Tuesday, July 15, 2025

Here We Go! Here -- July 15, 2025

Locator: 48735B.

See disclaimer at bottom of blog, below. 

CoreWeave: up $12 / up 9%. Lightning strikes again (in a good way). I do not have a position in CoreWeave. I'm incredibly happy with my portfolio; not making (m)any changes. But much could be written about the books that Charlie Munger did not read in his last twenty years of life.

CPI, June, 2025 -- these are really, really good numbers, although that won't be the consensus (all numbers need to be fact-checked; posted on the fly as numbers reported). Most important to watch: m/m vs y/y and core vs core-ex-food-energy; more numbers than Carter has liver pills.

  • WSJ: inflation picked up as expected; inflation hit 2.7% in June, y/y, in line with expectations
    • CPI m/m: 0.3% vs 0.3%, as expected
      • CPI: a little warmer y/y than expected
      • strip out food and energy: 0.2% vs 0.3% estimate
    • core CPI y/y: 2.9% vs 3.0%
      • CPI ex food, energy, y/y: exactly as expected
  • Yahoo!Finance says any increase in CPI numbers due to tariffs. LOL. Others say this shows economic activity picking up in the US.
  • bottom line: 
    • can't really tell anything from us
    • can't say much about where we are, where we're headed
    • but, hey, I thought tariffs were going to raise inflation numbers a whole higher
    • numbers suggest economic activity picking up
    • if so, absolutely no reason to lower rates except ....

From OpenAI, highlights re: Oracle (ORCL):

  • Europe: $3 billion AI and cloud push in Europe
  • massive $30 billion per year OpenAI Cloud deal; this makes Oracle a top-tier AI infrastructure provider
  • stellar 4Q25 and FY 2025 performance
  • management forecast 40%+ total cloud growth and 70%+ growth in IaaS for FY 2026, with a 100%+ growth backlog (RPO)
  • GSA (that's the federal government) signed a major federal deal offering deep discounts on Oracle Cloud services
  • ChatGPT uses adjectives/adverbs when talking about Oracle: accelerating; heavy investments; monumental long-term contracts; strong financial results; bullish analyst outlook; announcing strategic partnerships.

Here we go: tech will take off today. Mid-morning trading:

  • JPM: down $1.75; no one is ever happy; they pivoting to tech.
  • AMZN: up slightly; flat.
  • NVDA: up $6.77.
  • AMD: : up $9.36.
  • META: down $6.41.
  • ORCL: up $2.22. At the close: up $5.68.
  • AVGO: up $5.16.
  • GOOG: up $1.51.
  • PLTR: flat, up slightly;
  • AAPL: up slightly;
  • MP Materials: up $12.80; up 26%.
  • BRK-B: down another $3.54; down almost a percent. A lot of 401(k)'s, Roths, traditional IRAs being severely impacted.

Headlines:

  • JPM: beats! Again, as usual - after all the "Jamie-woe-is-me" -- beats handily.
  • AMZN: Amazon-backed Anthropic rolls out Claude AI for financial services.
  • NVDA: will begin selling high-end chips to China
  • AMD: : will begin selling high-end chips to China
  • META: Hyperion Data Center (Richard Parish, Louisiana); Prometheus (New Albany, Ohio)
    • Hyperion: massive; 5 gigawatts; 2 gigawatts online by 2030; four million square feet across 2,250 acres
    • Prometheus: massive; 5 gigawatts; to be associated with a small modular nuclear reactor, 25 megawatts electricity (MWe); company changing its name from Gen4 Energy to Gen4 Module; footprint probably similar to Hyperion's. Bullish for natural gas.
  • ORCL:
  • AVGO: announces a new chip to compete with Nvidia
  • GOOG: to invest $25 billion in data center and AI infrastructure across largest US electric grid.
  • PLTR: new all-time high
  • AAPL: will pour $500 million -- a pittance -- into US rare earth development, but apparently is the amount that AAPL will pour in MP Materials; link here.
  • MP Materials: already soaring on Apple news
  • BRK-B:

The market:

  • market keeps reaching new highs and everybody keeps telling us the market is scary because the market is reaching new highs on the back of the Magnificent 7, and yet Liz Sanders tells us again today on x that the Magnificent 7 is no longer dominant
  • the Magnificent Seven stocks (Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Nvidia, and Tesla) have experienced a shift in their market dominance in 2025, according to multiple sources. After leading the market rally in 2023 and 2024, they've struggled collectively in 2025, under-performing the broader market, as indicated by their performance against the S&P 500. The Magnificent Seven index entered a bear market in March 2025, falling more than 20% from its highs, according to an analysis by Saxo Bank

China's economy surprised on the upside!

Ken Langone: as optimistic as ever; Becky Quick has a new idol; says Trump "gets it done."

  • by end of next year, not one product at Home Depot will come from China;
  • major donor to GOP, according to wiki
  • too bad 99.99% of Americans won't see his interview on CNBC this morning.

Soccer: the new "FOOTBALL"

Russia about to get hit with sky-high tariffs. 

And we're just getting started. President Trump has been president for six months.

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $66.89.

New wells:

  • Wednesday, July 16, 2025: 26 for the month, 26 for the quarter, 456 for the year,
    • 40850, conf, Grayson Mill, Bice 18-17 8TFH,
    • 40789, conf, Oasis, Merlin 5602 43-15 4B,
    • 40787, conf, Oasis, Merlin 5602 43-15 3B,
  • Tuesday, July 15, 2025: 23 for the month, 23 for the quarter, 453 for the year,
    • 41310, conf, Kraken, Bubba LE 14-11-2 1H, 

RBN Energy: EU efforts to move away from Russian gas add uncertainity to global LNG market. 

The European Union (EU) has taken a number of steps in recent years to end its reliance on Russian natural gas, which accounted for nearly half of the bloc’s supplies before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. But while the changes happening in Europe might provide a boost for global LNG exporters, including projects in operation or under development in the U.S., the EU’s policy shifts have also introduced greater uncertainty around demand. In today’s RBN blog, we look at the increasing difficulty in predicting EU gas demand and what it means for U.S. exporters and the rest of the global LNG market. 

In our first piece examining the future of the European gas market and its demand for LNG we looked at the EU’s objective to end all imports of Russian gas and LNG by the end of 2027, according to the 17th set of sanctions issued by the EU Commission on May 6. Today our focus shifts to the future of natural gas (and hence LNG) demand in the EU. Starting with recent history, EU gas demand stood at 322 Bcm (31.2 Bcf/d) in 2024, close to 2023 levels. Although industrial gas demand (top line in Figure 1 below) improved in 2024 from the price-induced downturn in demand of 2022-23, gas for power generation (bottom line) continued to fall due to the increased dispatch of renewable power sources and overall gas demand remained 20% below the 2017-21 average.

EU Gas Consumption By Sector, 2017-24

Figure 1. EU Gas Consumption By Sector, 2017-24. Source: ACER

Note: Percentage changes are from 2017-21 averages

From an LNG perspective, European demand declined by 22 Bcm (2.13 Bcf/d) in 2024, partly due to the mild winter of 2023-24, which reduced the amount of LNG required to refill storage to the EU-mandated 90% fill level by November 2024. The lesson here, and expanded on below, is that predicting gas and LNG demand in a European context is subject to many variables and considerable uncertainty.

Historically, modelling of gas demand was a simple function primarily of ambient air temperature and economic growth. However, that is changing as the EU Commission has adopted plans and policies to reduce gas demand from its current level via a range of new objectives, which are likely to make projecting gas demand even more challenging to quantify. 

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Disclaimer
Brief Reminder 

 Briefly:

  • I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken and I am often well out front of my headlights. I am often appropriately accused of hyperbole when it comes to the Bakken.
  • 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 something appears wrong, it probably is. Feel free to fact check everything.
  • 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. 
  • Reminder: I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken, US economy, and the US market.
  • I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple. 
  • And now, Nvidia, also. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Nvidia. Nvidia is a metonym for AI and/or the sixth industrial revolution.
  • I've now added Broadcom to the disclaimer. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Broadcom.
  • I've now added Oracle to the disclaimer. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Oracle.
  • Longer version here.  

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Squawk on the Street With Jim Cramer

Stories. Most of these comments are attributed to Jim Cramer.

Top three today:

  • top story: Nvidia
  • inflation:
  • earnings being reported by banks:

Banks:

  • JPM: best of the bunch; but others will say Citi is the best of the bunch
    • the quarter was "amazing" -- Cramer

Inflation:

Nvidia: should hit new all-time highs today. During Cramer's remarks, NVDA up almost $8;

  • introduces new graphics blade
  • next stop: share price, $200; market cap: $5 trillion
  • this is a Russian play 

What would it take for Tim Cook to get on Trump's side:

  • front load that rare earths deal immediately;
  • spend it on Mountain Pass -- that's the name of the mine:
    • the Mountain Pass Rare Earth Mine and Processing Facility, owned by MP Materials, is an open-pit mine of rare-earth elements on the south flank of the Clark Mountain Range in California, 53 miles southwest of Las Vegas, Nevada. 
    • In 2020 the mine supplied 15.8% of the world's rare-earth production. It is the only rare-earth mining and processing facility in the United States.
    • It is the largest single known deposit of such minerals. 

Tesla, Elon Musk:

  • acquired several lithium-rich tenements in Nevada; around 2020
  • no active Tesla-operated mines exist yet today
  • building a Texas Gulf Coast lithium refinery in Corpus Christi; $375 million investment

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