"Mama" Cass Elliot -- NYT -- Human Interest Story

Locator: 47127MUSIC.

Link here.

Nice story for Mother’s Day.

US AI -- May 11, 2024

Locator: 47126AI.

Link here. 

Quick! What jumps out at you when you first see this graphic?

EVs "Shoring" Up Cash -- May 11, 2024

Locator: 47125EVS.

Link here. 

From the linked article:

Once-hot electric vehicle startups — years ago fueled by low interest rates, free cash and Wall Street bullishness — are now scrambling to prove they can survive in tougher market conditions. That is if they haven’t gone bankrupt already.

Chief among their talking points: cash.

Executives of Rivian Automotive, Lucid Group and Nikola Corp. this week each detailed plans to reduce costs while attempting to grow operations and make their first profits. Those efforts have ranged from job cuts and production changes to supplier rearrangements and shifting priorities.

The scramble comes as EV adoption takes hold slower than many expected and after companies spent billions in an attempt to rush vehicles to market to gain first-mover advantages in white-space segments.

Of those three automakers, Rivian is in the strongest cash position as EV adoption struggles. The company says it has enough cash to get through its big R2 launch in early 2026.

The slowdown, as well as the increased competition, has even impacted U.S. EV leader Tesla

, which is in the midst of a global restructuring that includes laying off roughly 10% of its workforce.

Wall Street analysts have referred to the current state of the electric vehicle market as an “EV winter,” an end to so-called EV Euphoria or, more optimistically, a temporary pullback that carmakers will need to overcome for long-term gains.

Bidenomics -- May 11, 2024

Locator: 47124ECON.

And the Michigan Consumer Index folks are unhappy, depressed, worried, pessimistic. 

This speaks volumes of "talking about one thing, experiencing something else." 

Link here. 

But there's more, from Carl Q and Yardeni:

Those complaining most about the economy (? -- needs to be fact-checked) saw an increase in their household wealth to the tune of $114 trillion by end of last year -- 2023 -- nearly 70% of all households' wealth.

It gets tedious separating memes from the facts. 

*********************
The Source

Link here.

Some observations:

• I don't like graphs like this. It's hard to tell which of the four cohorts add the greatest growth. One has to look at each cohort separately and closely:
• if one overlays the Dow (stock market) over this graphic, the story becomes interesting; by cohort:
  
• first, those under forty: as a percent, the dark blue band increases very, very little over the last thirty years (2023 - 30 = 1993)
• thirty years ago, these folks were ten years old and have not been able to save / invest much money between the ages of 10 and 40
• then, those between the ages of 40 and 54: not much better until the last three years -- under Biden -- and then, not by much
• look at the third cohort, ages 55 to 69 -- compare the width of that light blue band in 1990 to 2023 -- astounding; absolutely astounding. Roughly $5 trillion in 1990 (?) to $70 trillion in 2023;
• finally, the fourth cohort, those over 70 years old: from almost nothing (maybe $3 trillion in 1990) to about $48 trillion in 2023.
• Demographics:
• between ages 40 to 69, each year of age, about 0.60% of the US population
• then age 70: 0.54%, female; 0.48%, male;
• then age 75: 0.45%, female; 0.38%, male;
• then age 80: 0.30%, female; 0.24%, male;
• then age 85: 0.17%, female; 0.12%, male.
• Those over 70, are proportionally much better off than the 40 to 69 year olds, the second and third cohorts combined, but even much better off than the 55 to 69, the third cohort. 
• The third cohort has the most trillions (1990 to 2023) but they are also a huge cohort in terms of number of folks between the ages of 55 and 69.

Link here.

As noted earlier, placing the Dow (stock market) over this graphic explains a lot.

But there's even something else, which I've talked about many times.

Thirty years of investing with tax-free accounts: those now 69 years old were 39 years old. 

Thirty years ago (2023 - 30 = 1993). What happened -- or better said, what was happening in 1993? 

Previously posted:

January 22, 2023

Key dates to remember with regard to IRAs:

• 1970
• 1981
• 1997

When did IRAs truly start to impact the economy? I would argue, 1995, to some extent, but then took off in 2007:

• 1970: traditional IRA introduced
• 1980: folks became comfortable with IRAs
• 1997: IRAs improved significantly with the introduction of Roth IRAs
• 2007: another ten years of traditional IRA / Roth IRA growth in popularity

Now, look at this graph:

 Same chart with markers and comments:

What was happening in 1993? In 1970 the traditional IRA was introduced. By 1985, the traditional IRA was beginning to make an impact. But then in 1997, although it didn't matter much at the time, Congress made the IRA even better by introducing the Roth IRA. Ten years later, 2007, the stock market began to take off, and all that money being invested in the market was growing tax-free. 

There's going to be a bit of a bow wave effect as folks start taking RMDs but by the early 2000s, folks finally figured it out that the Roth IRA was the way to go. The net worth of those who figured that out -- the value of the Roth IRA vs the traditional IRA -- will result in the third cohort -- the light blue cohort growing even more than the fourth cohort most of whom had much less time to start investing in IRAs, traditional or Roth.

Congress will continue to make the IRAs even better. Most recently they moved the age of first RMDs to age 73; and to age 75 starting in 2033 for many of those (but not all) that have traditional IRAs. It is likely that Congress will add more incentives to encourage saving for retirement.

Update: The Permits Announced In January, 2023 -- May 11, 2024

Locator: 47123B.

Summary, 2023, January permits, as of May 11, 2024:

• total permits: 79
  
• 0: canceled
• 9: CONF
• 2: CONF/A
• 16: CONF/DRL -- production not being reported
  
• 20: DRL/A -- production being reported
• 1: DRL/DRL -- production not being reported
• 1: DRL/IA -- production being reported
• 1: DRL/TA -- production being reported
• 29: F/A -- production being reported

Examples:

• 39611, F/A, Grayson Mill, Barracuda 150-100-2-11-6H, Sandrocks, t2/24; cum 55K 3/24;
• 39597, drl/A, CLR, Brooks 5-9H, Pembroke, t12/23; cum 139K 3/24;

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
BAKKEN	3-2024	25	21467	21409	20232	51682	51492	190
BAKKEN	2-2024	29	30916	30998	26686	72022	70288	1243
BAKKEN	1-2024	31	44944	45062	38943	99139	97991	1148
BAKKEN	12-2023	25	41191	40756	40710	83396	68215	15181
BAKKEN	11-2023	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	10-2023	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

 39598, drl/A, CLR, Brooks 6-9H1, Pembroke, t12/23; cum 129K 3/24;

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
BAKKEN	3-2024	30	22865	22864	26666	56138	53431	2707
BAKKEN	2-2024	29	30663	30643	31556	67772	66300	981
BAKKEN	1-2024	31	40942	40969	42906	86545	85343	1202
BAKKEN	12-2023	25	34589	34355	43232	65942	62497	3445
BAKKEN	11-2023	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	10-2023	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

***************************
CLR Brooks Wells

Well of interest:

• 22058, 549, CLR, Brooks 1-4H, Pembroke, t5/12; cum 276K 3/24; note jump in production; 17621 over 21 days extrapolates to 25,173 bbls;

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
BAKKEN	3-2024	31	9573	9648	13619	44039	43620	0
BAKKEN	2-2024	29	13753	13579	18855	55676	55284	0
BAKKEN	1-2024	31	19089	19135	23463	57542	57123	0
BAKKEN	12-2023	31	28086	28186	34158	67021	66602	0
BAKKEN	11-2023	21	17621	17424	25720	37229	36945	0
BAKKEN	10-2023	2	82	0	183	27	0	0
BAKKEN	9-2023	0	0	173	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	8-2023	30	342	277	360	1545	1147	0
BAKKEN	7-2023	31	349	267	357	1688	1269	0
BAKKEN	6-2023	30	372	520	383	1401	996	0

• 28814, 918, CLR, Brooks 2-4H1, t12/14; cum 283K 3/24;
• 28816, 907, CLR, Brooks 3-4H, t12/14; cum 376K 3/24;
  

The maps:

Economy In North Texas Is On Fire -- May 11, 2024

Locator: 47122ECON.

Don't tell me the US economy is doing badly.

Don't tell me folks have quit spending.

I had to go "downtown" to pick up family members from end-of-school-year" events. I've never seen "downtown" so busy. Obviously a lot of Mother's Day celebrations and gift buying.

Traffic was horrendous. Long waits at intersections; no parking.

Nothing to suggest the Texas consumer has slowed down.

Lines outside "all" restaurants. 

As for us, a mimosa brunch, catered, tomorrow. 

I'll be doing Taco Tuesday at the apartment this summer. Once a week, though it might not always be on Tuesday.

Huge breakfast/brunch planned on May 24, 2024 -- post-high school graduation breakfast.

GPS Is Down Or "Confused" In Some Areas -- May 11, 2024

Locator: 47121GPS.

"Devil of a time" with GPS in DFW today. "Find Me" was now working. There was no warning that "it" wasn't working. "The app" did not say things were "messed"; it simply sent us on wild-goose chases. It was quite amazing.

And "we" all know what's going on. I would think this is of great concern for US DOD. 

The Apple M-4 Chip -- May 11, 2024

Locator: 47120AAPL.

From Yahoo!Finance today:

Tech is tracked here.

Also, from Finance!Today:

WTI Pricing -- May 11, 2024

Locator: 47119WTI.

Link here. 

US Debt Amnesia -- May 11, 2024

Locator: 47118ECON.

Link here.

Anticipation -- Mimosas For Mother's Day -- May 11, 2024

Locator: 47117MIMOSAS.

Ridiculously easy; ridiculously inexpensive. When made at home.

One bottle of wine: eight mimosas.

Sparkling wine - orange juice -- 1:1 -- add the sparking wine first.

• champagne, Cava, Prosecco,
• any number of sparkling wine options at Total Wine for under $10 (ridiculously cheap)
• optional: add the liqueur first!
  
• French: a spash of Grand Marnier (ridiculously expensive -- or not!) -- A splash? One tablespoon. [Note: glug is more apt.]
  
• French: a spash of Chambord.

Stem?

• Champagne? A flute.
• Mimosa? Not necessarily necessary.

Back-of-envelope:

• $5.00
• $12.00
• $17.00
• / 8 = $2.125.

Local:

• $7 / glass
• $20-carafes
• $15-bottomless (pitchers, not attire) specials

*****************************
Brian Wilson

Link here.

Update On Gaza -- May 11, 2024

Locator: 47116GEOPOLITICS.

Update on Gaza, for the archives.

From Reuters today:

From "river to the sea, Palestine will be free."

Looks like Israel is pushing Hamas to the sea. 

Buffett Watch -- Buffett And Bonds -- May 11, 2024

Locator: 47115INV. 

Before we get started, the "northern lights" as seen from Portland, OR, last night. We didn't see these with our eyes, but our iPhone cameras picked them up:

Bismarck Tribune also got some photos:

*****************************
Buffett And Bonds

Link here.

The article was not worth reading, on so many levels.

Warren Buffett is no fan of the bond market even with the increase in yields this year. Berkshire Hathaway has a tiny bond allocation in its investment portfolio, which mostly supports its huge insurance business.

This contrasts with most insurers, who keep the bulk of their assets in bonds. Berkshire CEO Buffett favors stocks and cash—mostly U.S. Treasury bills. As Barron’s has written, individuals can emulate the Buffett strategy in their own portfolios by holding stocks and cash rather than stocks and bonds.

Berkshire held just $17 billion of fixed-income securities at the end of the first quarter, against about $363 billion in stocks and $182 billion in cash and equivalents, mostly Treasury bills, according to Berkshire’s 10-Q released in conjunction with the company’s earnings report this past Saturday.

Posted it for the archives, but a relatively worthless article.

***************************
Reuters Today

********************
The Physics Page

Link here.

This seems to be an incredibly important article for any high school senior planning to get an engineering / physics degree and headed for Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Cal Tech, etc.

Also here.

Synopsis:

• At a fundamental level, the matter we know of is largely composed of quarks, like the up and down quarks, which make up protons and neutrons: the particles at the heart of every atom’s core. 
• Quarks and gluons, operating under the strong force and the rules of quantum chromodynamics, make up all the known hadrons, baryons, and mesons in existence, providing us with a huge spectrum of particle states. 
• But, in theory, there should be another kind of bound state never observed before: glueballs, which are quarkless composite particles made of bound gluons alone. At last, in 2024, we may have found our first one. 

The "glueball":

In theory, at least according to quantum chromodynamics (our theory of the strong nuclear force), there should be multiple ways to make a bound state of quarks, antiquarks, and/or gluons alone.

• You can have baryons (with 3 quarks each) or antibaryons (with 3 antiquarks each).
  

• You can have mesons (with a quark-antiquark pair).
  

• You can have exotic states like tetraquarks (2 quarks and 2 antiquarks), pentaquarks (4 quarks and 1 antiquark or 1 quark and 4 antiquarks), or hexaquarks (6 quarks, 3 quarks and 3 antiquarks, or 6 antiquarks), etc.
  

• Or, you can also have states made of gluons alone — with no valence quarks or antiquarks — known as glueballs.

In a radical new paper just published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the BES III collaboration just announced that an exotic particle, previously identified as the X(2370), may indeed be the lightest glueball predicted by the Standard Model. Here’s the science of the claim, as well as what it all means.

And where was this particle found? Beijing.

The greatest “factory” ever constructed for investigating the J/ψ particle is located in Beijing at their electron-positron collider, known as the Beijing Spectrometer III (BES III), which began taking data in its modern form in 2008.

In its first year, alone, BES III accumulated some 226 million events that created J/ψ particles, and as of the end of 2023, that cumulative number now exceeds 10 billion J/ψ particles.

Therefore, even rare events and resonances that emerge from these decays can now be probed. A few exotic states have been discovered as well: a class of particles known as XYZ mesons, which are now known to include exotic states such as tetraquarks.

Week 19: May 6, 2024 -- May 12, 2024

Locator: 47112TOPSTORIES.

Top story:

• Israel moves into Rafah; doesn't seem to be much coverage (or much interest)
  
• Dow: longest "win" streak so far in 2024
  
• Biden administration now says the DOE will solicit 3.3 million bbls for the SPR. Meaningless, of course.
  

Top international non-energy story:

Top international energy story:

Top national non-energy story:

Top national energy story:

• WTI stabilizes at $79. For oil companies, $80 is the new $60.
  

Focus on fracking: link here.

Top North Dakota non-energy story:

• 
  

Top North Dakota energy story:

• 
  

Geoff Simon's quick connects: link here.

*************************************
Market

Market at the close:

 

Another Great Example Of The Halo Effect In The Bakken -- May 11, 2024

Locator: 47114B.

In today's daily activity report:

One producing well (a DUC) reported to be completed:

• 40067, 3,148, MRO, Malloy 41-2H, Killdeer, Dunn County;

Wells of interest, with regard to that MRO Malloy well (#40067); two wells go over 500K bbls crude oil and both with jump in production; one jump was quite noteworthy:

• 17454, IA/676, MRO, Stroh 14-11H, Killdeer, t12/08; cum 532K 11/23; jump in production, 6/14;
• 27739, IA/815, MRO, Dave Stroh 34-11TFH, Killdeer, t8/14; cum 263K 12/23;
• 17556, IA/553, MRO, Debb Stroh 44-11H, Killdeer, t12/08; cum 500K 12/23; huge jump in production, 8/14; 

**********************
Two Wells With Jump In Production

One particularly noteworthy. 

The well, note, this well has just hit 500K bbls crude oil cumulative:

• 17556, IA/553, MRO, Debb Stroh 44-11H, Killdeer, t12/08; cum 500K 12/23; huge jump in production, 8/14; this was back in 2014; expect to see another jump in production in 2024:

BAKKEN	12-2014	31	8013	7960	4051	5640	4175	422
BAKKEN	11-2014	30	11918	11881	6445	7984	5607	922
BAKKEN	10-2014	17	5347	5710	3033	4065	2920	482
BAKKEN	9-2014	30	13872	13778	8796	10365	8597	107
BAKKEN	8-2014	25	19725	19197	7950	2243	0	0
BAKKEN	7-2014	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	6-2014	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	5-2014	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	4-2014	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	3-2014	1	0	75	0	4	0	0
BAKKEN	2-2014	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	1-2014	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	12-2013	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	11-2013	1	1	235	1	0	0	0
BAKKEN	10-2013	1	221	0	20	138	0	138
BAKKEN	9-2013	1	1	0	1	1	1	0
BAKKEN	8-2013	8	304	450	57	223	175	0
BAKKEN	7-2013	31	1260	1130	262	865	638	45
BAKKEN	6-2013	30	1264	1334	261	885	665	40

The Daily Activity Report -- Friday, May 11, 2024

Locator: 47113B. 

WTI: $78.26. Despite Israel rolling into Rafah.

Active rigs: 39.

Five new permits, #40738 - #40742, inclusive:

• Operators: Kraken Operating (3); Iron oil (2)
• Fields: Antelope Creek (McKenzie); Bear Butte (McKenzie)
• Comments:
• Kraken has permits for three Triangle South wells, lot 2 section 1-149-101; 
• all to be sited 1235 FEL; with one to be sited at 399 FNL, one at 432 FNL, and one at 465 FNL;
• Iron Oil has permits for two Bear Butte wells, SESE 13-148-101, 
• both to be sited 300 FSL with one at 928 FEL and the other 878 FEL

One producing well (a DUC) reported to be completed:

• 40067, 3,148, MRO, Malloy 41-2H, Dunn County;

Wells of interest, with regard to that MRO Malloy well (#40067) (see updates for these wells here):

• 17454, IA/676, MRO, Stroh 14-11H, Killdeer, t12/08; cum 532K 11/23; jump in production, 6/14;
• 27739, IA/815, MRO, Dave Stroh 34-11TFH, Killdeer, t8/14; cum 263K 12/23;
• 17556, IA/553, MRO, Debb Stroh 44-11H, Killdeer, t12/08; cum 500K 12/23; huge jump in production, 8/14;