Locator: 46989TRADERJOES.
Absolutely fascinating.
Friday, April 12, 2024
Amazon, Trading Joe's, WSJ -- April 12, 2024
Locator: 46988AMAZON.
I really don't care one way or the other but I find this story just incredibly amazing and it's on the front page of The WSJ.
From the linked article:
When Amazon was working on a new private-label food brand called Wickedly Prime, members of the team pitched management this vision for the brand: to replicate the top 200 items sold at Trader Joe’s, the grocery-store chain with a rabid fan following.And so much more at the link.
To help in its quest, the team recruited a senior manager from Trader Joe’s snack-foods business. The recruit wasn’t told specifically what she’d be working on when Amazon conducted her interview in 2015.
But during her first week she walked into a conference room at headquarters with brown paper covering the windows and door to ensure privacy, and she started piecing things together. The mysterious conference room was filled with boxes of Trader Joe’s snack foods piled high on shelves, which Amazon had bought up to study for its own brand. This alarmed the employee, who was eventually told she was hired to help create the product assortment for Wickedly Prime.
The problem was that Trader Joe’s secrets were well guarded. The grocer doesn’t offer online shopping, so there is less known about the company’s top sellers than about products sold by retailers that sell online, which have customer reviews. Much of what Trader Joe’s sells, it makes itself—interesting concoctions that fly off shelves, like cinnamon bun spread and rosemary croissant croutons. Amazon wasn’t sure exactly which 200 items to copy, but a manager on the team was determined that their new employee would help them figure that out.
A part of Amazon’s success is a cutthroat culture where employees are incentivized to win to an unusual degree. Amazon uses stack ranking, grading employees against each other and cutting the bottom 6% of performers each year. New employees get the majority of their restricted stock units paid in their third and fourth year at the company, which can mean they never receive them, since there is notoriously high employee turnover at Amazon.
An environment where every year employees are cut from an already all-star pool of talent at a company with unprecedented access to data meant that accessing data to gain an edge—as well as using other tactics to hurt competition—was a powerful way to stay ahead and make it to their restricted stock units.
This reporting draws on hundreds of pages of internal documents and emails, and interviews with more than 600 employees, partners, competitors and regulators. They show that Amazon often had its thumb on the scale, creating scenarios to give itself a leg up or create hit products at the expense of rivals.
Amazon’s spokesman said Amazon has innovated for customers, spurred lower prices, enabled millions of successful small businesses, and significantly increased competition in retail. Its “culture centers on innovating for customers to make their lives better and easier,” he said. It doesn’t do stack ranking, he said, but admitted that Amazon currently has a percentage goal for what Amazon calls unregretted attrition in place.
Grayson Mill With Four New Permits; Six Permits Renewed; Two DUCs Reported As Completed -- April 12, 2024
Locator: 46987B.
WTI: $85.66.
Active rigs: 36.
Four new permits, #40666 - #40669, inclusive:
- Operator: Grayson Mill
- Field: Siverston (McKenzie)
- Comments:
- Grayson Mill has permits for four Scott wells, WNE 13-150-99; to be sited 290/291 FNL and between 2345 FEL and 2495 FEL;
Six permits renewed:
- Enerplus: six wells in NWNW 29-149-93, Mandaree; SWNE 3-148-94, McGregory Buttes; and lot 4, section 3-148-94; McGregory Buttes: Morgan, Lemur, Gnu, Addax Camel, Genet.
Two producing wells (DUCs) reported as completed:
- 39722, 1,226, WPX, Bull Moose 28-27HS, Dunn,
- 39850, 731, Oasis, Thunderhill Federal 5302 33-3 4B, Williams,
Copper -- April 12, 2024
Locator: 46986COPPER.
From the linked article;
Copper's bull run should continue for at least the next three years, fueled by global supply challenges and hot demand for the metal to power energy transition and artificial intelligence technologies, industry analysts say.
The outlook is an optimistic harbinger for Freeport-McMoRan and other producers as decarbonization and technological shifts fuel copper's latest demand wave after China's rise powered a similar one two decades ago.
Ticker and comparisons, one of my best holdings ever. LOL.
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.
Week 15: April 8, 2024 -- 14, 2024
Locator: 46985TOPSTORIES.
Top story:
- Incredibly volatile US equities markets. Reason(s)? See below. Mixed messages.
Top international non-energy story:
- Ukraine lost to Putin?
- Biden unable to provide aid Ukraine needs
- Putin: that which doesn't kill you, makes you stronger
- EU / NATO has crisis on its hands
- US intel: Iran plans to hit Israel this weekend
- unprecedented? How big might this be?
- USN moves in to protect Israel
- west asks China to intervene
- oil barely moves; stays below $86; this suggests movers and shakers don't really expect major incident
Top international energy story:
Top national non-energy story:
- Trump criminal trial to begin Monday
- Apple: M4 this year, AI.
- Google to cut access to California news outlets
- copper
Top national energy story:
- WTI trends toward $87;
- CVX - Hess merger delayed at least a year -- XOM;
- my hunch -- merger doesn't happen at all
Focus on fracking: link here.
Top North Dakota non-energy story:
Top North Dakota energy story:
Done For The Day -- No Compelling Reason For Any More Blogging Today -- April 12, 2024
Locator: 46984B.
I'm headed down to the Bat Cave.
I'll do some reading. Catch up on blogging on recreational reading and Apple, but no more blogging on investing, the Bakken, etc, until later this evening.
Good luck to all.
Later: April's Director's Cut has been released. Link here. February, 2024, production.
- crude oil: 1,246,691 bpd, up 13%
- crude price oil, price:
- WTI: $85.02
- North Dakota light sweet: $76.50
- natural gas: 3,361,587 MCF/day, up 12%;
- 95% capture
- DUCs
- February: 300
- January, 284
- producing, a new all-time high
- February, 18,734
- January, 18,703
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The Rest Of My Day
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WKRP in Cincinnati
This opening with Herb and Bailey was exactly channeled by two other sitcom stars coming along immediately thereafter. See if you can connect the dots.
WKPR in Cincinnati: 1978 - 1982.
The other sitcom; 1982 - 1993.
Wow. Link here.
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The Book Page
My notes --in progress -- from Stauffer's books are at this link.
I'm reading Stauffer's biography of Lord Byron for the first time alongside re-reading Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights.
May 27, 1816: Percy Shelley meets Lord Byron for the first time and literature is changed forever. When I read Stouffer's description of that meeting, it reminded me of this:
Both events were truly momentous. Wow, never quit reading.
Chapter 5, in Stouffer's book, along with so much else is a travelogue from London to Waterloo to Koblenz to Lake Geneva. I traveled that same route many times, in segments, over the years.
My most memorable trip was hitchhiking from Williston, ND, to NYC; flying to Luxembourg, and then hiking Europe for the two-and-a-half-months after graduation from college. My mom loaned me $1,000 which paid for air transportation to Europe, a Eurail pass and my living expenses for the summer. I came back home with $400 in cash if I recall correctly.
I don't know if that's entirely correct, but I do know the $1,000 is absolutely correct, and I do know that I came home with a fair amount of money but not sure if it was $400. I caught rides with friends from NYC back to Williston on my return trip.
But I digress.
The entire chapter is great but perhaps something relatively important that connects Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, Vampyre, Frankenstein, and Emily Brontë and Wuthering Heights, and English lore of the 18th and 19th centuries (and perhaps the 20th and 21st centuries) was the definition of the "undead" -- vampires and zombies. I'm not convinced there's a precise definition of either but rather one gets a gestalt of the phenomenon of the "undead" by reading from several sources.
Zombies are scary but paper tigers. The real "terrors" are vampires.
Anyway, enough of this. For the archives. I can't wait until Sophia is old enough to really start studying western literature.
I also have to review trigonometry but that's another story.
TGIF -- April 12, 2024
Locator: 46983B.
Most interesting tech story yesterday: Apple's announcement. I don't recall ever seeing something like this before. But for it to have any real impact, at least one more surprise needed. And two would be nice. [Later: on another down day for the market, AAPL jumps another $3. Folks may want to take a look at the 5-day chart.] Also, here.
Israel: it looks like they got those F-35A’s just in time. Netanyahu needs to send Biden a thank-you note. Link here.
NBA: Standings. Link here.
Verbcession:
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Red Queen On The Treadmill In Two Charts
It will get worse before it gets better. If it ever gets better.
Inflation watch: link here.
Starbucks ticker:
Someone somewhere is trying to figure out a business plan to capture this opportunity.
Not working (and maybe even in worse shape):
- UberEats, Dash
- BlueApron
Possibly working (but not convinced):
- Target, Walmart: one-hour delivery
- won't move the needle for investors but could further cut into visits at fast-food restaurants
Need to look at trends:
- folks returning to office; Covid lockdown over; such an event will never, ever return
- breakfast hours: only real growth
- in the 1950s, kids "drove" parents to McDonald's; ever smaller families, McDonald's has lost that edge
- southern surge? those folks need to eat
- is there something McDonald's can offer immigrants, low-income landscapers?
- with ubiquitous use of cell phones / cheap cellular data, wi-fi at fast-food restaurants no longer a plus
- when traveling, I no long have to stop at Starbucks / McDonald's for free wi-fi; I can stop at Love's which doesn't offer wi-fi; I can link through my phone
- for some reason, I am no longer throttled ever, it seems, no matter how much I use cellular data and I still have the same plan
But let's get a grip: even the worst one, McDonald's at 100% increase in prices -- this was over a decade! Get a grip. Rule of thumb in basic investing: double your money in eight to twelve years.
Price of beer, link here:
- 2014 (ten years ago): $8.88
- 2024: north Texas, I can easily find quality, name-brand beer for $8.99 a six-pack;
- the usual price I see is $10.99 but most weekends, beer goes on sale and in volume -- a 24-can case can easily get a six-pack for $8.99; one of our best buys lately has been Yuengling; most expensive I'll buy: Bitburger, $12.99.
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Back to the Bakken
WTI: $86.11.
Sunday, April 14, 2024: 25 for the month; 25 for the quarter, 224 for the year
None.
Saturday, April 13, 2024: 25 for the month; 25 for the quarter, 224 for the year
40137, conf, CLR, Veigel 4-9H,
39464, conf, Hess, EN-Erickson-157-93-1003H-2,
38009, conf, BR, CCU Plymouth21-29 MBH,
Friday, April 12, 2024: 22 for the month; 22 for the quarter, 221 for the year
40136, conf, CRL, Veigel 3-9H1,
RBN Energy: plan to boost E15 gasoline will have big impact on refiners, retailers, drivers.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has approved a request by governors from eight Corn Belt states to remove a summertime waiver for Reid Vapor Pressure (RVP) included in the Clean Air Act (CAA) for E10 gasoline, a 90/10 blend of petroleum-derived gasoline blendstock and ethanol. The motive for the governors’ request was a desire to increase sales of E15 gasoline and, by extension, boost ethanol/corn demand by putting it on the same summertime footing as E10. In granting the approval, the EPA conceded that the distribution system wasn’t ready for the change. In today’s RBN blog, we look at the decision and the impact it will have on refiners, retailers and drivers, and how it is likely to work against the Biden administration’s plans to keep a lid on gasoline prices.
Corn growers and ethanol producers have long sought to increase ethanol’s usage as a gasoline blendstock, but in most cases government policy support has been necessary to accomplish this as petroleum-sourced gasoline is simply more economical when considering costs (especially logistics) and blend properties. Originally, the main rationale for increasing ethanol usage was domestic energy security and the desire to replace methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) with a more environmentally friendly octane booster. While direct subsidies for ethanol blending had been in place since the 1970s, the first Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) in 2005 and the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 both provided mandates for using ethanol in gasoline. These and subsequent revisions to the RFS led to corn ethanol usage reaching a concentration of about 10% of the total gasoline pool.