North Texas: Lines Are Out-The-Door At HEB — Four Days Before The Storm — And It’s Going To Be A Doozy — January 20, 2026

Locator: 49771ICESLEETSNOW. 

Blogging on hold. Snow alert.

Intel -- January 20, 2026

Locator: 49770INTEL.

Not ready for prime time. Not meant for general readership. For my benefit only.  

Updates

January 21, 2026: link here.

Original Post

Intel is occasionally tracked here. 

I believe Intel (INTC) reports 4Q25 earnings later this week, January 22, 2026.

In anticipation I spent some time with AI.

Link here. Update.

Link here. Update on Intel's Gaudi 3.

Link here. Intel's product links.

Spreadsheet:

Three New Permits -- January 20, 2026

Locator: 49769B. 

WTI: $60.34.

Active rigs: 28. 

Three new permits, #42654 - #42656, inclusive:

• Operator: Enerplus (2); Spotted Hawk.
• Fields: Little Knife (Dunn County); Van Hook (McLean):
• Comments:
• Spotted Hawk has a permit for a Grace well, NENW 18-150-91, 
• to be sited 507 FNL and 1366 FWL;
• Enerplus has permits for two Esther Federal wells, SESW 33-146-97, 
• to be sited 474 / 571 FSL and 2164 / 2147 FWL.

Apple iPhone Sales In China -- An Update -- January 20, 2026

Locator: 49768AAPL. 

Link here. 

Take a look at those numbers; those changes. Note: this came during a time when the Chinese government actively discouraged their citizens from buying Apple iPhones -- in some cases coming close to banning iPhone sales in China.

All That Talk About AI Being All Hype -- An Update -- January 20, 2026

Locator: 49767AI. 

Link here. 

Jargon: Marvell, Broadcom, DPUs -- January 20, 2026

Locator: 49766DPUS. 

Updates

January 26, 2026: link here. 

Ticker CoreWeave: Jensen Huang just weighed in -- mentions Vera, but also mentions "Bluefield storage platform" -- mentioned that in "jargon" some weeks ago. DPUs, NCI, Bluefield. How do I use DPU as a NIC? Wiki. DPUs, wiki.

Original Post 

Google: Marvell, Broadcom, DPUs.

Chips are tracked here. 

DPUs:

**********************
From An Earlier Post 

Apple Supply Chain 

Locator: 49081CHIPS.

Lessons learned: 

• one can ask ChatGPT anything;
• if you are not using ChatGPT (or a similar chatbot), you are flying blind.

Apple Silicon is tracked here. Chips are tracked here.

Apple suppliers: this schematic has been posted many, many times.

The schematic for the iPhone 17 series is not yet available, but ChatGPT will send me that schematic as soon as it becomes available.

I asked ChatGPT what specific Broadcom chip will be replaced by the new Apple Silicon N1 chip.

The answer: the Broadcom Wi-Fi + Bluetooth chip. 

Unknown is what other Broadcom components are "at risk." ChatGPT provided a list of components that could be at risk but none seem(ed) particularly remarkable and unlikely to be a major issue one way or the other. I could be wrong. 

ChatGPT also provided:

• an estimate of what Apple pays for each Broadcom chip (wi-fi + Bluetooth): and,
• what Apple pays Broadcom "all in" each year.

Phasing out the Broadcom wi-fi + Bluetooth chip was NOT cost driven. Don't take that out of context. It was driven by:

• Apple culture;
• supply chain control;
• software integration, efficiency, and power savings.

In fact, one might argue, throw in "privacy" issues, and these might be the big four issues that guides Tim Cook's decisions day in and day out.

**********************************
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.
• Longer version here.   

 

Netflix -- 4Q25 Earnings -- Posted January 20, 2026

 Locator: 49765NETFLIX. 

Themes: 2027

Locator: 49764THEMES. 

First posted January 20, 2026.

February 1, 2026: Apple's "supercycle" has begun. JPM raises AAPL's target from $305 to $315. Link here. 

Annual themes are tracked here, though sporadically updated.  

Fabs:

• Intel

AI:

• the year of the chatbots

Energy

• nuclear
• China 
• LNG 

Geopolitcal  

• Greenland
• Venezuela
• Russia-Ukraine
• US-NATO 

US vaccinations

• fallout / repercussions from reducing childhood vaccinations from 17 to 11 in starting in 2026  

USAF:

• no longer, air superiority;
• now, AIR DOMINANCE.

US economy:

• Texas,
• Florida;
• California.

Connections:

• chatbots
• blogs
• Facebook
• x

China Fossil Fuel -- January 20, 2026

Locator: 49763CHINA. 

Link here. 

Foreign Exchange Reserves -- Russia, Saudi Arabia, China -- Posted January 20, 2026

Locator: 49762SAUDI 

Locator: 49862CHINA.

Locator: 49862RUSSIA.  

Foreign exchange reserves: Russia, Saudi Arabia, China.

Russia, link here: posted January 20, 2026, no update since then: 

Saudi, link here: posted January 8, 2026:

China, link here, posted January 8, 2026: 

Gas Mileage -- Personal Vehicles -- January 20, 2026

Locator: 49761MILEAGE. 

Apple Will Ship Millions Of $2,000-Foldable iPhones This Year -- But That's Just A Start -- These Numbers Are Icredible -- January 20, 2026

Locator: 49760APPLE. 

Apple is tracked here. 

Link here.

But look at the overall numbers: 

If you aren't emotionally ready for a foldable iPhone from tech giant Apple (AAPL), at least get ready for it as an investor, says Citi analyst Atif Malik.

Malik sees a fast ramp of the foldable iPhone beginning later this year and going into 2027. He expects the device to debut at Apple's annual fall launch together with iPhone 18 Pro/Pro Max models.

"With the premium pricing of around $2,000 and timing of the launch, we expect limited foldable iPhone shipment of around 8 million units in 2026, or ~3% of total iPhone shipment, which will likely grow to 20 million units in 2027," Malik wrote in a note on Tuesday.

The analyst reiterated a Buy rating on Apple — about 50% of Wall Street analysts rate Apple a Buy, Yahoo Finance data shows. He did cut his price target to $315 from $330, citing margin risk from the surge in memory chip prices.

Apple's stock has been dead money for more than a year as investors have rotated into more AI-centric names from the "Magnificent Seven," such as Nvidia (NVDA) and Microsoft (MSFT). Not helping matters is renewed trade tensions between the Trump administration and key Apple markets in Europe and China.

This Is Where Chatbots Shine -- "First Take" With Stephen A -- January 20, 2026

Locator: 49759SPORTS. 

The morning after Indiana University football makes history and at the height of the NFL playoffs leading up to the Super Bowl, the moderator for First Take is absent again. Without Molly, the show has taken a different "flavor," and not for the better.  Even with Cornette, the show does not seem to be as enjoyable to watch as when Molly was there. 

AI prompt: On Stephen A Smith's First Take, the new moderator seems to have been "absent" more than she has been on the show since Molly departed. Today, Tuesday, January 20, 2026, after a three-day weekend, she's absent again, during the height of the NFL run-up to the Super Bowl? Is my perception accurate?

Google Gemini:  

The Daring Invention of Logarithm Tables: How Jost Bürgi, John Napier, and Henry Briggs Simplified Arithmetic and Started the Computing Revolution, color edition, Klaus Truemper, c. 2020 -- Re-Posted January 20, 2026

Locator: 49758NVIDIA. 

From a post from another Million Dollar Way blog April 29, 2025. 

Logarithms lead directly to slide rules. From the book below, p. 60:

The production of slide rules, circular slide rules, and slide cylinders came to a halt in 1976, when the first low-cost electronic pocket calculator entered the market.

1976.

Wow. 

I graduated from high school, 1969, and college, 1973. Three years later, the end of the slide rule. I doubt Sophia even knows what a slide rule is. To what extent her older sisters know, I have no idea.

The book this week: The Daring Invention of Logarithm Tables: How Jost Bürgi, John Napier, and Henry Briggs Simplified Arithmetic and Started the Computing Revolution, color edition, Klaus Truemper, c. 2020, updates, 2023, 2024, and 2025. 

Klaus Truemper is Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Dallas. He is author of several books in Brain Science, Mathematics, and Computer science.

University of Texas as Dallas? UTD. Just a few miles up the road from where we live. Could be huge beneficiary of Nvidia's announcement to build a supercomputer in Dallas. UTD has transformed in the past five years. New kid on the block. Connection with Nvidia? 

Six links. This is not an investment site and no recommendations are being made or implied.

• April 27, 2025, Motley Fool: link here. 
• April 27, 2025, SeekingAlpha: link here.
• April 27, 2025, TweakTown: link here.
• April 25, 2025, IBD: link here.
• April 24, 2025, TheStreet: link here.
• April 14, 2025, NvidiaBlog: link here.

Nvidia is working with its manufacturing partners to design and build factories that, for the first time, will produce Nvidia AI supercomputers entirely in the U.S.

Together with leading manufacturing partners, the company has commissioned more than a million square feet of manufacturing space to build and test Nvidia Blackwell chips in Arizona and AI supercomputers in Texas. Nvidia Blackwell chips have started production at TSMC’s chip plants in Phoenix, Arizona. 

Nvidia is building supercomputer manufacturing plants in Texas, with Foxconn in Houston and with Wistron in Dallas.

Mass production at both plants is expected to ramp up in the next 12-15 months.

The AI chip and supercomputer supply chain is complex and demands the most advanced manufacturing, packaging, assembly and test technologies. 

Nvidia is partnering with Amkor and SPIL for packaging and testing operations in Arizona.

Within the next four years, Nvidia plans to produce up to half a trillion dollars of AI infrastructure in the United States through partnerships with TSMC, Foxconn, Wistron, Amkor and SPIL.

These world-leading companies are deepening their partnership with Nvidia, growing their businesses while expanding their global footprint and hardening supply chain resilience. 

Nvidia AI supercomputers are the engines of a new type of data center created for the sole purpose of processing artificial intelligence — AI factories that are the infrastructure powering a new AI industry.

Tens of “gigawatt AI factories” are expected to be built in the coming years.

Manufacturing Nvidia AI chips and supercomputers for American AI factories is expected to create hundreds of thousands of jobs and drive trillions of dollars in economic security over the coming decades.

“The engines of the world’s AI infrastructure are being built in the United States for the first time,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia . “Adding American manufacturing helps us better meet the incredible and growing demand for AI chips and supercomputers, strengthens our supply chain and boosts our resiliency.”

As We Head To Davos, Some Thoughts -- January 20, 2026

Locator: 49757COLLAPSE. 

Breaking: "Walzing Minnesotan" -- link here -- 

Also: Cubans in Florida are being deported in record numbers. 

******************************
Collapse Of An Empire 

This was from another "Million Dollar Way" blog on April 10, 2025, link here. 

Collapse of an empire -- some of these have not held up well; most have:

Some thoughts based on recent readings and current events.

Collapse of an empire:

• highly bureaucratic; highly regulated;
• European Unionization of the kingdom
  
• disruption of trading patterns
• failure to address imbalance of trade
• loss of border integrity
• breakdown of social order; social disorder
• petty crime; illicit drug use
• failure of immigrants to assimilate one's new country
  
• multilingual
• dress
• religion
  
• severe maldistribution of wealth;
• egomaniacal leaders; grandiose delusional leaders;
• mega-projects with little social benefit or likelihood of success
• manned voyages to Mars; manned voyages beyond the earth's moon
• bullet trains
• loss of a vibrant two-party political system
• the Californication of US politics (extreme gerrymandering resulting in 100% Democratic-controlled counties)
• bad strategic decisions; losing strategic advantages for no gain
  
• selling the Panama Canal to to Panama for one dollar -- perhaps my favorite
• government leaders unable to think strategically -- added since original post 
• misguided military spending
• $5-million missiles to take out $5,000 drones

The biggest oversight: widespread fraud that federal and state government officials no longer care about or actually encourage. 

Maps Of The Caribbean -- January 20, 2026

Locator: 49756CARIBBEAN. 

Maps of the Caribbean. 

From today, Venezuela, link here:

From 2023: Guyana, Antilles, and West Indies, link here: 

Link here.

So, this is what we have:

• Trinidad and Tobago: Shell.
• Surinam: Apache and TTE.
• Guyana: XOM.
• Venezuela: CVX.

A reader alerted me to a Charles Kennedy article on Guyana, dated March 6, 2023. 

Weekend Forecast For Texas -- Could Be Coldest Day In 30 Years -- January 20, 2026

Locator: 49755WEATHER. 

Our daughter will be racing -- stand-up paddleboarding -- on the Colorado River down in Bastrop, thirty miles east of Austin, this Saturday when the cold weather will be at its worse, or approaching its worse. This is not the Colorado River flowing throught the Grand Canyon -- two different river systems; not related to each other at all.

Forecast (for reference see "the Great Freeze, February, 2021, link here):

She paddle-boarded for a week in the Bergen, Norway, fiords this summer, highs were generally at 60°F, lows at 50°F.

Well -- This Has Been A Short Week -- It's Already Tuesday -- January 20, 2026

Locator: 49754B. 

Texas: way too cold to be up today. Clear, calm, but 40°F, feels like 50. Whoo-hoo. Below freezing tonight and then this weekend forecast for coldest day on record in 30 years. With precip. We'll see. 

Natural gas prices surge: link here.

**********************************
Back to the Bakken 

WTI: $60.28. Despite that shares prices of CVX, COP are down.

New wells reporting:

• Tuesday, January 20, 2026: 33 for the month, 33 for the quarter, 33 for the year,
• 41255, conf, Oasis, Erickson 5203 14-25 5BX, 
• 41254, conf, Oasis, Erickson 5203 14-25 4B, 
• 41253, conf, Oasis, Erickson 5203 14-25 3B, 
• 41061, conf, Oasis, Erickson 5203 14-25 2B, 
• Monday, January 19, 2026: 29 for the month, 29 for the quarter, 29 for the year,
• 41856, conf, CLR, Schilke 3-19H, 
• Sunday, January 18, 2026: 28 for the month, 28 for the quarter, 28 for the year, 
• 40247, conf, Hunt Oil, Palermo MCNIC 156-90-22-34H 4, 
• 40077, conf, Devon Energy, Cuda 15-27F 3H, 
• Saturday, January 17, 2026: 26 for the month, 26 for the quarter, 26 for the year, 
• 41350, conf, Iron Oil Operating, Patten 2-27-22H, 
• 36614, conf, BR, Sandi 2B UTFH, 

RBN Energy: AltaGas upsizes midstream infrastructure as western Canadian NGL production hits record high. Link here. Archived.

NGL production in Western Canada hit an all-time high in 2025 and looks to be headed even higher in the years ahead. Major midstream players have been undertaking infrastructure expansions to deal with all the additional gas processing, Y-grade fractionation and exports of valuable products such as propane and butane. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll take a closer look at the expansion plans of AltaGas Ltd., one of Western Canada’s leading midstream operators.

Western Canada set a record for natural gas production in 2025 at 19.1 Bcf/d. With that mark, it stands to reason that the region will also see record output of NGLs, such as ethane, propane, butane, condensate and pentanes-plus (known as field condensate and natural gasoline in the U.S.), the vast majority of which are derived through the processing of NGLs at fractionation plants. Production of mixed NGLs (aka Y-grade) through the first 11 months of 2025 averaged 1.29 MMb/d (dashed red box in Figure 1 below), a gain of 0.06 Mb/d versus the same period in 2024, with the biggest growth coming in the pentanes-plus category (teal bar segments). It is that portion of the NGLs suite that has nearly insatiable demand for use as a diluent in Alberta’s oil sands. As discussed in Yes We Can, we expect that Y-grade output will experience additional volume growth in the range of 300 Mb/d by 2030, which would put total output at around 1.6 MMb/d that year.