Locator: 48742EMMY.
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The Art Page
A penny for her thoughts, as Sophia gazes across Grapevine Lake toward the Gaylord Texan.
Nominated for best "Million Dollar Way" photo of the year, 2025.
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A Musical Interlude
Locator: 48741PENNSYLVANIA.
The big story here? Natural gas and pipelines.
Pennsylvania, The Wall Street Journal, July 15, 2025. Link here. I remember the day Joe Biden told these blue collar workers to "learn to code." Now, we actually have a president that follows through with bringing projects for these blue collar workers.
Pennsylvania, breaking:
Locator: 48740INFLATION.
Compared to the numbers in the same month in 2022, these numbers are not bad at all.
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The Book Page
No, I do not have this book. But I'm watching for it -- at an affordable price or through a library.
Tag: political history of the Arameans; K Lawson Younger, Jr. publication date, October 7, 2016.
Locator: 48739B.
Epstein: Trump, et al, has let the Epstein story become the top story on the NBC Nightly News. Not good.
Iraq: deepening natural gas crisis supply. I was completely unaware. Trump continues to redraw the maps in the Mideast.
Iran: deepening natural gas crisis. I was completely unaware. Not getting the coverage one might expect. X is particularly quiet.
This appears to be a very, very big story. Something suggests the 12-day war may have taken out a lot more natural gas assets in Iran than we were led to believe.
This is probably hyperbole but everything suggests Iran is about ready to implode.
More likely, Iran becomes another North Korea, but worse.
Recommend: ask ChatGPT.
According to ChatGPT, Iran has cut its gas deliveries by over half -- from roughly 55 mcm/day to 25 mcm/day, resulting in an immediate shortfall of 3,800 - 6,000 megawats of power production in Iraq. Gas-fired plants are faltering, Iraq is struggling to meet demand, especially during heatwaves, causing rolling blackouts. See this story over at oilprice.
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Back to the Bakken
WTI: $66.82.
Active rigs: 30.
Four new permits: #42125 - #42128, inclusive:
Locator: 48738MARKET.
See disclaimer.
BNY: one-on-one with Jim Cramer today. BNY is the first bank to deploy an AI-supercomputer and has 50+ AI-enabled solutions in production. This simply tells me how much farther "we" have to go with regard to AI. Increases its dividend by 13%.
These guys -- CNBC analysts -- are a whole lot smarter than I am. But some thoughts regarding today's meme with regard to the market:
Rambling comments:
Exhibit A:
Speaking of GM, there was a Reuters report today updating GM's updated plans. Link here.
The big question: what is Ford doing? From what little I know, Ford, once having made the decision to go all-electric, has not yet changed its position.
Locator: 48737ARCHIVES.
See this post: Dallas keeps growing.
When I read that article, I thought there was nowhere to go in the Dallas area except three or four cities north of the city. In fact, there is still so much open space on the north side of Ft Worth -- the metroplex is just getting started.
That OpenAI / CoreWeave -- Denton, TX -- announcement yesterday, or whenever it was, was just the next announcement.
Sophia and I drove to Flower Mound today. She's kayaking on this side of the lake today. I had not been to Flower Mound in a long, long time. Wow, it's gorgeous. And so much room for development. The city has a reputation for requiring only large lots for single-unit homes; I assume that attitude prevails. Lots of hobby horse -- literally "hobby horse" -- farms for teenage girls. LOL.
We're at Rockledge Park today; really, really nice shoreline; lives up to its name. Rock ledge. Incredible location for landscape painting.
I'm at a coffee shop for the morning while Sophia kayaks. I'll pick her up sometime after noon or so. She is really in her element.
Her oldest sister is in Seattle, Washington, for the week.
Her older sister in in Peru on an archaeological dig with a team from Stanford University.
Who would have ever guessed.
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The Book Page
The Story of Semiconductors, John Orton, c. 2004.
Whatever notes I take will be here.
After just a few pages into this book this is the first takeaway: basic science in the whole field of semiconductors is amazing. Despite all the strides since the 1950s (maybe earlier) it's amazing how much seems to be unknown / unexplained when it comes to electricity. The physics of elemental particles is absolutely "strange." My first exposure to the strangeness of quantum theory began in high school chemistry with Mr Ceglowski with "electron shells" and especially "tunneling." And one gets the feeling, physicists really have a lot more to learn.
Remember how we used to talk about the probability of "finding" an electron in any given shell in single atom? It turns out that in a crystal (conducting / semiconducting), it's no longer about the probability of a single electron in any given shell around any given atom, but rather, the probability of an electron anywhere in the entire crystal.
But I now understand the history of semiconductors:
I'll never understand it, but I'll read and re-read about it until I die.
The semiconductor story truly begins with copper mining / refining in Assyria in 3,000 BC, or thereabouts.
I just finished this book: Assyria: The and Fall of the World's First Empire, Eckart Frahm, c. 2023.
Locator: 48736META.
META: Hyperion Data Center (Richard Parish, Louisiana); Prometheus (New Albany, Ohio)
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.
From OpenAI, highlights re: Oracle (ORCL):
Here we go: tech will take off today. Mid-morning trading:
Headlines:
The market:
China's economy surprised on the upside!
Ken Langone: as optimistic as ever; Becky Quick has a new idol; says Trump "gets it done."
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:
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.
Figure 1. EU Gas Consumption By Sector, 2017-24. Source: ACER
Note: Percentage changes are from 2017-21 averagesFrom 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:
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Squawk on the Street With Jim Cramer
Stories. Most of these comments are attributed to Jim Cramer.
Top three today:
Banks:
Inflation:
Nvidia: should hit new all-time highs today. During Cramer's remarks, NVDA up almost $8;
What would it take for Tim Cook to get on Trump's side:
Tesla, Elon Musk:
