End-Of-Day Report Pending -- June 10, 2026

Locator: 50954B. 

US Central Command: 

There's something going on.  

Hegseth says "Central Command will be busy tonight."

ORCL: already one of the most indebted AI companies, Oracle stock plunges -7% after-hours as they announce plans to raise $40 billion via debt & equity in FY2027. Seed corn. 

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

WTI: $90.03. Continues to rise. Later: $93.52 (WTI).

Active rigs: 27.

Five new permits, #43017 - #43021, inclusive --

• Operators: Murfin Drilling (2); EOG (2); Devon Energy
• Fields: Dickinson (Dunn County); St Anthony (Dunn County); Parshall (Mountrail County); and, Foreman Butte (McKenzie County);
• Comments: 
• Murfin has permits for two Kinzel wells, SWSW 33-141-96, 
• to be sited 380 / 410 FSL ad 820 FWL;
• EOG has permits for two Burke wells, SENE 34-155-90, 
• to be sited 1550 FNL and 485 / 630 FEL;
• Devon Energy has a permit for an Albert South well, NENE 34-151-102; 
• to be sited 753 NFL and 928 FEL.

Two permits renewed:

• Hunt Oil: two Smoky Butte permits, Williams County.

Five permits canceled:

• Zavanna (4): four Hunter permits; McKenzie County;
• KODA Resources: one Amber permit, Divide County;

Oracle -- Holy Mackerel -- June 10, 2026

Locator: 50953ORACLE.
Locator: 50953ORCL.

Look at that cloud revenue.

Most concerning: FY27 guidance was unchanged. I assume that counts for the sell-off of ORCL after-hours.

Apple Got It Right This Time -- Barron's -- June 10, 2026

Locator: 50952APPLE.
Locator: 50952AAPL.

Link here. 

For Siri AI to "work," one must have a mobile device with an M-chip -- even as far back as "M1" will work. Apple is currently M5 in its newest products and by this time next year should be marketing M6. 

It's all about iCloud -- 

Apple is now being more realistic about Apple Intelligence. It’s turning to its longtime search and cloud partner, Alphabet, to provide the models. There are small ones that live in an iPhone’s memory and larger ones in the company’s Private Cloud Compute, servers which obscure user’s AI interactions, even from Apple. 

Both of those options optimize privacy over all else, a message that always resonates with Apple customers.

While Wall Street wants everything resolved now, Apple still has time to get AI right. Despite the first troubled launch of Apple Intelligence, iPhone sales rose 23% in the first half of fiscal 2026. 

AI isn’t yet driving device sales yet. Someday it will, and Apple will be ready.

Only about half of the iPhone installed base is able to use Apple Intelligence, according to Melius Research analyst Ben Reitzes. That means more than 500 million people will eventually need a new phone. Knowing Apple’s sticky customer base, they’ll have just one option.

It's not just AI. It's security and safety. Even if the EU doesn't agree, everyone seems to agree, this is where Apple excels. 

****************************
Social Security

Maybe it might be time to end COLAs for social security.

But until we do ...

Link here.

I talked about his offline with a reader some weeks ago ... this is a bigger deal than folks might realize. This is going to affect military raises and pensions also.

• The largest Social Security cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) in the last 30 years was 8.7%, which took effect in January 2023. This historic raise was driven by the severe, pandemic-era inflation that peaked in mid-2022.
• The top three largest COLAs over the last three decades reflect recent surges in inflation compared to the historically lower adjustments of the early 2000s and 2010s:
• 2023: 8.7%
• 2022: 5.9%
• 2009: 5.8% (Note: This 2009 increase was calculated just before multiple years of 0% adjustments occurred)

The best the active duty military ever did in the past 30 years was 5.2% in 2024. The second best was 2023, 4.6%. 

But look at this: larger percentage raises occurred in the early 1980s (peaking at 14.3% in 1982) at which time I was a senior officer on active duty. 

In many respects, many social security recipients need the COLAs the least of all socio-economic groups.  

 

 ***********************
A Musical Interlude

Link here.

The Invention Of The Microchip (1940s) And Jensen Huang (2020s) -- A History That Rhymes -- June 10, 2026

Locator: 50951MICROCHIP.

The "lay-reader" needs to read these two books concurrently:

• The Story of Semiconductors, John Orton, c. 2004; notes here; and,
• Palo Alto, Malcolm Harris, c. 2023/2024, notes here. 

Query:

From Malcom Harris' 2024 book this quote in chapter 3.2: 

This chapter is concerned with the technological, commercial, and ultimately geopolitical developments that bridged the gap between de Forest's Federal Telegraph triode and the microchips of Silicon Valley. 

It's a much shorter distance than you might imagine. 

I've not read the chapter yet, but it certainly sounds like this history is going to rhyme with the history of Jensen Huang and his pivoting from gaming to AI following the Covid lockdown. Thoughts?

Reply:

Chapter 3.2 in Malcolm Harris' book:
how does one go from light bulbs to computers?
Lee de Forest's Audion triode
microwave technology, David Starr Jordan, Palo Alto
footnote, page 248
Colossus
Enigma
the mistake: Germany did encrypt their messages before putting them into Enigma
ENIAC, University of Pennsylvania, first Colossus upgrade
Fred Terman returning home, to Palo Algo:

Stanford area's young stars deployed for war tech work in one way or another:
Litton to ITT in Newark
Hewlett to the US Army Signal Corps
Fred Terman to the RRL in Cambridge
Shockley to the Anti-Submarine Warfar Operations Research Group
the Varians to Sperry Gyroscope in New York
Hansen to MIT
Dave Packard was needed at home to keep Hewlett-Packard running

HP
Bud Hawkins, chief sound engineer for Walt Disney, who placed the first big HP order (p. 251)
movie Fantasia
see footnote, page 251

The tube's potential was limited; the replacement called Palo Alto home.

The Junction

p.259: Bell Labs announced the "grown-junction transistor" (or "transistor") in the summer of 1951. I was born in the summer of 1951. Wow.

Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley.

p. 261: best quote of the book -- "But Shockley is the founder of Silicon Valley the way a pile of excrement is the founder of a garden." I either read that quote for the first (and only) time here or I read it elsewhere. 

Gordon Moore, one of Shockley's best hires.

Reading a paragraph on page 261, one gets the feeling that the tech industry moved from California (1950s) to Texas (2020s).

Shockley -- Beckman --> Terman.

p. 262: the community was one military-industrial-academic transistor block: the Solid State.

"The traitorous eight," labeled by Shockley, included Robert Noyce, Eugene Kleiner, Julius Blank, Gordon Moore, others. -- p. 262 

In progress.
 

 

Money Market Funds -- From Last Week -- Update Will Be Released Later This Week -- I Believe This May Be A New Record --June 10, 2026

Locator: 50950MMFS.

Tag: money market funds MMFs MMFS my favorite chart 

I believe $7.89 trillion is a new all-time record.  

Link here.

TSMC Earnings -- Impressive -- June 10, 2026

Locator: 50949TSMC.

Tag: TSM.  World's largest chipmaker.  

Compare with April 3, 2026 update. Link here. 

Update, Phoenix, where it was said it couldn't be done:

Earnings: 

****************
McDonald's 

Continues to market incredibly good deals. Still my favorite fast food restaurant. 

McDonald's App as good as it gets. 

********************************
Top Books For Semiconductors

Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World, Malcolm Harris, c. 2023. Notes here.

The Story of Semiconductors, John Orton, c. 2004. Notes here.

Apple: Status Of Apple's American Manufacturing Program -- June 10, 2026

Locator: 50948APPLE.

Tag: AAPL 

Link here. 

An update: 

Wednesday. June 10, 2027

Locator: 50947B.

Pageviews: 7:25 a.m CT, Wednesday, June 10, 2026 -- 60,273,494. 

Inflation: with all the headwinds -- price of oil and Mideast war continuing -- the May results were really good for investors. 

Rare earth metals: a lot happening in this sector -- good news for the US. Generally I don't report these stories, I'm not interested. But that's just me. Link here. Link here. REalloys -- Greenland. Michael Kern -- REalloys -- Appalachia. DOD and MP Materials. Link here (an old leak).

Oracle: finally shows some life. Folks may want to look at the June 6, 2026, story -- currently highlighted as the top story at the blog. CNBC suggests ORCL will be the earning story of the week. If Oracle stumbles, watch out below. Options traders are betting a "blowout" quarter for Oracle. 

Great interview with Palantir CEO, Alexander Karp, on CNBC at 10:30 a.m. A reminder what "Frontier Labs" are. 

Amazon: expands trucking business.  

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

WTI: $89.59. No major events on the horizon. Weekend almost here. Trump not well accepted in NYC/MSG for Knicks-Spurs final. 

New wells reporting:

• Thursday, June 11, 2026: 12 for the month, 168 for the quarter, 325 for the year, 
• 42168, conf, Formentera Operations, Maverick-22-10-BND N611H, 
• 36279, conf, Enerplus, Aardwolf 148-94-03A-10H, 
• Wednesday, June 10, 2026: 10 for the month, 166 for the quarter, 323 for the year, 
• 41758, conf, KODA Resources, Stout 1336-8BH, 
• 36281, conf, Enerplus, Elephant 148-94-03A-10H, 

RBN Energy: as Venezuela ramps up crude oil output, more barrels reaching US refiners. Link here. Archived.

With the possible exception of the Iran war, there is no topic we’ve written about more in recent months than the situation in Venezuela, where the early signs of an oil-industry rebound can be seen, although plenty of unknowns remain about the country’s political and economic future. It’s only been five months since the removal of President Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces. Whether the country once again becomes a safe place for long-term investment — especially the tens of billions of dollars needed to revitalize the industry — remains highly uncertain, but crude oil production and exports are rising, with many of those barrels finding their way to U.S. refiners. In today’s RBN blog, we look at how Venezuelan crude oil exports to the U.S. have increased since the beginning of the year, how the U.S. import slate has changed over that time, and preview our latest Drill Down Report.

In previous blogs (and our first Drill Down Report of 2026, Round and Round), we’ve gone over Venezuela’s history and extensive reserves, the type of crude it produces, and the steps it could take to boost production in the short, medium and long term. In today’s blog, we turn our focus to how things have changed this year, as exports of Venezuelan crude oil have rebounded sharply. Shipments bottomed out near 100 Mb/d in early January (see Figure 1 below) following a steep December decline, then recovered to roughly 500-550 Mb/d by late January. After holding relatively flat through February, exports climbed to around 1.1 MMb/d in March before spiking to around 1.4 MMb/d in April and have hovered around 1 MMb/d since then. As noted in our new report, the rebound reflects a mix of policy and market shifts. The Trump administration replaced sanctions with a looser framework that allows more structured sales, opening the door for new buyers. Venezuelan crude has returned to the U.S. market and Indian refiners have stepped in as key customers, taking barrels that previously moved largely to China. 

Figure 1. Venezuela Crude Oil Exports. Source: Novi Labs