Movie Night -- Ingrid Bergman Night On TCM -- August 5, 2025

Locator: 48787MOVIES.

TCM.

Movie night, tonight.

First, Notorious. Whoo-hoo!

Then, Casablanca! Another whoo-hoo!

I think I watch Casablanca at least once a year, maybe twice a year. Watching it again tonight. Amazing how much I hear for the first time every time I watch ...  no matter how often I watch it ... the writing is so incredibly good. The foreshadowing is incredible.  

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Casablanca

Reaching its climax. Last ten minutes.

Remains my favorite movie. 

#1: Casablanca.

#2: Citizen Kane

Rivian, Lucid -- 2Q25 -- August 5, 2025

Locator: 48786EVS.

Rivian results: shares down 4%. A bad report. The losses are expected to get even worse than expected for the full year. CEO blaming tariff / trade policy; could get the rare/heavy earth metals from China that it needed; cut production.

• Production
• 1Q: 14,000 units
• 2Q: 6,000 units
• obvious question: why weren't they stockpiling rare / heavy earth metals
  
• Loss:
• previous estimate, loss for this year: $1.7 billion
• now, guidance for loss for this. year: $2.5 billion
• R2: starts at $45,000
• the interview with the CEO on CNBC did not install much confidence; 

Lucid:

At CNBC.

*************************
Top Ten Global EV Manufacturers

Four New Permits; Three Permits Renewed; One DUC Reported As Completed -- August 5, 2025

Locator: 48785B.

WTI: $65.30.

Active rigs: 32.

Four new permits, #42179 - #42182, inclusive:

• Operator: BR
• Field: Elidah (McKenzie)
• Comments:
• BR has permits for three wells (Abersom and two Abercrombie wells) in SESW 12-151-98, 
• to be sited 375 / 39 FSL and 1695 FWL; and,
• a fourth well (an Omlid well), SESW 7-151-97, 
• to be sited 410 FSL and 2132 FWL.

Three permits renewed:

• XTO: three Roust permits, Hofflund oil field, Williams County;

One producing well (a DUC) reported as completed:

• 40582, 375, KODA Resources, Stout 1831-5BH, Divide County;

Amgen: Not A Particularly Good Holding Over the Years -- August 5, 2025

Locator: 48784INVESTING.

Super Micro Computer: misses; stock hammered; down 10% after the earnings report.

Skyworks: beat top and bottom line; analog radio receiver; biggest customer: Apple; increased their dividend; guidance, better; up 7% after report came out. I got into Skyworks early based on "the blog" but got out of Skyworks early. at best I broke even.

Amgen: results here.

• For the second quarter, total revenues increased 9% to $9.2 billion in comparison to the second quarter of 2024. 
• Product sales grew 9%, driven by 13% volume growth, partially offset by 3% lower net selling price. 
• Fifteen products delivered at least double-digit sales growth in the second quarter, including Repatha® (evolocumab), EVENITY® (romosozumab-aqqg), IMDELLTRA® (tarlatamab-dlle)/IMDYLLTRA™ (tarlatamab), BLINCYTO® (blinatumomab), TEZSPIRE® (tezepelumab-ekko), UPLIZNA® (inebilizumab-cdon) and TAVNEOS® (avacopan). 
• GAAP earnings per share (EPS) increased 92% from $1.38 to $2.65, primarily driven by higher revenues. GAAP operating income increased from $1.9 billion to $2.7 billion, and GAAP operating margin increased 6.6 percentage points to 30.3%. 
• Non-GAAP EPS increased 21% from $4.97 to $6.02, primarily driven by higher revenues, partially offset by higher operating expenses. 
•  Non-GAAP operating income increased from $3.9 billion to $4.3 billion, and non-GAAP operating margin increased 0.7 percentage points to 48.9%. 
• The Company generated $1.9 billion of free cash flow in the second quarter of 2025 versus $2.2 billion in the second quarter of 2024, driven by 2024 tax payments deferred to 2025 and higher capital expenditures, partially offset by business performance.

Rivian results: shares down 4%. A bad report. The losses are expected to get even worse than expected for the full year. CEO blaming tariff / trade policy; could get the rare/heavy earth metals from China that it needed; cut production.

• Production
• 1Q: 14,000 units
• 2Q: 6,000 units
• obvious question: why weren't they stockpiling rare / heavy earth metals
  
• Loss:
• previous estimate, loss for this year: $1.7 billion
• now, guidance for loss for this. year: $2.5 billion
• R2: starts at $45,000
• the interview with the CEO on CNBC did not install much confidence; 

Lucid:

AMD:

• EPS misses: but shares hold up
• revenue in line: $3.24 billion
• Lisa Su will be on CNBC tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m. CT

AMD / NVDA: Note year-to-date:

• AMD doing better than Nvidia, completely unexpected:

A Thought Experiment -- August 5, 2025

Locator: 48783SIR.

Let's say prior to  1913, Henry Ford needed a 100,000 employees to manufacture his automobiles. Productivity is "x."

Then, he adopts the moving assembly line. After adopting the modern assembly line, all else remaining the same, Henry Ford requires 25,000 employees to manufacture the same number of automobiles. Productivity is "4x."

All of a sudden, unemployment spikes and productivity surges. 

And the Fed reacts to the unemployment spike. 

The Fed's mandate, dual:

• inflation;
• employment.

The right metrics?

I'm going to the pool. Good luck to all. See you later this afternoon.

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The Book Page

Author / personality of the day: Cynthia Griffin Wolff. Wiki.

Cynthia Griffin Wolff, briefly, from one of my journals, from a letter I sent one of my Yorkshire friends back in 2008:

You may have gathered that I'm starting to enter an Emily Dickinson phase.

I've told you about the discount book stores in San Antonio; they are fantastic.  I went there specifically to get a biography of Emily Dickinson and found a hardcover in almost perfect condition ("withdrawn" by some library somewhere; original price $25 for $6.28).

I would have bought this particular biography regardless, but the biography of the author (Cynthia Griffin Wolff) is too remarkable to pass by.  This is the author (not Emily):

 She was born in St Louis; when to Radcliffe; medical degree at Harvard, and then went on to get a Ph.D. in English at Harvard. She taught at Amherst and then holds a specially-designated chair as Professorship of the Humanities at MIT. 

She is also author of "highly acclaimed" biographies of Edith Wharton (who I will eventually get to) and Samuel Richardson (Clarissa, which I am now reading, five pages a night).  As you know, L-- F--  spent a significant amount of her adult life in St Louis, got her medical degree at Harvard, and then became a published author (albeit pretty low in stature, just beginning) just before she died. Life is full of coincidences.

The lady at the checkout counter must have been a librarian once upon a time or she herself is an avid Emily Dickinson fan (had she been wearing a white dress, I would have believed in reincarnation), because when I went to pay, as she was ringing up my three books, she mentioned that there was a wonderful book on understanding Emily's poems, over in the clearance section.  It took quite some time to find the book; it was pretty obscure confirming that the woman who alerted it to me must have been an Emily Dickinson fan, but when I found it -- well worth it.  Again, in perfect condition, originally sold for $15.95, marked down in half, and then on clearance for $2.70.  

(With teacher's discount, the book was essentially given to me for free.)

EV Update: Lucid And Rivian -- August 5, 2015

Locator: 48782EVS.

Lucid: reverse stock split, 1-for-10. Link here.  

Rivian: cash burn, link here.

**********************
Rivian -- Earnings -- August 5, 2025

Link here.

Rivian loss bigger than expected on higher costs, lower credit income. 

• company blaming it on China's curbs on the export of heavy rare earth metals.
• adjusted loss of 80 cents; estimate: a loss of 65 cents
• also, a bigger adjusted core loss this year, expecting it to increase to between $2 billion and $2.25 billion compared with an earlier forecast of $1.7 billion to $1.9 billion.
• the company largely blamed a tapering in the value of US regulatory credits for the higher loss estimate (this will also impact Tesla);
• the company delivered 10,661 vehicles in the second quarter, marking a 22% decline from the same period a year earlier, as Rivian limited production to prepare for its 2026 model year launch
• [CNBC interview suggested 6,000 cars produced in 2Q25, vs anticipate 10,000 -- so some confusion there;
  
• earlier this year, the company slashed its 2025 deliveries forecast to 40,000 - 46,000 vehicles from an initial 46,000 to 51,000, citing US tariffs resulting in cost pressures that dampened demand
• the $7,500 federal EV tax credit expires September 30, 2025, eliminating a key competitive advantage that has driven electric vehicle demand
• analysts anticipate a surge in EV sales in 3Q25 to beat the elimination of the EV credit
• cash:
• revenue: $1.3 billion, beating estimate of $1.28 billion
• cash: $4.81 billion, compared iwth $4.69 billion in the preceding three-month period

Rivian results, from CNBC interview: shares down 4%. A bad report. The losses are expected to get even worse than expected for the full year. CEO blaming tariff / trade policy; could get the rare/heavy earth metals from China that it needed; cut production.

• Production
• 1Q: 14,000 units
• 2Q: 6,000 units
• due to lack of heavy rare earth metals; 
• obvious question: why weren't they stockpiling rare / heavy earth metals
  
• Loss:
• previous estimate, loss for this year: $1.7 billion
• now, guidance for loss for this. year: $2.5 billion
• R2: starts at $45,000
• the interview with the CEO on CNBC did not install much confidence; 

**************************************
Re-Posting

From yesterday:

Locator: 48776EVS.

I honestly did not know these stories still existed. We used to see these stories day in / day out ten years ago, but I thought we well past this stage of EV development. Wow.

From InsideEVs, August 2, 2025:

As noted, it would be unusual for any current gasoline-powered / diesel-powered vehicle on the road today that could not make the trip from Minneapolis, MN, to Chicago, IL, on a single "tank of gas."

But this driver, even before she started out, knew she would have to make several stops in her EV to go that distance.

She needed to charge five separate times on her journey.

After her first stop out of Minneapolis, she still had three more re-charging stops before she reached her destination.

When she began her fully-charged journey in Minneapolis, her infotainment screen indicated that she had one hour and eight minutes of range, before she needed to stop for her first re-charging once on the road.

Are you kidding me?

But this is what's amazing. 

On social media at this "green site," no one was concerned about the 800-lb gorilla in the room (lack of range even on a full charge) but wrote into give advice on how to accomplish the trip with fewer recharging stops.

Okay, so that's exactly how I want to lead my life. Every time I get into my EV with a destination more than a hundred miles away, I need to "crowdsource" advice on how best to make that trip.

LOL.

And that's why EVs are not for me, and that's why it's going to be a long time before "real" EVs become the car of the people.

Having said that, folks love "fake EVs." That's because with their gasoline engines there's no range anxiety and one can get from Minneapolis to Chicago on a single tank of gas. 

I would expect to see this story in a marketing brochure for gasoline-powered muscle cars, not in a "green / EV" media outlet. But this was a feature story in InsideEVs.

My hunch: Ms Erika McEntarfer will fine a welcoming home at InsideEVs where she can make up the numbers as she goes along.

The author of the article, his profile is here.

Foreign Exchange Reserves -- July, 2025, Update -- Updated August 5, 2025

Locator: 48781SAUDI.
Locator: 48790SAUDI.
Locator: 48790CHINA.
Locator: 48790RUSSIA. 

Saudi debt: link here.

Saudi Arabia Foreign Exchange Reserves. Link here.

Russia, link here. June, 2025, data:

China, link here:

Taco Tuesday -- Tariffs On Chips Coming -- August 5, 2025

Locator: 48780B.

Palantir: Rule of 40 -- we'll get back to this later.

Intel: downgraded. Fitch downgrading U.S. chipmaker Intel’s credit rating by one notch Monday, according to a note by the ratings agency, which assigned a negative outlook to Intel’s rating.

BRK:

• increases Sirius XM; stake is now 37%; after Sirius XM falls on weak earnings;
• meanwhile, BRK passes on magnificent 7; Palantir; and tech in general; sold SNOW (purchased via IPO 3Q20; fully liquidated 2Q24).

Sirius XM:

Berkshire Hathaway (BRK) first started buying shares of Sirius XM (SIRI) in Q4 2016, according to Stockcircle.com. They initially invested in Liberty Media's tracking stock, which held a stake in Sirius XM, and later began purchasing Sirius XM's common stock directly in early 2024, according to MSN. This buying spree continued into early 2025, including a notable purchase of 2.3 million shares in late January and early February of 2025. 37% of $7.37 billion = $2.73 billion. BRK's market cap $997 billion. 2.73 / 997 = 0.00274 = 0.274. Okay. Don't even get me started.

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $65.32.

New wells:

• Wednesday, August 6, 2025: 13 for the month, 61 for the quarter, 491 for the year,
• 41463, conf, Kraken, Boxcar 4-9-16 3H,
• 34291, conf, BR, State Dodge 3B TFH,
• Tuesday, August 5, 2025: 11 for the month, 59 for the quarter, 489 for the year,
• 41462, conf, Kraken, Boxcar 4-9-16 2H,
• 41268, conf, CLR, Michael State 3-16H1,
• 40773, conf, Hess, BL-JE Ulven-155-96-0322H-2,

RBN Energy: the San Juan Basin has seen many ups and downs, it another upturn just ahead?

The San Juan Basin in northwestern New Mexico and southwestern Colorado has seen more than its share of booms and busts in the last 100-plus years. During the Shale Era, natural gas production in the 7,500-square-mile basin has been slowly declining, undercut by competition from more prolific, better-situated wells in the Permian and Eagle Ford. But a small band of “San Juan believers” think the region is poised for yet another rebound, this time due to what they view as massive, untapped potential in the basin’s Mancos Shale. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss recent developments in the San Juan — and the basin’s extensive pipeline infrastructure. 

It’s only natural that the RBN blogosphere focuses on the oil and gas production areas that post the biggest, most impactful numbers. Places like the Permian (of course), Marcellus/Utica, Bakken and Eagle Ford, plus (every so often) basins like the Haynesville, Denver-Julesburg (DJ), SCOOP-STACK and Powder River. But we’re also interested in what you might call the outliers (the waxy-crude Uinta in Utah, for example) and the quirky outposts within larger production areas (like the volatile oil window in the Utica Shale — now a hotbed of condensate production growth), especially if they have the potential to become bigger players in U.S. energy markets. And there’s a growing preponderance of natural gas producers and marketers looking at the next wave of liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facilities with an expectation that the massive increase in demand will spur prices that incentivize additional production from other regions that have long been overshadowed by the Permian behemoth, including places like the Anadarko, Green River, Western Haynesville and San Juan, among others.

The San Juan Basin is primarily a natural gas producing region. Production there has been a bit of a roller-coaster since its start back in 1921, when the basin’s first commercially successful well was drilled near Aztec, NM. (Initial production, several million cubic feet per day — no slouch!) The challenge then was getting gas to market; the San Juan was hundreds of miles from large population centers and there was little to no pipeline infrastructure in place. The completion of the El Paso Natural Gas pipeline to California in the early 1950s spurred a boom in conventional gas production in the basin, and (after a handful of mini-booms and mini-busts) that was followed up in the 1980s and ’90s by a surge in coalbed methane production from the uppermost Fruitland Formation (dark-brown layer in Figure 1 below). By 2000, the San Juan Basin was among the U.S.’s top gas production areas, churning out nearly 4.5 Bcf/d of gross gas, or about 8% of total U.S. onshore production at the time.

Figure 1. Geologic Formations in the San Juan Basin. Source: Novi Labs

The Grid — August 5, 2025

Locator: 48779THEGRID.

Emergency order: issued by SecEnergy. Fifth time an emergency order has been issued. Link here. 

The grid, long read, link here. LRLH. LOL.

The grid: link here. Even better, much more data and no paywall yet. Archived. This was major headline story over on CNBC at 5:31 a.m. CT, July 23, 2025. Again this was an all-time record.

Not only did rates go up, but production will increase -- higher rates, increased generation:

These are incredible numbers:

PJM auction prices rise due to data center demand, supply shortfall, per MW: $329 / 270 = 22% increase. For BGE and Dominion: $466 / $444, respectively. 

PJM Interconnection today announced the results of its 2026/2027 Base Residual Auction (BRA), which secured 134,311 MW of unforced capacity generation (UCAP) and demand response to meet projected electricity needs for more than 67 million people across 13 states and the District of Columbia. 

Regions under the Fixed Resource Requirement acquired an additional 11,933 MW in UCAP for a total of 146,244 MW (UCAP) available to serve forecasted peak electricity demand plus a reserve margin. UCAP represents a generation resource’s maximum output adjusted for its estimated ability to reliably perform at times of highest system risk. 

The price came in at the FERC-approved cap, $329.17/MW-day (UCAP), for the entire PJM footprint. This price compares with $269.92/MW-day for the 2025/2026 auction for the RTO, except for the BGE and Dominion zones, which cleared at $466.35/MW-day and $444.26/MW-day, respectively.