Bull Market As Strong As Ever -- Most Analysts Today Expect That Lows Will Be Tested Before End Of Summer (Before End Of Septembe) -- August 15, 2024

Locator: 48424INV.

At the close, August 15, 2024. At the close, the Dow up 555 points (1.4%); the S&P up 88 points (1.6%) and the NASDAQ up 402 points (2.34%). Wow.

First bull market in memory that began at the same time as the Fed began raising rates -- CBNC.  

MDU raises dividend by 4% to 13 cents / share.

AMAT: earnings beat. Ticker: 

Nuclear reactor: comes on line. Absurdly expensive and took "forever" to build. Unit 3 and unit 4 -- big fanfare on CNBC today about bringing these two units online. A transformer fire in last 24 hours in Unit 1 was not mentioned, but here's the story. The Vogtle plant in Georgia, wiki. The huge cost increase will result in significantly higher utility bills for Georgia customers.

Units 1 and 2 were completed in 1987 and 1989. The cost of these two units jumped from an estimated $660 million to almost $9 billion. [28x $660 million = $19 billion.]

Primary construction for Unit 3 began in 2009; completed in July, 2023.

Unit 4 came on line on April 29, 2024.

For units 3 and 4 combined, 2018 price estimates, $25 billion. By 2021, price estimates were almost $30 billion. In 2023, costs had increased to $34 billion, with work still to be completed on Vogtle 4. At $35 billion, 84% more expensive than the units 1 and 2, combined (1.84 x 19 - 35).

Electric rates tracked here by the EIA. 

Residential electric rates, cents per kWh, May, 2024, for selected states:

• Massachusetts: 28.70
• New York: 23.60
• Ohio: 16.65
• Minnesota: 15.69
• North Dakota: 13.04
• Florida: 13.63
• Tennessee: 12.46
• Texas: 14.74
• Montana: 13.26
• California: 34.31 (no typo) -- it was 29.80 a year ago -- a 15% increase in price!
  
• Washington State: 12.16 (think hydroelectricity)
• Alaska: 25.02
• Hawaii: 44.14 (and a question whether Hawaiian Electric might go bankrupt)
  

Coincidentally, this was posted yesterday: