Monday, March 18, 2024

Russia Foreign Exchange Reserves -- March, 2024

Locator: 46800RUSSIA.

Link here

My Favorite Chart -- March 18, 2024

Locator: 46799CHART.

I got a kick out of the "talking head" on CNBC this morning who said "all that stimulation money was spent." There are several story lines here but I don't have time. Maybe I'll talk about it later but it begins in these charts, and doesn't include stimulation money --  

The chart was updated today. And another jump / increase -- must be getting close to $7 trillion. See here also, but it only goes through October 2023. This site is most current.

Link here.


In Late Afternoon Trading, WTI At $82.80 -- Four New Permits; One DUC Reported As Completed -- March 18, 2024

Locator: 46798INV.

No recommendations; see disclaimers.


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The Daily Activity Report

WTI: $82.72.

Active rigs: 39.

Four new permits, #40599 - #40602, inclusive:

  • Operators: WPX (2); True Oil (2):
  • Fields: Moccasin Creek (Dunn County); Bowline (McKenzie)
  • Comments:
    • WPX has permits for two Paul Peter Coffee wells, NWNE 35-148-93; 
      • one to be sited 285 FNL and 1553 FEL; 
      • the other to be sited 260 FNL and 1536 FEL;
    • True Oil has permits for two Slash Federal wells, 
      • both to be sited 215 FSL with one to be sited 1144 FEL and the second, 1112 FEL;

One producing well (a DUC) reported as completed:

  • 36579, 952, XTO, Tong 34X-9A, Midway;
    • well of interest:
      • 22978, 603, XTO, Tong 34X-9B, Midway, t12/12; cum 95K 7/23; off line since 7/23; stimulated 12/1/12; 30 stages; 69,735 bbls; 272,916 lbs proppant;

Fisker To Halt Production -- Seek Cash Infusion -- Rivian To Access Tesla Chargers -- March 18, 2024

Locator: 46797EVS.

Meanwhile, Rivian:

EVs: link here

Dashboards -- March, 2024

Locator: 46796B.

EIA Dashboards:

Off To The Races -- AAPL Gains $5 -- And That's Just The Beginning -- March 28, 2024

Locator: 46795INV.

Fisker: to halt production.

APPLE: Barron's take on Apple and AI. Link here

Nvidia's AI Palooza: San Jose Convention Center today. Live interview with Nvidia CEO tomorrow, Tuesday, with Jim Cramer at 9:15 a.m. CT.

Black Hawk: now, everyone can fly one. Watch for it. No link yet but it's coming.

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. 

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.

Reminder: I am inappropriately exuberant about the US economy and the US market, I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple

Where's all this money coming from? Well, let's start with rotation out of EVs. LOL. Link here. $1.5 trillion. 

Where is the rest of this money coming from? Solar. China's implosion. That didn't take long.

All that doom and gloom? Homebuilder sentiment turns positive for the first time since last July.

AI hype? Jeff Bezos didn't buy into that "talk." Links everywhere. Here's one.


Cars: Consumer Reports -- top picks. Honda, at #4 beats luxury auto maker Lexus, #5. Just behind #3 Porsche. Interestingly, the five makes at rock bottom: Jeep, Land Rover (not surprising), Jaguar (not surprising), GMC (not surprising); and Rivian (not surprising).

Hertz: speaking of cars, HTZ continues to crater.

Sports: Tiger-esque? Without question.

Journalism: how American news lost its nerve.

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Another Bear

Sara Eisen interviewed another "bear" this morning. His points:

  • the economy was deteriorating:
  • continuing jobless claims continue to increase;
  • any job creation has been part-time jobs;
  • taking out volatile energy and food prices, inflation is down to 2.0%, compared to 4.7% a year ago;
  • said all that stimulus money had been spent;
  • we're headed for recession if not already in a recession.

To her credit, Sara seemed skeptical.

Whatever.

But this was the one line that caught my attention: "... all that stimulus money had been sent." 

To me that sounded like a meme. Did he have any data? Here's my favorite chart.

Link here.

Maybe all the stimulus money has been spent, but there's still $6 trillion held in MMFs.

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Measles

Folks who think Florida's response to current measles epidemic is the right way to do things need to re-read the history of measles in the US.

The vaccine took about a decade to develop, from the mid-50s to mid-60s. Not readily available until mid- to late-60s.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, nearly twice as many children died from measles as from polio. The vaccine Enders developed was based on the Edmonston strain of attenuated live measles virus, which was named for 11-year-old David Edmonston, the Fay student from whom Peebles had taken the culture that led to the virus's cultivation. 

Nearly twice as many children died from measles as from polio. Wow. Florida's response: parents know best.

In the mid-20th century, measles was particularly devastating in West Africa, where child mortality rate was 50 percent before age 5, and the children were struck with the type of rash and other symptoms common prior to 1900 in England and other countries. The first trial of a live attenuated measles vaccine was undertaken in 1960 by the British paediatrician David Morley in a village near Ilesha, Nigeria; in case he could be accused of exploiting the Nigerian population, Morley included his own four children in the study. The encouraging results led to a second study of about 450 children in the village and at the Wesley Guild Hospital in Ilesha.
Following another epidemic, a larger trial was undertaken in September and October 1962, in New York City with the assistance of the WHO: 131 children received the live Enders-attenuated Edmonston B strain plus gamma globulin, 130 children received a "further attenuated" vaccine without gamma globulin, and 173 children acted as control subjects for both groups.
As also shown in the Nigerian trial, the trial confirmed that the "further attenuated" vaccine was superior to the Edmonston B vaccine, and caused significantly fewer instances of fever and diarrhea. 2,000 children in the area were vaccinated with the further-attenuated vaccine.

Look at the mortality rate. Florida's response: parents know what is best for their children.

The measles vaccine -- and now the MMR vaccine -- has almost no side effects; one of the safest; one of the best. Parents know best.

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The Book Page

This week? A Walk on the Wild Side, Nelson Algren, a novella / novel of the 1930s.

"Mr Algren, boy, you are good." Ernest Hemingway.

Can't wait to get started -- have already read the first ten pages, and it's awesome. But definitely no recommendation -- folks are on their own with this one.

WTI: $82.00 — March 18, 2024

Locator: 46794B.

Pre-market
:

  • NVDA: up $25
  • MPC: up $1.15
  • TSM: up $1.89 

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $81.66. Hit $82 earlier this morning.

Tuesday, March 19, 2024: 118 for the month; 177 for the quarter, 177 for the year

  • 39400, 1,297, Hess, TI-Ives-157-94-0601H-4, Tioga, 1280-acre spacing; stimulated 9/20/23; 257,038 bbls; 10,961,243 lbs; 21 stages; API: 43; drilling the curve occurred overnight, June 18 - 19, 2023; lateral reached TMD 20,015 MD on June 22, 2023, at 4:00 p.m.
DateOil RunsMCF Sold
1-20241294515606
12-20231401016318
11-20231231613297
10-20231769319184
9-20231039313237

Monday, March 18, 2024: 117 for the month; 176 for the quarter, 176 for the year

  • 38099, conf, BR, Stafford 12-34MBH,

Sunday, March 17, 2024: 116 for the month; 175 for the quarter, 175 for the year

  • None.
Saturday, March 16, 2024: 116 for the month; 175 for the quarter, 175 for the year
  • 38100, conf, BR, Stafford 11-34TFH,

RBN Energy: which Permian gas pipeline projects have the best chance to cut down the nets?

It’s that time of year, folks! March Madness is upon us — time to reboot the office pool and fill out your brackets. And not just for the NCAA Tournament field announced Sunday night, but for the natural gas pipeline projects out of the Permian you think will make it to the Elite Eight or even the Final Four. Matterhorn Express is like the UConn of the bunch as the reigning men’s champ with a chance of repeating — it’s already under construction and slated to come online later this year — and the odds for a Gulf Coast Express expansion look mighty good too, just like record scorer Caitlin Clark and her Iowa Hawkeyes are hoping to build on last year’s run to the women’s championship game. 
And don’t forget Energy Transfer’s Warrior and Targa’s Apex! Their names alone suggest a fightin’ spirit and a desire to make it to the top. But as we all know from our past bets on the Big Dance, there’s no such thing as a sure thing, especially in the topsy-turvy world of midstream project development, and it’s entirely possible an unknown — the pipeline equivalent of a 16th seed — will be among those cutting down the nets. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the need for new gas pipeline egress from the Permian and assess the pros and cons of the projects that have a bid.