Week 49: December 4, 2023 - December 10, 2023

Locator: 46262TOPSTORY. 

Top story:

• UPenn: president, board chair both resign after president testifies on free speech with regard to antisemitism; 
  
• Israel steps up military action in Gaza.
  
• current concern: Rafah on Egyptian border; humanitarian crisis;

Top international non-story story:

• Panama Canal: congestion due to falling water level; shipping to Asia delayed; shippers turn to Europe.
  
• Are we getting any information on how much humanitarian aid OPEC+ is providing non-Hamas Palestinians?
  
• Russian-Ukraine war continues; drags on and on and on; has taken backseat to Israel-Gaza;
  
• Russia most recently invaded February 22, 2022
• the war actually goes back to 2014
• most recent propaganda suggests Russia has the MOJO now, as US seems to step back

Top international energy story:

• WTI drops as low as $67 before recovering to $71 at end of week

Top national non-energy story:

• Santa Claus rally; US equities: remarkable bull run; S&P sets new 52-week record; pretty much goes unnoticed
• consumer sentiment surges; folks upbeat on economy for 2024;
• US jobs: unemployment rate drops — unexpectedly; for U-1, stands at 1.3%;
• US senator Tuberville blinks; process to confirm senior military officers can move forward
• California budget deficit balloons
• Amazon - Nashville footprint continues to grow

Top national energy story:

• WTI drops as low as $67 before recovering to $71 at end of week

Focus on fracking:

• halo effect in MRO’s Bailey oil field play, as strong as ever;

Top North Dakota non-energy story: 

•  BNSF bridge still in limbo.

Top North Dakota energy story:

• DAPL EIS comment deadline December 13, 2023
  

Geoff Simon's quick connects:

• Geoff Simon's quick links.

Bakken Economy:

• holding; active rigs running about 40 which is at high end for the year
  

Commentary:

S&P Hits New Record High -- December 8, 2023

Locator: 46261B.  

From The Drudge Report today: it's an interesting graph, of course, but it's comparing apples to oranges (which I guess works) (the Trump line in the chart below is orange):

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Taking A Break -- 1400 - 1500 -- What A Great Day -- December 8, 2023

Locator: 46260B.  

The weather is incredible right now in north Texas. I have no problem with 1.5°C - 3.0°C increase in global temperature and that's the current projection if "we don''t do anything." 

Crops in North America will do incredibly well if global temperatures increase that much. More corn in North Dakota; more wheat in Montana / Canada.

The only downside? The Sahara Desert will expand by eleven inches to the south. In round numbers, the Sahara Desert runs 800 miles to 1,200 miles north to south, so let's call it 1,000 miles x 5,280 feet or five million feet north to south. You can do the rest of the math. The fact that Barack Obama and the rest of the intelligentsia continue to build beachfront homes tells me that the dreaded rise in the ocean is overstated.

But I digress. The weather is wonderful. When I jumped in the car earlier today, the beautiful weather reminded me of my halcyon days at 605 Prospect Avenue, South Pasadena, California, back in the mid-70s. 

Three wonderful women: Linda, Belle, and May. 

The halcyon days back in the day, my backyard:

But I digress. Song on the radio today when I jumped into the car? Elton John and "Bennie and the Jets," first appeared in 1973. 

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The Book Page

Wow, wow, wow.

I'm still in my Richard III phase and Sir Henry Neville and William Shakespeare. I was going to pick up several books on the "history plays," when I stumbled upon a new James Joyce biography.

So, pivot.

Two books for next week:

The Shakespeare Guide to Italy: Retracing the Bard's Unknown Travels, Richard Paul Roe, c. 2011.

James Joyce, A New Biography, Gordon Bowker, c. 2011. Who is Gordon Bowker. Is he worthy? He has written several bios icluding a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; lives in Notting Hill, London. Select biography: 5 pages.

So, that's where I'll be this next week.

Off The Net -- Family Commitments -- December 8, 2023

Locator: 46259B.  

Breaking news: CRISPER gene-editing drugs approved for sickle-cell disease. Of course, we'll soon see the anti-vaxxer nuts weigh in. This is simply scary. Gene editing. OMG. I think I was first introduced to the horrors of a sickle cell crisis in 1975 -- can't remember exactly -- it's been fifty years ....

I'm done with blogging for now. I'll return later today.

All blogs, as usual, were done quickly, and will have content and typographical errors. I have yet to complete formatting all the new posts.

Individual data points do not stand alone. They are all part of a story. 

I'll part with this: the CNBC crawler just show Nvidia up another $10. We all had the same information one year ago. As Charlie Munger, the smartest investor ever said, never stop reading:

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.

Investing -- Rambling II -- Nvidia -- A Stand-Alone Post -- December 8, 2023

Locator: 46258INV. 

Nvidia: a long read, link to Barron's.  Long, long article. Core:

The opportunity for Nvidia is enormous. The company has stated that the $1 trillion invested in global data-center infrastructure would eventually move from traditional server central processing units, or CPUs, to graphics processing units, or GPUs, that are better enabled to power the parallel computations needed for new applications like AI.

Nvidia dominates the market for GPUs used for AI applications. Jefferies analyst Mark Lipacis analyzed the September numbers from six top cloud-based service providers and found that Nvidia had an 86% market share for AI workloads, which is roughly flat versus the prior year.

Adding more computing power and larger data sets generally has resulted in better performance and results. It bodes well for the durability of Nvidia GPU sales.

 AMD: a lot of recent excitement. Can it last? WSJ.

Investing -- Rambling -- December 8, 2023

Locator: 46257INV. 

Chart of the day: just think -- one can buy bonds paying 5% with zero risk -- and wait a whole year to book that full 5% ... or ... 

Early morning trading: Dow surging.

Groceries: same day delivery -- will be huge challenge for Target.

• Walmart and Amazon will be in better shape.
• news coming out regarding same-day grocery delivery suggests concern for the industry
• bottom line:
• for Target: manpower intensive; discussed previously
• Amazon,Walmart might be able to make it work
• Amazon tests subscription service for grocery delivery; subscription of $10 on top of existing Amazon Prime subscription; link here.

Target: I get a kick out of this -- on the one hand, folks complain about high cost of groceries, and then able-bodied folks who make those complaints, turn around and pay someone to pick up their groceries for them. By the way, there is some low-hanging fruit ... maybe a discussion for another time ...

EVs: Tesla. 

• falling prices could hurt sales; the "Edsel phenomenon."
  
• Tesla partners with Apple;

Road To California -- December 8, 2023

Big story of the day: California budget. Not being widely reported yet, but California in deep doo-doo.

• WSJ: record $68 billion budget deficit;
• discussed on the blog back in May, 2023;
• PBS: Newson, who orchestrated this budget deficit, says the deficit is only$32 billion and manageable;
• Politico: back in November, 2022 -- we saw it coming; only $25 billion deficit; after years off record cash;
• AP: California budget deficit balloons; $68 billion; let's see what Moody says.

Problem easily solved: increase taxes on the wealthy. Maybe even start taxing unrealized gains. That's already done in housing.

Consumer Sentiment -- University Of Michigan -- Incredibly Strong Numbers -- December 8, 2023

Locator: 46256ECON. 

Preliminary December, 2023, readings. Take with a grain in salt. A long time to go before we get "final" figures.

Just reported by CNBC.

Everything beyond expectations.

Link here.

Sara Eisen still among the brightest on CNBC. 

WTI Clawed Its Way Back To $70 -- Look At Trafigura -- December 8, 2023

Locator: 46255B. 

Big story of the day: California budget. Not being widely reported yet, but California in deep doo-doo.

• WSJ: record $68 billion budget deficit;
• discussed on the blog back in May, 2023;
• PBS: Newson, who orchestrated this budget deficit, says the deficit is only$32 billion and manageable;
• Politico: back in November, 2022 -- we saw it coming; only $25 billion deficit; after years off record cash;
• AP: California budget deficit balloons; $68 billion; let's see what Moody says.

Oil profits:

Nashville, Amazon: some suggest Amazon wwill have its largest footprint in Nashville.

• Nashville: mid-Tennessee
• UPS, FedEX: cargo hubs in general area, between eastern Kentucky, western Tennessee; very, very close to North Carolina;
• US economic center gradually moving southwest from Boston-NY corridor to North Carolina-Kentucky-Tennessee

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $70.49.

Sunday, December10, 2023: 163 for the month; 163 for the quarter, 733 for the year
39713, conf, Petro-Hunt, Dudley Dawson 148-103-2B-11-2H, 
38255, conf, Hess, EN-State B-155-93-0916H-8,

Saturday, December 9, 2023: 161 for the month; 161 for the quarter, 731 for the year
38256, conf, Hess, EN-State B-155-93-0916H-9,

Friday, December 8, 2023: 160 for the month; 160 for the quarter, 730 for the year
31770, conf, BR, Ivan 5-1-29UTFH,

RBN Energy: targeted approach could be key to success for carbon-capture pipeline projects.

It’s been a tough couple of months for developers of large-scale, multi-state carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) projects, which have been stung by widespread public opposition and often hamstrung by state and local regulations. But while those factors helped lead one developer to pull the plug on its project and another to push back its schedule by a couple of years, that’s not to say there isn’t a path forward for some projects. In today’s RBN blog, we examine why Wolf Carbon Solutions’ targeted approach and a pipeline conversion by Tallgrass Energy could be the most likely CCS projects to reach operational status.

Jobs Market Remains Stronger Than Ever — This Is Amazing -- Goldilocks Again — Unemployment Unexpectedly Drops — November, 2023

Locator: 46254JOBS. 

Payrolls change — up 199K vs 190K forecast. Top line drops from 3.9% to 3.7% unemployment. Labor force participation down. Long-term unemployment numbers down.

JOLTS: combined with JOLTS of a couple days ago, a "Goldilocks" number.

Most of this: returning strike workers. Nothing to see here. LOL. Steve Liesman.

Really sad: everyone wants increased unemployment. What’s the plural of doofus?

Counter-intuitive: excellent numbers for investors.

Labor force participation: decreases. At 62.8%. On the surface, doesn’t dovetail with dropping unemployment.

Fly in the ointment for the Fed: wage increase at 0.4%. This one’’s hard to decipher. Hotter but not particularly concerning. 

Goldilocks: this is a “Goldilocks” number. CNBC talking head analysis -- not mine!

Personal investing: haven’t yet decided — add to either my MSFT position or my TSLA position. I’ll update decision at 9:00 a.m. CT.

CNBC: my favorite analyst is bullish; likes these numbers.

U-1 unemployment: link here — truly amazing when one thinks about this.

• unadjusted: drops from 1.4 to 1.2;
• adjusted: drops from 1.4 to 1.3.

Bottom line: everyone that wants a job, has a job; on track for “soft landing.” One needs to know the definition of “soft landing.”

Now, Cramer:

• let’s have six months of no rate increases; let’s make sure; these numbers today are very, very good;
• “we’re crushing / killing inflation”
• "take recession off the table"
• "analysts still talking recession -- can't shake their paranoia"
  
• price of gasoline / crude oil way down
• credit card delinquency concern is way overblown
• Black Friday: began in October — will last through Saturday before Christmas. Way? Amazon’s same day delivery. Supply chain disruptions resolved. Pent-up demand. Consumers driving the economy.
• Cramer's big story: AVGO (Broadcom). The numbers are crazy. 

Parting shot: literally every ticker I follow is higher in early trading than BRK-B today, which in early trading is absolutely flat.  The exceptions are those tickers that have had incredible runs in the past seven days.