Tesla -- April 29, 2024

Locator: 47104EVS.

We can talk about this article tomorrow. Too late tonight; I'm heading for bed, some music, some reflection.

Breaking news: 

Samsung Electronics’ operating profit jumps 933% in first quarter, beats expectations.

Link here.

CPUs, GPUs, Cores, Threads, And All That Jazz -- Part 2 -- April 29, 2024

Locator: 47103TECH.

Updates

June 21, 2024:

Pet peeve: when knowledgeable (?) financial analysts refer to "chips" as commodities. 

Tech: wow, things move quickly. 

It was very fortuitous that I did a "deep dive" into CPUs, GPUs, and all that jazz (see original post below), back on April 29, 2024 -- wow, that was less than two months ago. In less than two months, we have gone from talking about 7-nm chips to talking about 3-nm CPUs, GPUs and NPUs, along with cores, and now we have performance cores and efficiency cores. And "they're" all chips. And anyone who says chips are commodities display a level of ignorance that is mind-boggling. I'm not saying that the success and failure of chip makers won't change over the years, but chip makers aren't in the commodity business.

Phones: is this what it comes down to? This needs to be fact-checked

• Apple iPhones: in-house chips, currently A-series; ARM-based.
• Android: Qualcomm Snapdragon; ARM-based;
• Huawei: Kirin series, made by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC; a Chinese company, and Chinese-designed chips.

Battery: years ago, Steve Jobs said his biggest challenge was batteries. 

To the best of my knowledge, there has not been a lot of advances in battery technology -- at least there are not many headlines.

My hunch, at some point, Apple pivoted. Realizing that solving the battery problem (SUPPLY) was not going to happen any time soon, they turned to DEMAND. And that meant specialized chips, more efficient chips, smaller chips, chips that can be placed together more closely, and chips that work better together (are optimized for each other). All of those factors could reduce DEMAND, and thereby lengthen the intervals between charging. The holy grail? Twenty-four hours of high demand use (gaming and movies) on the smallest iPhones (with a side benefit, less heat). Specialized chips: CPUs, GPUs, NPUs. More efficient chips: performance cores and efficiency cores. Smaller chips: 3-nm. Placed on one chip: SoC. Optimized: in-house synergetic software.

Original Post

So, humor me. We might learn something. I know nothing about this but it could be an interesting rabbit hole to explore.

This goes back to one of my better blogs on "CPUs, GPUs, cores, threads, and all that jazz." 

In the first sentence I mentioned FinFET and GAAFET but TLDR. Tonight I was curious, so I followed the link. Fortunately the link still worked and the article was still accessible. 

Now I understand "FinFET"and to some extent "GAAFET."

This is not a trivial subject for an investor. This article was posted April 17, 2023, one year ago. This paragraph jumped out at me:

The leading semiconductor manufacturers (TSMC in Taiwan, Samsung in Korea, and Intel in the U.S.) are on the cusp of introducing a major change in transistor morphology. [Remember: this was back in 2023 -- last year.]

This new configuration is called GAA, GAAFET (Gate All Around), RibbonFET, MBC, MBCFET (Multi-Bridge-Channel) Nanosheet transistor, or Nanowire transistor, depending on the author. In this article, I will use the term GAAFET.

This seems important to know if one wants a bit of insight into investing in this arena.

Time to get the "reader's digest" version of all this. To wiki we go: link here. It will take a while to go through all of this but look at just this one section:

The first FinFET transistor type was called a "Depleted Lean-channel Transistor" (DELTA) transistor, which was first fabricated in Japan by Hitachi Central Research Laboratory's Digh Hisamoto, Toru Kaga, Yoshifumi Kawamoto and Eiji Takeda in 1989.

The gate of the transistor can cover and electrically contact the semiconductor channel fin on both the top and the sides or only on the sides. The former is called a tri-gate transistor and the latter a double-gate transistor. A double-gate transistor optionally can have each side connected to two different terminal or contacts. This variant is called split transistor. This enables more refined control of the operation of the transistor.

Indonesian engineer Effendi Leobandung, while working at the University of Minnesota, published a paper with Stephen Y. Chou at the 54th Device Research Conference in 1996 outlining the benefit of cutting a wide CMOS transistor into many channels with narrow width to improve device scaling and increase device current by increasing the effective device width.

This structure is what a modern FinFET looks like. Although some device width is sacrificed by cutting it into narrow widths, the conduction of the side wall of narrow fins more than make up for the loss, for tall fins.

The device had a 35 nm channel width and 70 nm channel length.

The potential of Digh Hisamoto's research on DELTA transistors drew the attention of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which in 1997 awarded a contract to a research group at the University of California, Berkeley to develop a deep sub-micron transistor based on DELTA technology.

The group was led by Hisamoto [Hitachi] along with TSMC's Chenming Hu. The team made the following breakthroughs between 1998 and 2004.[16]

• 1998 – N-channel FinFET (17 nm) – Digh Hisamoto, Chenming Hu, Tsu-Jae King Liu, Jeffrey Bokor, Wen-Chin Lee, Jakub Kedzierski, Erik Anderson, Hideki Takeuchi, Kazuya Asano
• 1999 – P-channel FinFET (sub-50 nm) – Digh Hisamoto, Chenming Hu, Xuejue Huang, Wen-Chin Lee, Charles Kuo, Leland Chang, Jakub Kedzierski, Erik Anderson, Hideki Takeuchi
• 2001 – 15 nm FinFET – Chenming Hu, Yang-Kyu Choi, Nick Lindert, P. Xuan, S. Tang, D. Ha, Erik Anderson, Tsu-Jae King Liu, Jeffrey Bokor
• 2002 – 10 nm FinFET – Shibly Ahmed, Scott Bell, Cyrus Tabery, Jeffrey Bokor, David Kyser, Chenming Hu, Tsu-Jae King Liu, Bin Yu, Leland Chang
• 2004 – High-κ/metal gate FinFET – D. Ha, Hideki Takeuchi, Yang-Kyu Choi, Tsu-Jae King Liu, W. Bai, D.-L. Kwong, A. Agarwal, M. Ameen

They coined the term "FinFET" (fin field-effect transistor) in a December 2000 paper, used to describe a non-planar, double-gate transistor built on an SOI substrate.

I'll come back to this later, but probably won't post any more blogs on it for awhile (if ever).

The reason this is important to me is to sort out how Broadcom (AVGO) fits into this puzzle. Why? Because of this in a Motley Fool article:

While many investors consider Nvidia the quintessential artificial intelligence (AI) stock, almost every company listed above is well positioned to monetize AI.

For instance, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon are the three largest cloud computing companies in the world, meaning they are gatekeepers of AI infrastructure and platform services. Broadcom is the leader in application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), meaning it helps companies like Meta Platforms and Alphabet design custom AI chips.

Similarly, Tesla is designing full self-driving software and its supercomputer (Dojo) is purpose-built for training computer vision systems; both represent potentially significant revenue streams. Finally, Advanced Micro Devices is the second largest supplier of data center GPUs, though it trails Nvidia's market share by about 90 percentage points.

And how did I happen on that Motley Fool article? I was checking up on QQQ. I'll talk about QQQ later in another blog, but I posted a bit earlier this evening.

I typed out the entire "portfolio" of QQQ which was an incredibly worthwhile exercise. I can't post the QQQ portfolio because it's too long but I highly recommend investors interested in the semiconductor sector spend some time looking at the QQQ fund. 

CNBC -- HSY -- April 29, 2024

Locator: 47102INV.

CNBC had a live interview earlier today and discussed HSY and cost of cocoa. I was watching the crash in the price of cocoa in real time and the ticker price of HSY rising in real time, and CNBC never caught it while interviewing the "analyst / expert" on HSY, and why HSY was continuing to go down in price. 

The producer was not paying attention; failed to call an audible for the CNBC journalist interviewing the HSY analyst / expert.

Link here.

Two CLR Bohmbach Wells With A Great Jump In Production -- April 29, 2024

Locator: 47101B.

 The wells:

• 18911, 428, CLR, Bohmbach 2-35H, Elm Tree, t7/10; cum 436K 2/24;
• 18137, 472, CLR, Bohmbach 1-35H, Elm Tree, t7/09; cum 422K 2/24;

18137:

BAKKEN	8-2018	31	9372	8948	5887	12995	12484	93
BAKKEN	7-2018	31	10299	10362	6799	11762	10883	460
BAKKEN	6-2018	30	11549	11509	7464	11725	11258	90
BAKKEN	5-2018	28	11135	10700	8098	14910	14625	69
BAKKEN	4-2018	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	3-2018	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	2-2018	1	21	285	4	33	0	33
BAKKEN	1-2018	8	287	479	52	391	308	24
BAKKEN	12-2017	31	1208	1360	238	1836	1460	128
BAKKEN	11-2017	30	1190	760	235	1662	1258	164
BAKKEN	10-2017	31	1276	1588	302	2534	2166	120
BAKKEN	9-2017	30	1329	993	256	2185	1339	614
BAKKEN	8-2017	31	1524	1719	409	2907	2308	361
BAKKEN	7-2017	15	885	780	138	1422	620	705
BAKKEN	6-2017	28	1233	1353	315	1883	956	712
BAKKEN	5-2017	31	1537	1294	441	2376	1880	249
BAKKEN	4-2017	30	1023	1176	108	1766	1436	90
BAKKEN	3-2017	31	993	751	82	1764	1423	93
BAKKEN	2-2017	28	836	1001	58	1588	1257	135
BAKKEN	1-2017	31	1215	1330	195	2305	1978	93

18911:

BAKKEN	11-2018	30	13042	13028	7460	31936	31454	90
BAKKEN	10-2018	31	21772	22015	11195	38875	36975	1481
BAKKEN	9-2018	30	24572	24076	11592	28291	25894	2133
BAKKEN	8-2018	31	3369	3334	3863	4214	3505	290
BAKKEN	7-2018	31	3461	3562	4659	3922	2476	1039
BAKKEN	6-2018	28	2296	2325	3242	1708	1413	57
BAKKEN	5-2018	23	3230	2950	4541	2911	2666	69
BAKKEN	4-2018	0	0	389	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	3-2018	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	2-2018	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	1-2018	12	420	256	98	700	568	36
BAKKEN	12-2017	31	1120	1280	190	2115	1774	93
BAKKEN	11-2017	30	1036	566	253	1950	1576	134
BAKKEN	10-2017	31	1104	1336	293	2251	1883	120
BAKKEN	9-2017	30	1091	1173	197	2114	1432	442
BAKKEN	8-2017	31	1142	1119	226	2452	1883	321
BAKKEN	7-2017	31	1113	846	202	2110	1061	815

Investing -- Commentary -- April 29, 2024

Locator: 47100INV.

In all my years of investing -- since 1984 -- wow, that's 40 years -- hopefully I've learned something along the way -- I've never seen anything like this market. 

I cannot recall any time when the best sector surged, like the current tech sector surged, and seems to be "real." This is unlike the dot-com surge/bubble in the 1990s (Investopedia) which I remember very, very well. 

We won't know for several years if it's another bubble but right now, unlike the dot-com bubble, the surging sector -- the tech sector actually has a product to sell and can't keep up with demand. 

So, there's that. An AI-surge that doesn't seem to be an AI-bubble.

Then this: this is the longest bull market ever. Again, this is the longest bull market in history. It began in 2009 and any pullback was an anomaly -- the 2020 - 2021 Covid lockdown -- smart investors kept investing through that pullback and by 2023, the bull market trend was back on track.

So, there's that. The longest bull market in history.

Then, this: the bull market shows no slowing despite the Fed doing what it can to slow the market. That's not their mandate, but that's what the Fed is doing -- call it "collateral damage" --  trying to tame inflation. 

So, there's that. 

But this is what's really, really huge.

The huge demographic change between what's going on now and what was going on during the past five bubbles.

Right now, the largest transfer of wealth in the history of humankind.

**********************
QQQ

Link here.

There are 100 tickers in the QQQ. Remember Peter Lynch? 20 companies (tickers). His bio is worth a read.

We'll talk about this later. See this post for the beginning of this discussion.

Chart Of The Day -- April 29, 2024

Locator: 47099B.

Link here. This absolutely destroys "Hubbert's peak theory." But we knew this years ago.

Now, back to the EIA charts. The EIA link is here.

It seems the EIA was concentrating on the one-year change from 2021 to 2022. 

The bigger story is the "Bakken revolution" -- a metonym for the US shale revolution which began slowly in 2000 in Montana Bakken and then took off in 2007 in the North Dakota Bakken. The Bakken reached its stride in 2012 at which time the Permian began to take off.

So, let's run the numbers based on the graphs.

Crude oil:

• 2000: 22 billion bbls
• 2007: 20 billion bbls (an actual decrease, y/y)
• 2012: parabolic to 30 billion bbls -- up 50% between 2007 and 2012 -- five years
• 2013: peak up to that year -- 40 billion bbls, doubled in thirteen years (from 2000)

In this same time period, Saudi Arabia's reserves remained constant.

• 2015 - 2016: another record set, 48 million bbls
• 2022: trending toward 50 million bbls -- which would represent an increase from 20 million bbls in 2005 to 50 million bbls in 2022 -- is that a 150% increase over seventeen years?

Again, in the same period, Saudi Arabia's reserves remained constant.

This is what bothers me, surprises me, irritates me -- the EIA focused on a one-year change, from 2021 to 2022. Yes, they showed the graphics, but the real story is the 150% increase in US crude oil reserves in half my investing lifetime.

Natural gas?

• from a low of 190 TCF in the 1990s to 700 TCF in 2022
• (700 - 190) / 190 = 2.68 = a 268% jump in reserves.

Holy mackerel. 

I often make simple arithmetic errors and I often misread reports; if any of this is important to you, go to the source. 

Can you imagine what the numbers would have been had we had a national government that actually supported the crude oil / natural gas industry?

***************************
Back to the Bakken

WTI: $82.63 -- drops 1.45%.

Active rigs: 42.

One new permit, #40703:

• Operator: BR
• Field: Antelope (McKenzie)
• Comments:
• BR has a permit for a Bohmbach well, NENW 26-153-94, 
• to be sited 325 FNL and 3124 FWL

Monthly Personal Electricity Statement -- April, 2024

Locator: 47098ELECTRICITY.

Electricity rates by state, April, 2024, link here. 

Electricity bill, north Texas. Household energy: only electricity, no natural gas. Utility says their electricity is 100% renewable. 

My rate runs about 15.6 cents per kWh, slightly higher than the "advertised" 14.25 cents, up slightly from 14.11 cents one year ago.

Compare with:

• ND: 9.88 cents
• MN: 14.04 cents (lots of renewable energy)
• CA: 29.49 (3x ND; 2x MN)
• MA: 28.34 cents (3x ND; 2x MN)

My monthly consumption is running about 450 kWh / month = 6,000 kWh annualized.

Average consumption across the US:

Manic Monday, Part 2 -- April 29, 2024

Locator: 47097B.

The two most important data points / investing stories today:

• boom: young Americans' wealth boom (tell me again how bad the US economy is)

• Domino's Pizza, link here, up $15 / share; up >3% Monday morning:

***********************
Renting Is Cheaper Than Buying

CNBC. Link here.

I really get a kick out of this. 

All things being equal and if I had all the money in the world, I would prefer to own than rent. In fact, own several houses across the country. LOL.

But having said that, I see the expense of owning a home almost every day watching homeowners "maintain" their home. Especially if they have a pool! Wow. 

*******************************
She's Not Gone Yet, But She's Leaving

There's a reason this song was posted. I wonder if folks will figure it out.

Link here.

Personal Investing -- Actionable "To-Do" List Now

Locator: 47096PERSINV.

I'm starting a new series on investing that I can share with my extended family members, most of whom have Schwab accounts but little understanding about investing.

Anything I write here is meant only for my extended family members and no other readers. It is a starting point for discussion among the family members. Nothing is written in stone. These posts will be updated as conditions change. They will eventually be collected and linked under the "Personal Investing" tab at the top of the blog.

****************************
The Actionable To-Do List

*************************
Family B

Actions to be taken now:

• set up a Schwab self-directed Roth IRA for himself
• set up a Schwab self-directed Roth IRA for spouse
• begin downsizing section B of the Schwab cartoon and moving that cash (eventually equities) into the Schwab self-directed Roth IRAs

Long-term: section B should be eliminated and all assets moved into section A. This may take up to five years, possibly longer based on tax implications. 

Section B: review dividend re-investment for each equity.

*************************
Family A

Actions to be taken now by the grandparents:

• set up a Schwab 529 for each of the grandchildren
  

Long-term:

Manic Monday -- April 29, 2024

Locator: 47095INV.

Mercedes Benz: Apple out, Google in. Link here. Says EVs are the future. 

Quick, the acronym "SMB"?

ATT: ticker action amazing. Simply amazing. Who would have thought? Pays 6.45%. In the last six months, up 13%. Compare with US Treasuries.

US Treasuries, link here:

Anything but boring:

• link here, WSJ
• link here, last August (2023), Investopedia
• link here, last September (2023), Barron's
• link here, last November (2023), Forbes

Kura Revolving Sushi: coming to a mall near you. Again, another story how great restaurants are doing right now. The "good ones" are all expanding. Link here.

Amazon: deliveries getting even faster. Link here. On another note, if you ever want to get a feeling for how much money slips through your fingers on your credit cards, look at the "cash-back" that builds up over time. My "cash-back" account at Amazon would allow me to order books "for free" (don't take that out of context) for the next five years. Wow. 

Trans Mountain Oil: Reliance buys its first oil delivered by Trans Mountain pipeline. Link here. 

Deflation in Texas? Link here.

The road to California, link here.

What have we been saying on the blog? Don't even get me started. Link here.

Natural Gas -- Fuel For The 21st Century -- China, Qatar Partner -- Biden Puts New US LNG Export Moves On Hold -- April 29, 2024

Locator: 47094NATGAS.

Link here.

Qatar walks the talk: free market capitalism.

The US stumbles.

Willie Nelson — 91 Today — April 29, 2024

Locator: 47093INV.

AAPL: for my extended family member concerned about the future of AAPL, this would be a great day to sell some / all of your AAPL.  

The two most important data points / investing stories today:

• boom: young Americans' wealth boom (tell me again how bad the US economy is)

• Domino's Pizza, link here, up $15 / share; up >3% Monday morning:

Personal investing, added to positions in:

• AVGO, by rule
• CAT, by rule

***************************
Back to the Bakken

WTI: $83.48.

Tuesday, April 30, 2024: 64 for the month; 64 for the quarter, 263 for the year
40233, conf, Empire North Dakota, Bufflehead 29-3A 1H,
40122, conf, Slawson, Teapot Federal 7-15-14TFH,
40121, conf, Slawson, Teapot Federal 1 SLH,
39525, conf, Kraken, Alamo 3-34-27 4H,
39463, conf, Hess, EN-Bakke-157-93-1522H-5, 
39347, conf, Hess, Ti-T Lalim-157-95-0214H-4,

Monday, April 29, 2024: 58 for the month; 58 for the quarter, 257 for the year
39524, conf, Kraken, Alamo 3-34-27 2H,
39346, conf, Hess, TI-T Lalim-LW-157-95-0214H-1,

Sunday, April 28, 2024: 56 for the month; 56 for the quarter, 255 for the year
39523, conf, Kraken, Blue 2-35-26-2H,
37520, conf, BR, Mazama 2C UTFH,

Saturday, April 27, 2024: 54 for the month; 54 for the quarter, 253 for the year
None.

RBN Energy: long-duration energy storage to play critical role in renewables buildout, grid reliability.

The intermittent nature of renewable energy is a well-documented thorn in the side of efforts to decarbonize the power grid, especially with more wind and solar generation coming online every year. But while those sources of clean energy are not available all the time, it’s also true that they can sometimes produce more power than transmission lines or a power grid can handle during other periods, leading to curtailments. An increasingly important tool that can lessen the impact of both problems is power storage. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll address the limitations of today’s storage options and look at how long-duration energy storage (LDES) could play a critical role in the years ahead.

Imperative to any energy system is a way to balance variations in supply and demand — i.e., storage. Storage infrastructure for primary energy sources like crude oil and natural gas has grown and matured over the past century and we’ve done a lot of blogs in the past covering the ins and outs. These systems are well understood and efficient and, despite the push to decarbonization, can and will continue to be the primary storage mechanism serving the market for as long as fossil fuels dominate energy production. Efficient and cost-effective power storage has been a much tougher nut to crack, so it hasn’t been developed to the same extent as the primary sources mentioned above.

That said, the continued adoption of renewable power generation has catalyzed the development of electricity storage. Large-scale deployment is in its infancy but it has the potential to play a more significant role down the road, especially in states like California and Texas that already have significant amounts of renewable capacity online. With a rising emphasis on renewables, the development of new solutions has been gaining momentum and has led to a myriad of potential strategies — all with benefits and drawbacks. Some, like pumped hydro, have been around since the dawn of the 20th century but are getting renewed attention. Then there are the more creative solutions: molten salt, heat engines, gravity batteries, flywheels and, our favorite, hydrogen. We’ll talk about a couple of these in today’s blog. But we’ll start with the elephant in the room when it comes to power storage: batteries.