Thursday, January 29, 2026

A Tale Of Two Companies -- January 29, 2026

Locator: 49878MSFT.
Locator: 49878AAPL.

Microsoft (MSFT) and Apple (AAPL) today. Although, on the surface, the two outcomes looked completely different (one down 10%; the other up slightly), in fact, they were both similar -- analysts and investors have / had great concern with the guidance for each company.

I might try to explain this when I have more time over the weekend but it comes down to this:

  • Microsoft is competing for capital;
  • Apple is competing for chips (or more specifically, competing for fabs where chips are made).

Huge, huge, huge distinction. 

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Monthly Electricity -- Personal Usage -- Data For December, 2025 -- Posted Jauary 29, 2025, 2025

Locator: 49877ELECTRICITY.

Tag: personal utility 

Our only utility bill is electricity, for a small one-bedroom-one-bath-one-den/office apartment in north Texas. We have no natural gas. This is our total energy bill for the apartment.

Monthly bill was slightly LESS this month compared to last month ($168.10), and less than the same month a year ago ($94.84). With all fees, taxes, etc., we're averaging about 19.5 cents / kWh.

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Six New Permits; Nine Permits Renewed -- January 29, 2026

Locator: 49876B.

 WTI: $65.24.

Active rigs: 28.

Six new permits, #42670 - #42675, inclusive:

  • Operators: Enerplus (4); Phoenix Operating (2);
  • Fields: Little Knife (Dunn County); Noonan (Divide County)
  • Comments:
    • Phoenix Operating has permits for two Danny Noonan wells, SWSE 28-162-95, 
      • to be sited 825 FSL and 2130 / 2070 FEL;
    • Enerplus has permits for four Edward Federal wells, SESW 21-147-97, 
      • to be sited 336 FSL and 2519 / 2618 FWL. 

Nine permits renewed:

  • Foundation Energy: a permit for one Agate well (Bicetennial oil field); permits for two Mosser Federal wells (Elkhorn Ranch); permits for six Roosevelt Federal wells (Roosevelt oil field).
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Silver "Meme-ification -- Interview On CNBC -- January 29, 2026

Locator: 49875SILVER.

Could see spike to $170. Has nothing to do with fundamentals.

How does this relate to copper? Something we actually use.

Think China. 

We've moved from "just-in-time" to "just-in-case." 

Demand for copper in China actually decreasing. 

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Quick! What's The "Chokepoint" For "Compute" -- If You Answered Energy -- Wrong -- January 29, 2026

Locator: 49874COMPUTE.

The answer greatly "confronts" large data centers, the cloud, companies like Amazon, Meta, Google, etc.

This reminds me very much of what we saw during the Bakken revolution in North Dakota, from 2007 to 2010. 

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Sandisk Corp Earnings And Guidance Off The Chart -- January 29, 2026

Locator: 49873SANDISK.

Up $70 (13%) after an-already blistering run. 

Dell, Lenova: are paying for Sandisk profits. Wow.  

Dell: a recent laggard, is down 1% after Sandisk earnings came out. 

After Sandisk Corp earnings came out, Micro jumped another $20 after-hours. 


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A Blow-Out Quarter -- AAPL Earnings -- 1Q26 -- Live, January 29, 2026

Locator: 49872AAPL.

Tag: AAPL. Q.ai Q. ai

Earnings live at on CNBC, on the fly; errors likely.  

Entire post: on the fly. Expect many typographical and content errors. 

Blow-out quarter. Stunned. China -- a blowout quarter. Insane demand.

Apple set all-time records during the quarter for total revenue, earnings per share, iPhone revenue, and services revenue. Total revenue was up 16 percent year-over-year, while earnings per share rose by 19 percent. 

Links here:

Market reserving judgement, waiting for conference call and guidance.  

  • analyst all worried about costs of memory for Apple going forward

Apple is acquiring startup Q.AI (Q.ai) -- correct spelling is the "median dot and no space): 

  • announced just before they announced earnings. 
  • an Israeli firm; also here;
  • $2 billion (a rounding error for Apple)
  • Q.AI: can read facial skin micro-movements
  • could be used to help Apple have non-verbal discussions with an AI assistant 

More on Q.ai: here.  

Analysts after earnings report:

  • First analyst:
    • stunned by the China numbers, absolutely crushed the quarter. 
    • all about the future 
  • Second analyst:
    • worried about the future
    • AI / Siri
  • Melissa Lee, CNBC host of "Fast Money":
    • worried about memory costs;
    • incredibly snarky comments; 
  • CNBC's Tim:
    • market doesn't think these numbers are sustainable 
  • Dan Nathan: 
    • more positive than usual
    • does mention that the price of "Micron will drop in half by the middle of this summer" --  Tim challenged him on that.

The numbers:

  • EPS: $2.84 / $2.67
  • 143.76 billion / $138.85.27 billion -- 16% jump;
  • $85.27 vs $88
  • iPhone sales: $85.3 billion; well head of the $78.3 billion analysts forecast;
    • same quarter last year: $69.1 billion 
  • Mac sales: $8.39 billion vs $8.95 billion
  • Apple iPad -- $8.6 billion vs $8.13 billion
  • other products: $11.49 billion / $12.04 billion
  • services (second-largest behind iPhone: $30.01 billion vs 3$0.07 billion (in line)
  • wearables: $11.5 billion 
  • gross margin: 48.2% /47.5%
  • China sales: up a whopping 38%!
    • weaker dollar
    • China government "opened" the door 

Cash pile: $144.80 billion 

Other:

  • iPhones up 23%
  • services pretty much in line 

China:

  • China a blow-out quarter. 
  • sales improved to $25.5 billion during the quarter
    • climbing nearly 38% y/y 

Earnings being reported on CNBC at: 3:31 p.m.

After hours: live -- most recent at the top --

  • last number for the evening: up $1.84 (at 4:46 p.m. CT)
  • continuing, earnings call yet to come: up $2.72 (at 3:57 p.m. CT)
  • continuing: up $8.42 (at 3:32 p.m. CT) 
  • just spiked: up $5.00 (at 3:31 p.m. CT)
  • down 38 cents (at 3:25 p.m. CT) 
  • down 98 cents (at 3:13 p.m. CT)

P/E, AAPL: 35. 

P/E's:

  • MU: 41 
  • AMD: 125 
  • INTC: n/a; most recent was 5,500
  • MSFT: 31 
  • CAT: 34
  • SCCO: 44
  • SNDK: n/a
  • NVDA: 48
  • TSM: 32
  • GM: 26
  • SLB: 21
  • F: 12
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Focus On Dividends -- OKE -- January 29, 2026

Locator: 49871OKE.

A huge "thanks" to a reader for alerting me to this.

I appear to have completely missed this. 

OKE is raising its dividend from $1.03 to $1.07.

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An Impressive Year For Trump -- Claremont -- January 29, 2026

Locator: 49870POLITICS.

Link here. 

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At Open: WTI Surges -- Up 5% -- Up $3.16 -- Trading At $66.37 -- January 29, 2026

Locator: 49869MARKET.

For extended family members. Not for general readership. See blog's disclaimer: this is not an investment site.  

Is Polymarket pushing this story? 

***********************
What I'm Watching
No Recommendations

Buying opportunity: MSFT.

Amazing

  • CAT:
  • MU: 

After the close today: AAPL 

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Fascinating 

INTC: Cramer on Intel. Link here. Intel may do incredibly well. But, at the end of the day, it's a one-trick pony. But everybody needs their fabs. The problem: all the other fabs know that. 

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Putting It All Together -- January 29, 2026

Locator: 49868TECH.

The intersection of "the cloud," language models, large data centers, and agentics. 

AI prompt: 

I would like to go in a different direction. It's going to take a really smart CEO to put all these together without going to far out (think Elon Musk). And this may be impossible to answer. 
I don't know if you have access to Linked In but that might be a start; also Forbes. 
Elon Musk is able to lead / manage very different companies (on the surface): xAI. SpaceEx, Tesla, Boring, etc., but I'm sure he knows how to find the right team that can take a germ of an idea and that team "knows" what he wants. 
Jensen Huang seems to "get it." 
Intel CEO is focused on survival, and is pretty much limited to chips. 
Jeff Bezos would be an example, but he's past his prime, and is likely preoccupied with other things in life, but Mark Zuckerberg seems to "get it" in a different way than Jensen Huang. 
I've never been impressed with Mark Zuckerberg -- he seemed immature, had a steep learning curve, but he, too, seems to "get it," and willing to jettison something quickly if it is losing money (e.g., META labs / VR). 
At the end of the day, it seems Amazon is in the sweet spot, but Jeff Bezos really needs to hire the right "direct reports." Thoughts. 

 

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Cramer's First Hour -- First Ten Minutes -- WTI Surges Through $65 -- IBM -- Up 9% -- January 29, 2026

Locator: 49867CRAMER.

Know who I haven't seen lately (but I'm only on Cramer's first hour)? Mohamed El-Erian. 

OMG: MSFT is down 10%!!! 

WTI: up almost 4%; up $2.32; trading at $65.53. 

META: first ten minutes all about META and MSFT.

  • productivity increased by 30% by junior engineers; 
  • group of senior engineers, productivity increased by 80%
  • when AI queried -- see this post.

IBM: up 9%.

AI: Claude and Gemini both hurting Copilot (aka "clippy"). MSFT down 7% but much of that due to CAPEX spend projection. Meme: slowing cloud growth. Example of something that drives Microsoft users nuts:

TSLA: could open up 1.5%.

*******************************
Intersection

AI prompt: the intersection of "the cloud," language models, large data centers, and agentics. 

*******************************
4-IR

Re-posting from a few days ago.  

Seriously, I asked Google Gemini this question, tongue-in-cheek. Google Gemini apparently thought I was serious.

The AI prompt, asked tongue-in cheek:  Are some investors still over-thinking the Fourth Industrial Revolution?

See response this link.  

 *****************************************

AI prompt: just prior to the dot.com bust in 2000 or thereabouts, approximately how many web-based app companies IPO'd? 


AI prompt: of the 500+ internet-related companies that went public during the dot.com bubble who were the top fifteen winners?


AI prompt: some say Monster Beverage (MNST) was the best-performing stock in the last 30 years. Is that still accurate? 

I cannot recall CNBC ever covering this company. Obviously CNBC has mentioned it on occasion but I've never caught it on CNBC. 

 

 

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CAT -- January 29, 2026

Locator: 49866CAT.

AI prompt: 

Was Caterpillar lucky or is there a "timeline" that suggests the board and/or the CEO saw an opportunity and took it? 

ChatGPT: link here. 

 *************************

This chart blows me away:


 4Q25:

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Monster Well -- One Of CLR's Alfsvaag Federal Wells In Crazy Man Creek -- January 29, 2026

Locator: 49865CLR.

Seven months of production -- cumulative oil: 309,000 bbls.

  • first full month of production: 57,195 bbls
  • second full month of production: 74,893

The well:

  • 41020, drl/A, CLR, Alfsvaag Federal 7-31H, Crazy Man Creek, t5/25; cum 309K 11/25; full production profile:
PoolDateDaysBBLS OilRunsBBLS WaterMCF ProdMCF SoldVent/Flare
BAKKEN11-2025302534425259144025326551730155
BAKKEN10-2025313247532427209055990657981459
BAKKEN9-20253029019289832156356538522942371
BAKKEN8-20253136384365892381663012564184817
BAKKEN7-2025315375653593307138276480813168
BAKKEN6-202530748937500644748102414994061293
BAKKEN5-20253157195569344035570802688931290
BAKKEN4-20250000000
BAKKEN3-2025200832000

Completion and stimulation:

  • depth: 25120 feet
  • 58 stages;
  • volume: 324,971 bbls of fluid
  • proppant: 13,422,114 pounds


 


 

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Electric Utility Balance Sheets Threatened By Record Debt From AI-Driven CAPEX -- RBN Energy -- January 29, 2026

Locator: 49864B.

Venezuelan oil: it's just a matter of time before US companies start rushing to get back into Venezuela. Link here. 

But first US oil companies want assurance that their ventures won't be at risk, that Venezuela won't nationalize their assets some years down the road. Best protection: the US government takes a 10% ownership in oil companies that invest in Venezuela, or at least 10% ownership in new US assets in Venezuela, clearing demonstrating that the US is an owner and will step into protects its assets if a foreign government tries to take control. No different than the US government taking a 10% stake in Intel or rare earth metals. Marco Rubio could run those ventures in Venezuela also. 

Market: CAT before market open; AAPL after market closes. Something for everyone. Has Micron's share price "jumped the shark"? Is Micron stock now a meme stock?

Silver: is this the end of silver dollar collecting by mom-and-pop coin collectors? Seriously, a $100 for a single silver dollar? Sure my coin collection is all of a sudden worth a lot of money, but I never bougth silver coins as a investment but rather as something shiny to collect. It was a lot of fun. No more. Is this end of folks like me buying silver coins on a regular basis? What will this mean for the US Mint? What will this mean for coin shows around the country? 

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

WTI: breaks through $64. Trading at $64.14. Have the pizza deliveries started increasing at the Pentagon or is this all about the Fed keeping rates steady. Some pundits have suggested the latter; I nave no idea what the Fed has to do with this. Except perhaps the Fed confirming the US economy is "on fire" in a good way and (the) US demand will continue to increase. GDP is now well above 5.05. 

New wells reporting:

  • Friday, January 30, 2026: 51 for the month, 51 for the quarter, 51 for the year,
    • 42033, conf, Slawson, Rebel Federal 5-32-17TFH, 
    • 41007, conf, Hunt, Nichols-Trulson 156-90-10-14H-1,
    • 41006, conf, Hunt, Palermo 156-90-3-31H 3,
  • Thursday, January 29, 2026: 48 for the month, 48 for the quarter, 48 for the year,
    • 42034, conf, Slawson, Rebel Federal 3-32-17H, 
    • 39805, conf, BR, Mazama 1A, 

RBN Energy: electric utility balance sheets threatened by record debt from AI-driven CAPEX -- RBN Energy.  Link here. Archived. 


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