Sunday, July 14, 2024

Headlines -- Sunday Morning Newspaper -- iPad Surfing -- July 14, 2024

Locator: 48129HEADLINES.

Tag: salt.

Breaking 

Google: link here. Wiz: a cybersecurity firm. Israeli. Fast-growing.

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PSA

Mercedes Benz: there are so many tickers associated with Daimler Benz I can't keep up. 
I do know that the "DDAIF" ticker has changed to MBG.DE (or something similar) -- Mercedes Benz Group.Germany but I believe there are others, and then there's the Daimler Truck Group (DTG). 
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Disclaimer Briefly Reminder
  • I am inappropriately exuberant about the US economy and the US market, 
  • I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple. 
  • See disclaimer. This is not an investment site. 
  • 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.
  • Reminder: I am inappropriately exuberant about the US economy and the US market, 
  • I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple.  

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Energy

Oil and gas:

Not on my bingo card: link here. Was this reported by CNBC last week? If so, I missed it.

Oil and gas tickers are seldom discussed on CNBC but when they are, it seems big cap energy stocks are held by some / many / most analysts / contributors. It's really weird; it's almost as if no one wants to amit they hold any of the majors or the independents. 

The meme is that fossil fuel companies are like the tobacco companies: a dying industry.

The dirty little secret: oil and gas are going to be with a long, long time. It may or may not be growth industry in terms of more volume sold but the price of oil / natural gas unlikely to fall, and if oil / gas to come down in price, it will be insignificant and not long-lasting. 

The big story today: the breakeven price for oil for Saudi Arabia is $100 / bbl. $85-Brent is not going to cut it for the Saudis.

In the states, it's all about natural gas and hyperscalers / large data centers / web services.

Utilities will get more interesting. Previously discussed. 

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Energy: Oil

US energy: it's all about fossil fuel. Still. And demand is likely to increase.
comparing the fossil fuel industry to the tobacco industry is so incredibly wrong

Breakeven, for Saudi: $100. Link to Bloomberg

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Energy: Utilities / Natural Gas

Past year, one-year return; share price; p/e; dividend:

  • SRE: 4%; $77; p/e 17; pays 3.22%;
  • CNP: 0.6%; $30; p/e/ 21; pays 2.64%;
  • Duke: 16%; $96; p/e --; pays --
  • Dominion: -1.3%; $52; p/e 27; pays 5.1%; 
With a P/E of 17 and a dividend of 3.22%, and largest utility in two largest US markets (CA and TX), it seems SRE is the best of the lot.

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Autos 

EVs: the narrative continues.

  • my hunch: movers/shakers; traders have lost interest in EVs (Tesla might be an exception) and have moved over to crypto and tech.

Read this previously posted blog

Today, two new car reviews:

  • the Mercedes Benz AMG GT 63 PRO, 2025
  • the Porsche Panamera, 2024; link to The WSJ; Dan Neil, again;

Re-posting:

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Radio

Coast to Coast.  

This story would have been linked anyway but there's a special place in my heart for this one.

Link to The Atlantic

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Harvard Billionaire

There must be some really, really rewarding vocations.
Golf seems to be not one of them. Golf seems incredibly one dimensional, which I would argue applies to all sports / all athletes.

But other "vocations" that some would give their eye teeth for, as they say:

  • Harvard professor
  • US Senate majority leader
  • realtor, Palo Alto, California
  • BNB host / book store owner, Cape Cod
  • fourth-generation rancher, Montana
  • third-generation restaurateur, 

Back to the Harvard professor. Link here to Forbes.

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Recreation

Ketamine. A treatment for long-haul Covid? Link to Vanity Fair

On the blog: do a word-search for "micro-dosing."

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Salt

Link here.

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Rambling On Investing

We will start here, with baseball:

The MLB club team: 28 players, with a limit of 14 pitchers.

The farm team / the minor leagues / the major league reserve list: 40 players.

I watch CNBC religiously -- well, at least for the last two years -- I very seldom actually watch five or six hours on any given day, but maybe once a week, I will watch three hours in one day, but religiously I try to catch two one-hour shows each day: the Jim Cramer show first thing in the morning, and the half-time report, mid-day. 

Investing and the MLB: lessons an investor can learn from the MLB, including the new rules to speed up the game.

CNBC provides holdings by some of their contributors, including those on the "Halftime Report." Some have a few; some have a lot. Some are investors; some are traders; some do a bit of both.

In fact, the "60-40" rule --which applies the the equity - bond mix is better suited for one's portfolio: 60% investing; 40% trading.

I like to think as myself as an investor, 100%, but in fact, I'm probably closer to 80-20, although even the 20% is bought with a long-term horizon in mind.

So, having said, like the MLB, I like to hold about twenty equities in my long-term accounts, and about 20 companies being followed but not yet owned, but ready to be called up at a minute's notice. If a "new" equity is "called up" I like to sell something to keep my portfolio in the 20-ticker ballpark. No pun intended. 

In general, among the 20, I do not include the legacy holdings that I have had so long that it makes almost no sense to sell them as long as they remain great companies. With dividends over 40+ years, many of my oldest holdings -- still very good companies -- are trending toward a cost basis of $0.

Oh, I almost forgot: the MLB's new rules to speed up the game. One of the bigger lessons I've learned over forty years of investing: the downside of holding onto losers way too long. And waiting too long to bring up great companies in the reserves when they've got MOJO. 

Very important: watch those forty equities in the reserves, and be ready to invest when they get hot. If one is fully invested and doesn't have the cash necessary to buy, two options: a) raise money through tax loss harvesting; and/or, b) buying on margin. If I buy on margin it's with the expectation I will have the cash within seven days. Things have gotten easier since Schwab announced that, in general, they will close trades in one business rather than three business days.

****************
Disclaimer Briefly Reminder
  • I am inappropriately exuberant about the US economy and the US market, 
  • I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple. 
  • See disclaimer. This is not an investment site. 
  • 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.
  • Reminder: I am inappropriately exuberant about the US economy and the US market, 
  • I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple.  

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