Chart Of The Month -- Fascinating -- A Harvard Case Study? Avis Surges 500% In One Month -- April 22, 2026

Locator: 50585AVIS.

Monumental short squeeze? One hundred percent of the stock owned by two investors? 

Link here. 

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The Book Page

Link here. 

The book of interest: Why I Am Not An Athiest, The Confessions of a Skeptical Believer, Christopher Beha, former editor of Harper's., February 17, 2026. 

Over at Amazon.  

I've not read the book. I have not decided whether to order it or not. 

Might be a book for a church book club to consider.

Among many accolades:

All this for only $25?!

Lewis H. Lapham, wiki. 

The review, the lede:

All Eyes On Ternes -- MacRumors -- April 22, 2026

Locator: 50584APPLE.

Link here. 

Interesting, I made this very same comment -- but didn't attribute it to Ternes - just made the observation that FSD was not one of Apple's core competencies. I was surprised to read that Ternes pushed back on VR. 

He is also reportedly ready to push back when it matters – Ternus apparently opposed development of the Vision Pro, which has flopped, as well as the company's autonomous car project that cost around $10 billion, but was ultimately scrapped.

This is what everyone is watching: 

Earlier this month, Ternus reportedly reorganized the hardware engineering division around a new AI platform designed to speed up product development and improve device quality. Ternus is said to be keen to deploy AI quickly throughout Apple to improve its operations, suggesting he is willing to make clear calls and shake things up where necessary. Ternus has also told employees he will remain closely involved in hardware engineering development, indicating a sharper focus on products. 

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Selection Process 

AI query: Apple CEO: new CEO. Who are the members on the Apple, Inc Board of Directors. Who do you think were instrumental in choosing John Ternes -- which members of the board? Tim Cook's role?

Reply:

 

One has to admit this is a very, very interesting board. The most important change -- Tim Cook replacing Arthur D Levinson. Interestingly, currently Levinson is also CEO of Calico, an Alphabet venture, link here, another example of close relationship between Google and Apple. And perhaps a reason why Apple is so interested in medical / healthy life-style apps on their wearables. Just a thought. 

 

Having said that, Arthur Levinson will remain at Apple, transitioning from non-executive chairman to Lead Independent Director effective September 1, 2026.  I am unable to find the name of the current LID, assuming there was one. It appears this is a new position. If so, the Apple board has gotten significantly stronger.

 

Hardware: Ternes likes hardware. Somehow Apple needs to get a new product out in front of the high-end retail consumer. What would be a nice new box for Apple to sell? Is it time for Apple to to partner with Canon? I queried Google Gemini. The reply:

 

It's hard to believe John Ternes won't take a different path than Tim Cook. Also at TechCrunch.

 

Apple likes money. Link here to appleinsider.   

Wednesday, April 22, 2026

Locator: 50583B.

BRK: looks like BRKB will have another miserable day.

Gates: as in Bill Gates. Legacy in tatters? Melinda knows. Gates Foundation gutted. Buffett walked away a long time ago. Link here. Will testify June 10, 2026.

Energy: link here. 

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $90.28. 

New wells reporting: 

• Wednesday, April 22, 2026: 71 for the month, 71 for the quarter, 228 for the year,
• 41791, conf, XTO, GBU Apollo 14X-12D-S, 
• 41380, conf, Enerplus, Hamilton 146-97-35-26-8H-ELL, 
• 41103, conf, Enerplus, Hamilton 146-97-35-26-7H, 
• 41102, conf, Enerplus, Hamilton 146-97-35-26-6H, 
• 41101, conf, Enerplus, Hamilton 146-97-35-26-5H, 
• 40793, conf, Hess, GO-Seaton-156-98-0607H-3, 
• Tuesday, April 21, 2026: 65 for the month, 65 for the quarter, 222 for the year,
• 41790, conf, XTO, GBU Apollo 14X-12G-S
• 41789, conf, XTO, GBU Apollo 14X-12H-S, 

RBN Energy: organic oil and gas reserve replacement continues to dip on conservative investment. Link here. Archived.

Energy industry cheerleaders tout vast supplies of untapped U.S. oil and gas resources, but increasingly limited volumes that can be practically and profitably developed — and their desire to follow a cash-return model — have left producers struggling to organically replace proven reserves. The percentage of hydrocarbon production replaced through finding and developing has been cascading since 2018 and dipped below 100% in 2025 for the first time in more than a decade. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll review 2025 U.S. E&P reserve reporting and analyze the trends that are limiting the industry’s ability to ramp up future output.

First, let’s define oil and gas reserves and review how producers report them. Proved reserves are quantities of crude oil, natural gas and NGLs assumed to have at least a 90% chance of eventual recovery under existing economic and operating conditions (see Square One). In contrast, probable reserves have a 50% chance of technical and economic recovery, while possible reserves have only a 10% chance of recovery. Oil and gas companies are mandated to report their proved reserves in their annual Form 10-K’s. The changes result from four factors:

• Extensions and discoveries, the most impactful, are reserves unlocked through the development of existing fields and the successful exploration of new properties. These additions are funded by the company’s annual organic — or finding and development (F&D) — capital spending. The level and effectiveness of this investment is critical to the long-term sustainability of an E&P. 
• Revisions of previous estimates generally result from changes in commodity prices — lower prices can make certain volumes uneconomic to produce, while higher realizations nudge volumes into the proved category. Poor or better-than-expected well performance can also change estimates of future recoverable volumes from a field.
• Purchases and divestitures reflect the net result of M&A activity.
• Production volumes are subtracted from beginning-of-year reserves and current-year reserve additions to arrive at current year-end reserves.

The key measures of the quality and long-term sustainability of a company’s oil and gas properties are the costs incurred in organically replacing reserves through extensions and discoveries — see the first bullet above. These include development activities, such as drilling and completing wells, adding infrastructure such as roads and processing facilities, water handling and disposal, and other expenses. They also include exploration costs for finding new oil and gas reserves. What producers call the F&D replacement rate is calculated by dividing their total organic reserve additions by their total production. F&D costs are calculated by dividing the total exploration and development costs by the volume of organic reserve additions.

As shown in Figure 1 below, reserve F&D replacement rates (orange line and right axis) declined from a high of 228% in 2018 to just 93% in 2025. The steep fall from the peak resulted from sharp cutbacks in organic capital investment as oil prices plummeted in late 2019 and cratered with the onset of the pandemic in early 2020. The rate temporarily rose on catch-up activity in 2021 but has fallen since. At the same time, F&D costs (blue bars and left axis) nearly doubled from the $6/boe range in 2016-21 to about $12/boe in 2023-25.

Figure 1. F&D Costs and Replacement Rates, 2014-25. Source: Oil & Gas Financial Analytics LLC