowing any other team that wanted him to have him for nothing. Nobody cared. García went unclaimed and returned to the Rangers as a minor-leaguer. He was weeks away from celebrating his 28th birthday, ancient for a rookie in an industry dominated by superstars in their early 20s. 

It turns out the Rangers nearly made a catastrophic mistake. As the World Series resumes in Phoenix for Monday’s Game 3, the Rangers are now three victories away from winning the franchise’s first championship after splitting the first two contests with the Arizona Diamondbacks. García, the player the baseball world ignored and overlooked, is the primary reason why. 

García, now 30, is having perhaps the greatest October in history. He has already set the record for the most RBIs in a single postseason (22 entering Monday) and has hit eight home runs, two away from the all-time mark set in 2020 by fellow Cuban Randy Arozarena, García’s best friend and former roommate. One of Garcia’s homers was a walk-off blast in the 11th inning of Game 1 of the World Series on Friday night.

US Crude Oil Field Production -- October 30, 2023

Locator: 45871PRODUCTION.

Link here.

Apple M3 Chip Announcements -- October 30, 2023

Locator: 45870APPLE. 

Tech: CPUs, GPUS, cores, threads and all that jazz --

• part one: link here.
• part two: link here.
• part three: link here.
• part four, part four.

 The M3 family:

The entire special event was filmed on an Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max. Link here. 

Link here. Twitter. The WSJ.

From CNBC:

• Apple announced three new chips, all under the broader M3 product banner. The current generation of chips is the M2.
• There is an entry-level M3, a 40% faster M3 Pro, and a 250% faster M3 Max chip for AI developers and 3D artists.
• Apple says all M3 chips can get up to 22 hours of battery life on a laptop.
• The M3 has a 8 core central processing unit and up to a 10 core graphics processing unit.
• The M3 Pro has a 12 core CPU and an 18 core GPU.
• The M3 Max has a 16 core CPU and as many as 40 cores on its GPU. Apple says it can be used for developing artificial intelligence software.
• Apple says that its current-generation GPUs are 1.8 times as fast as the GPUs on the M2 chips.
• Apple says its CPU cores on the M3 are 15% faster than M2 CPU performance cores for heavy workloads. The M3 processor is 60% faster than its M1 processor, Apple said.
• The new chips are built on a 3 nanometer process, which is currently the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing technology from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.

Chips, semiconductor: link here.

From social media after the M3 announcement:

The M3 is way more than what 99% of users need, but they're going to be snapped up by:

• Hollywood directors and producers;
• biomedical researchers; and,
• gamers.

Chips, semiconductor: link here.

• Home page for tech: link here.
• The cloud: link here.  
• Streaming: link here. Streaming wars.
• Spatial computing: link here.
• Generative AI: link here. 
• Apple Silicon: link here.

As a reminder, prior to the "M3" announcement, earlier this year it was the M2 chip:

Off The Net For Awhile -- October 30, 2023

Locator: 45869WTI.

WTI falls below $83. Now trading about $82.67. US - Israel must be managing the crisis well. I guess the WTI surge in price will have to wait. Saudi Arabia is probably as perplexed as the rest of us. Iran: quiet?

**************************
For The College Elite

Beheaded: skull found. Can you imagine the terror? I cannot even begin.

From what little I've read, it sounds like The New York Times supports Hamas. But I'm sure I'm misreading things.

LNG -- Global -- October 30, 2023

Locator: 45868LNG.

Link here. 

NEGATIVE -- glass is half-empty -- his view:

We fixed that.

POSTIVE -- glass is half-full -- my view:

First Reading -- 4Q23 GDP: 2.3 Percent -- October 30, 2023

Locator: 45867ECON.

Link here.

First estimate, 4Q23: 2.3%.

Definition of a recession: two consecutive quarters of negative growth.

From The Chart Lady -- Real Personal Income Rose To All-Time High In September -- Ooctober 30, 2023

Locator: 45866ECON.

Link here. 

And this excludes government transfers! Which I assume includes military pensions (huge increase this past year) and social security (also, huge increase this past year).

Non-Covid Pneumonia And Influenza Mortality -- Seasonal Flu -- October 30, 2023

Locator: 45865COVID.

From the CDC, most recent data.

Most interesting: the spike this past year (B) following Covid lockdown compared too the year before anyone even heard of Covid (A). 

From The WSJ:

There’s some good news about flu season this year. Doctors and scientists don’t expect the worst.

The flu season in the Southern Hemisphere, where the cold-weather illness period wraps up as we head into ours, often serves as a harbinger of what’s to come for us. There, cases picked up a little earlier than usual in some countries but didn’t result in an especially large number of hospitalizations and deaths, say public health experts and doctors.

Also encouraging: The components in this year’s flu vaccine are a good match to the predominant strain so far. One study found that the current version of the flu vaccine reduced the risk for flu-related hospitalizations by 52% in the Southern Hemisphere, a pretty strong indicator of effectiveness.

Tickers -- Laser-Focused On Dividends -- October 30, 2023

Locator: 45864INV.

ABBV: increased its dividend, from $1.48 to $1.55. Slightly less than a 5% increase; now paying about 4.26% -- compares nicely with MMF.

XOM: increases dividend, from 91 cents to 95 cents. Slightly more than a 5% increase; now paying about 4% -- compares nicely with MMF.

MPC: increased by 10%.

***********************
EV Startups

All EV-related start-ups dropped about 3 to 4 percent today.

Fisker dropped over 9%.

This was on a day that the Dow surged 460 points.

************************
For Some Reason, This Bothers Me Not At All

McDonald's:

With regard to $18-Big Mac dinner, look at its location:

 I think everyone knows what "median" means.

McDonald's hamburger cost me $1.89 this past weekend, somewhere in Tennessee.

Ticker MCD:

Ford To Add Over 15,00 Tesla Superchargers To Its EV Network -- October 30, 2023

Locator: 45863INV.

For investors:

• three major EV manufacturers that would be considered "American": Ford, GM, and Tesla;
• two of them have announced decisions to delay EV manufacturing
• that leaves one (let's check the math: 3 - 2 = 1)
• one of the three: primary business -- batteries

From today:

Ticker F: down another 1.5% today, trading about $9.80.

General consensus: the UAW contract was not good for Ford. Details for Stellantis yet to be reported. Contract with GM still be negotiation.

Family Archives -- October 30, 2023

Locator: 45862ARCHIVES.

Judah on the left, to the right of his twin brother, Levi. 

Judah is all fun; Levi is the serious one.

Laser-Focused On Dividends -- Cheniere Energy Raises Dividend 10%; Twelve Wells Coming Off Confidential List Over Weekend -- October 30, 2023

Locator: 45861B.

Cheniere Energy: raises dividend 10%.

Okay: I'll believe it when I see it. Truly a fool's errand to predict oil prices. In fact, refiners have a four-week supply of crude oil (and this does not include the SPR).

*****************************
Back to the Bakken

WTI: $83.63. Down 2.23%; down $1.19. Tea leaves suggest Mideast conflict is being "managed."

Tuesday, October 31, 2023: 79 for the month; 79 for the quarter, 649 for the year -- Halloween
None.

Monday, October 30, 2023: 79 for the month; 79 for the quarter, 649 for the year
39652, conf, CLR, Brooks 4-9HSL1,
39321, conf, Oasis, Osprey 5401 44-23 3B,
38758, conf, Oasis, Dahl W Federal 5301 13-15 5B,

Sunday, October 29, 2023: 76 for the month; 76 for the quarter, 646 for the year
39720, conf, Kraken Blaine LE 33-28 4H,
38757, conf, Oasis, Dahl W Federal 5301 13-15 4B,
38095, conf, Enerplus, Blue 148-93-05D-06H,
34633, conf, MRO, Satrum 11-17TFH,
31205, conf, BR, Abercrombie 6-8-12UTFH,

Saturday, October 28, 2023: 71 for the month; 71 for the quarter, 641 for the year
39719, conf, Kraken, Blaine LE 33-28 11H,
38924, conf, Oasis, Kestrel 5401 43-22 4B,
38756, conf, Oasis, Dahl W Federal 5301 13-15 3B,
38755, conf, Oasis, Dahl W Federal 5301 13-15-2B,

RBN Energy: are we entering the age of certified / differentiated natural gas?

Certified or differentiated natural gas — an upgrade from the old “responsibly sourced gas” — is on the rise. More and more producers, pipeline companies, gas utilities and LNG exporters and buyers want their gas to be certified as having a lower emissions profile, and for a variety of reasons, chief among them achieving their ESG goals and winning over ESG-minded investors and customers.

But while there’s a consensus that methane and other greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can and should be reduced significantly, there are differing views about the best ways to monitor wells, pipelines and other infrastructure for methane leaks, measure total emissions, and ensure that emission reductions are real and sustainable. In today’s RBN blog, we continue our deep dive on certified/differentiated gas with a look at the approaches the leading certification/differentiation entities and others are taking in emission monitoring, measuring and scoring.

Bonds -- Barron's Take -- October 30, 2023

Locator: 45860BONDS.

Link here.

Wages:

• over the weekend, over at twitter, a wag suggested that inflation was here to stay with McDonald's paying employees $21 / hour at some locations. 
• the new UAW contract will result in hourly wages and benefits trending toward $100 / hour by the end of the contract. 
• looking for signs of inflation in all the wrong places: it's not McDonald's we need to be worrying about. LOL.