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Saturday, January 13, 2024

The Market: Canned Heat -- January 13, 2024

Locator: 46528MUSIC.

If the Peacock - Chiefs - Dolphin experiments works out, might we see "pay-per-view Super Bowl"? With commercials?

If Apple did something similar with its app store or messaging, would the FTC / DOJ be all over that?

Halfway through the fourth quarter, 26 - 7, Chiefs

And to think what I would have missed had I been watching that game. LOL.
I hope Peacock "buys" a whole lot more exclusive rights to NFL games.
Link here.
Can't wait to see the "numbers." That cracked helmet: no time-out, no coming out of the game for equipment failure ... lots of griping ... fact is, first time it's happened with Taylor Swift in the audience and officials not sure what to do ... NFL will come up with rules for future ... LOL. See "terabyte events."

26- 7.

Tom Brady retired at age 45.

Patrick  Mahomes is 28 years old.

Joe Montana retired at age 38.

If, if, if …

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Now, Back To Regular Programming

Locator: 46528MUSIC.

Rambling, not ready for prime time. Lots of content and typographical errors, I suspect, and some really lousy grammar coming up, I suspect. But a great musical interlude at the end. LOL.

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.

Shortly after the first of the year (20224) when the US equity market starting looking dismal I quit watching CNBC, something I always do when there are stretches of such "bad" news. At those times, I quit listening to CNBC and go back to researching companies in other ways. So, anyway, I wasn't really paying attention. I just kept adding to various positions, always staying fully invested. I occasionally caught the bearish headlines and I never, never, never checked the bottom line of my portfolio -- although that's a bit difficult when actively adding new money to the Schwab account and actively buying (no selling). 

But I digress. The point: I thought the market was crashing these last couple of weeks based on the occasional business headlines I caught. So I was completely unprepared to see this in Barron's yesterday or whenever it was. 

From the linked article:

Dreams die hard—and traders are still holding on to their rose-colored reverie of a soft-landing economy and a dovish Federal Reserve. What they couldn’t do was push the S&P 500 to a record closing high, despite exceeding that level briefly this past week.
All told, the S&P 500 ended the week up 1.8%, just 0.3% off the record high, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.3%. Apple AAPL, which lost 6% in the first week of the year, gained 3% in the second, helping the Nasdaq Composite climb 3.1%. Nothing seemed able to knock the market down. December’s consumer price index increased by 0.3% on a monthly basis, a tenth of a point above expectations. On a year over year basis, prices were up 3.4%, above the 3.1% annual rate in November.

I did watch a couple of segments on CNBC when important economic data was being released, so I "understand" the overall market sentiment, more of which I will discus as we get closer to next week, when Gerri has cleared out. 

By the way, speaking of the market, there have always been two sectors in which I have refused  to invest my entire life: airlines and refineries. I broke my rule some years ago when I started building a position in MPC and then broke that rule again when I started a position in Boeing just a few months ago.  l learned my lesson with the latter. 

As folks know, I have a bucket list of twenty tickers for new money ... if I want to add a new ticker, I have to get rid of one of the existing twenty. Well, that's easy this time. I will be replacing my Boeing ticker with Tractor Supply Corporation.  [This doesn't mean I will be selling my Boeing; it just means I won't be adding any new money for any more Boeing, but yes, I will probably end up selling my Boeing, regardless. Boeing may or may not be a great trading stock; it may or may not be a great investment, but there are a gazillion other options out there. Same with Tesla. When facts change, I change with them and the facts about Tesla are changing.]

It just dawned on me: when an analyst -- a "buy-side" analyst has to spend "minutes," on CNBC, for example, trying to convince me that a particular ticker is a great investment, I have to step back and realize there are a gazillion other options which require no rationalization to buy or arguments/discussions trying to convince me to do so. Lousy grammar but you know what I'm trying to say. Maybe I need Grammarly. LOL.

When was this first released? See below.

From wiki: 

"On the Road Again" is a song recorded by the American blues rock group Canned Heat in 1967.
A driving blues rock boogie, it was adapted from earlier blues songs and includes mid-1960s psychedelic rock elements.
Unlike most of Canned Heat's songs from the period which were sung by Bob Hite, second guitarist and harmonica player Alan Wilson provides the distinctive high pitched vocal, sometimes described as a falsetto
"On the Road Again" first appeared on their second album, Boogie with Canned Heat, in January, 1968. An edited version was released as a single in April 1968 and became Canned Heat's first record chart hit and one of their best-known songs.

"Mary Pickford Ate Roses" -- A Musical Interlude -- January 13, 2024

Locator: 46527MUSIC.

YouTube played this entire concert ad-free tonight -- slightly longer than ninety minutes -- to which I listened and periodically checked in on the Chiefs - Dolphins game periodically. At halftime, it's 16 - 7.

Wow, what a great concert.

I've talked about her before. From wiki:

Ketevan "Katie" Melua, born 16 September 1984, is a Georgian and British singer and songwriter. Melua was born in Kutaisi and raised in Belfast and London.

Under the management of composer Mike Batt, she was signed to the small Dramatico record label.

She made her musical debut in 2003 and within three years, she was the United Kingdom's best-selling female artist as well as Europe's highest selling European female artist. 

In November 2003, Melua released her first album, Call Off the Search, which reached the top of the United Kingdom album charts and sold 1.8 million copies in its first five months of release.

Her second album, Piece by Piece, was released in September 2005, and to date has gone platinum (one million units sold) four times.

She released her third studio album Pictures in October 2007.

According to the Sunday Times Rich List 2008, Melua had amassed a fortune of £18 million, making her the seventh-richest British musician under the age of 30.

Her entire bio is worth a read.

Compare her to Amy Winehouse -- what a breath of fresh air, Katie. 

Her jazzy "My Aphrodisiac Is You" is / was awesome. 20th anniversary edition was released just a few months ago, November 3, 2023. A direct response to a hit song by Amy Winehouse.


It's at times like this I wish I still had a turntable, vinyl albums, huge speakers, and living in a small apartment in Highland Park, Los Angeles, single and in my mid-20s. Ah, those were the days. I knew it at the time. I just didn't know how great.

Back to Katie. Blues, jazz, some rock and roll covers. 

"Mary Pickford ate roses." Clever lines written by her producer, co-writer.

Google what actors "united artists" and this is what pops up:

BlackRock To Acquire Global Infrastructure Partners -- Some Say Larry Fink Has Reversed Direction -- January 13, 2024

Speaking of natural gas:

Locator: 46526DEALS.

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Larry Fink To Acquire Lots Of Fossil Fuel Assets

Links here:


BlackRock to acquire Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP):

  • $12.5 billion deal;
  • CEO says the cost of "decarbonizing the world";
  • a $1 trillion market: infrastructure
  • deal to acquire GIP will catapult the investment giant from the 14th-largest private infrastructure asset manager to the second-largest when combined with the $100 billion-plus platform held by GIP

Link to Energy Intelligence. Select holdings of US energy infrastructure giant GIP:

Connecting A Couple Of Tech "Dots" -- January 13, 2024

Locator: 46525TECH.

This is quite amazing. The timing was certainly coincidental, but one wonders. 

See if you can connect the dots. Hints / clues pending. 

The story begins here, two links. Both links include the "item of interest":

I'll finish the discussion tomorrow or Monday.

Blogging -- Update -- January 13, 2024

Locator: 46524B.

I'm not sure how much blogging I will do today. It's a three-day weekend with plenty of time to blog, so I may wait to blog until later. I have posted Geoff Simon's "quick picks" for the week.

Two NFL football games today -- one carried only by Peacock -- we'll see how that plays out later. Only $3/month subscription to Peacock if you a) subscribe now; and b) sign up for a full year.

The Buffalo - Steelers games scheduled for tomorrow has been postponed until Monday.

Holy mackerel: the technology now being used in college football is amazing. Maybe the NFL is already using it. Don't know. But it's being done with an iPad.

Coach calls play using iPad. Play transmitted to wrist band being worn by the quarterback in less than a second "using triple encryption."

First NFL female scout. Incredibly articulate, incredible charisma. Link here.

Duolingo Update -- For The Archives -- January 13, 2024

Locator: 46523DUO.

Progress for the past week:

  • seven days averaging 33 minutes / day

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Language Scholars

The one on the right (viewer's right), Arianna, took Spanish in high school; the one on the left, Sophia, took some Spanish with her grandfather on Duolingo, and is now taking Russian with her mom, again, on Duolingo:

Global Warming Smacks The US — Saturday, January 13, 2024

Locator: 46522COLD.

Cold: 5:45 am Tucson time: Kalispell (-30 degrees). -45 degrees windchill temp; Williston (-30 degrees) -59 degrees windchill temp! 

The Bakken:

  • life-threatening wind chills as low as 70 degrees below zero

Kalispell, Montana:

  • lake effect snow; total snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches for southeast portions of Flathead Lake, with locally up to 5 inches;
  • warning: extreme cold; wind chills as low as 45 degrees below zero. 

Other information.

Regulator Approves Trans Mountain Pipeline Request — January 13, 2024

Locator: 46521TMP.

Regulator, at a later date, will provide reason why decision was reversed.

Pipeline expected to come on line in March. 2024.

Link here.