Locator: 49038INVESTING.
Early morning trading: after indications early on of a great day ...
- Dow: down 85 points
- NASDAQ: up 160 points
- S&P 500: up 12 points
Going into the S&P 500:
- APP (Apploving Corp)
- Robinhood (HOOD)
SiriusX: has Howard Stern walked away? Andy Cohen stepped in?
- Howard Stern himself: it was a gag; Howard Stern says it was all a hoax
- if memory serves me well, Buffett has big holding in SIRI
- yes, BRK holds a significant stake in SIRI;
- as of August 2025, BRK increased its stake to almost 40% of SIRI's total outstanding shares
- I guess in the middle of Nebraska, there aren't many local / regional radio stations
- Charlie Munger must have been a big listener
- ticker: abysmal (SIRI); one year down 10%; five year down 60%
Tech:
- Oracle: pre-market, leading the Dow; up 3.51%; up $8.17; trading at $241;
- AAPL: flirting with $240; dropped slightly at the open;
- MU: last Friday, a low of $126.49 near midday; closed at $131.37; up 3.8% from its low that day; dropped 1% at the open;
- APP (Apploving Corp) up $55; up 11%; two year: up 1,194%
- Palo Alto
- helps developers market, monetize mobile apps
- SATS (Echostar Corp) up $15; up 22% today; since 2020 has been trading at mid-20s; today; trading at $83
- satellite communication
- will sell certain spectrum licenses to SpaceX for $17 billion in cash and stock
- SpaceX: not publicly traded
- Starbase, TX
- founded in 2002, Elon Musk;
- 2025: America's dominant space launch provider
- launch schedule eclipsing all others, including national programs like the Chinese space program
- Falcon 9: more than 450 launches; reaching 1 - 3 launches / week; first flew in 2018
- Falcon Heavy: built from three Falcon 9 boosters; a decade to develop
- SpaceX, NASA, and US Armed Force work closely together by means of government contracts
Oil:
- CVX: up a bit; up 0.5% at the open;
- VNOM: up 1% at the open;
- COP: up very, very slightly;
- ENB: up 0.7%; trading at $48.60; pays 5.67%;
- EPD: up slightly; trading at $31.75; pays 6.87%;
Oil tycoons bet big on Trump. It's paying off. TWSJ. Excerpts.
Oil billionaire Harold Hamm high-fived Donald Trump on election night as results trickled in at the Mar-a-Lago watch party.
Hamm, founder of family-owned oil-and-gas company Continental Resources, had good reason to celebrate. He and other oilmen had donated tens of millions of dollars to help re-elect Trump, betting that his pro-fossil-fuel agenda would stave off a long-term shift away from fossil fuels and keep the country hooked on gasoline.
That wager is paying off.
The Trump administration is opening swaths of wilderness land and federal waters to drilling, approving new terminals to export natural gas and proposing to ax environmental regulations, including an Obama-era rule used to curb emissions from power plants, tailpipes and oil-and-gas production. His One Big Beautiful Bill is expected to hobble renewable-energy projects and stunt the adoption of electric vehicles.
Trump’s tax-and-spending legislation will end subsidies of up to $7,500 for purchasing or leasing an EV. It also brings a windfall to oil-and-gas and other companies in the form of expanded tax breaks.In April, after Wright became energy secretary, he attended a gathering in Oklahoma City arranged by Hamm to discuss the need for more energy to support the rise of artificial intelligence. So too did Burgum, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins. Attendees joked at how many officials from the administration showed up separately.
ConocoPhillips, EOG Resources, Occidental Petroleum and Devon Energy recently told investors that because of new tax provisions in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, they collectively expect to save more than $1.2 billion in tax payments in 2025—and likely billions more in the coming years. British giant BP, which operates in the U.S., said the tax savings would likely offset any pressure from tariffs.
Although large producers such as Exxon and Occidental Petroleum have acknowledged that climate change is a major global problem, administration officials have said global warming isn’t a serious threat.
In July, the Environmental Protection Agency said it aims to rescind a 2009 climate rule that states that greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare by raising global temperatures. The agency has used the finding to regulate releases from power plants, motor vehicles, aircraft, landfills and oil-and-gas activities.Early last year, Hamm brought Wright, then still head of oil-field-services company Liberty Energy, to an energy roundtable at Mar-a-Lago. Then candidate Trump went around the room asking questions. Hamm later recalled at an energy conference that Trump was so impressed by Wright’s answers that he asked Wright to “head out to DOE,” referring to the Energy Department. Trump later attended a fundraiser at Wright’s house in Montana, telling aides it was among the nicest he had ever seen.
Burgum, Wright and Zeldin have been zipping around the country to visit fossil-fuel-producing regions, talking up energy projects in Alaska, Louisiana and Pennsylvania.
At least a dozen former oil executives and lobbyists have joined the administration and are helping to oversee the nation’s public lands and mineral resources. The National Energy Dominance Council, a body Trump set up to produce more American energy, is partly staffed and advised by former employees of oil-and-gas companies.
