Locator: 51124INVESTING.
Samsung earnings: incredible. 2Q26 profit, preliminary guidance: hit a record.
World's largest proposed data center is now officially dead: Virginia.
SPCX officially joins the NASDAQ-100: tomorrow.
Toyota: moving $3.6 billion Tacoma pickup manufacturing from Mexico to Texas. Wow. San Antonio.
Ford-Micron chip deal: you can howl at the wind, but AI is here to stay.
Locator: 51123INVESTING.
Trump Accounts: https://www.trumpaccounts.gov/.
Query:
Can one open a Trump Account at Schwab or must it be done through the Trump Account app?
Reply:
IRS Form
My take on the Trump accounts:
My hunch: unless these accounts open automatically upon the birth of a child, these accounts will be hard to sell.
The "529 plans: are a much better alternative.
They can be redeemed tax-free (traditional IRAs, upon redemption are taxed as ordinary income). Yes, they can only be redeemed for educational purposes, but money is fungible, the owner of the 529 plan can re-name the recipient at any time for any reason for an indefinite period, and, finally, "education" is very broadly defined. And 529 plans can range from very conservative to very aggressive plans. While we're at it:
Trump Accounts: way too complicated; particularly for the measly return for upper middle class and the elite. I wrote that before I saw this, link here:
Experts interviewed by Yahoo Finance were not convinced that Trump Accounts offered a clear advantage over similar options, like a traditional or Roth IRA or a 529 education savings plan.
529s, for example, allow earnings to accumulate and are not subject to federal and state taxes when used for qualified education expenses.
Zach Teutsch, a managing partner at Values Added Financial, said that a family would have to be "shockingly sure" that their child would not attend college to opt for a Trump Account instead of a 529 plan.
"The giving kids money aspect is generally good," Teutsch said. "The account structure seems ill-considered."
Traditional IRAs offer an up-front tax deduction, while Roth IRAs are funded with after-tax money, but the dollars are withdrawn tax-free in retirement.
Trump Accounts tax the money when it goes in and when it comes out. Additionally, IRAs — both types — offer a greater variety of investment options and higher contribution limits.
What's also confusing about Trump Accounts is that they allow for both after-tax contributions, like individual gifts from family members or parents, as well as pre-tax contributions, like those from employers.
In general, experts say that Trump Accounts have significant drawbacks compared to other options.
"It's not very attractive," said Ann Reilley, CEO of Alpha Financial Advisors. "It just seems like they're complicating things for no reason."
It's also noteworthy one must link one's e-mail address with the US government before opening / funding one of these accounts.
Locator: 51122BIGOIL.
From the link:
The oil majors are set for windfall earnings for the second quarter, which saw crude oil prices jump to a four-year high due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
The earnings at both ExxonMobil and Chevron are expected to have tripled in the April to June quarter compared to the first quarter, as the worst supply disruption in the history of oil markets crippled oil flows from the Middle East, triggered crude price spikes and heightened volatility, and depleted oil inventories, including in the United States.
Exxon is estimated to have booked $15.9 billion in adjusted net income, and Chevron’s earnings are seen at nearly $10 billion for the second quarter, more than threefold for both supermajors compared to their first-quarter profits, per analyst estimates compiled by LSEG and cited by Reuters.
The April-June earnings at all Big Oil companies are set to be the highest since 2022, the previous time oil prices hit $100 per barrel and above, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Locator: 51121B.
Trump Accounts: https://www.trumpaccounts.gov/.
Big Oil: anticipating windfall 2Q26 profits due to Hormuz situation. Link here. And here.
Reports, not confirmed:
Rivian: guided Q2 revenue to - $1.6 billion
BRK:
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Back to the Bakken
WTI: $68.66.
Active rigs: 23.
Six new permits, #43088 - #43093, inclusive:
Three producing wells (DUCs) reported as completed:
Locator: 51120B.
FIFA Soccer World Cup 26: FIFA may review the review of the "red card."
Market today: it's all about tech, today.
Apple extends partnership with Broadcom to 2031.
Bank of New York Mellon. With Robinhood, the bankers for Trump Accounts.
AI assistant: more and more -- references to folks having a personal AI assistant.
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Back to the Bakken
WTI: $68.58.
New wells reporting:
RBN Energy:hyperscalers taking steps to mitigate the impacts of their skyrocketing use of natural gas. Link here. Archived.
Many of the nation’s largest hyperscalers now acknowledge this simple fact: The need to rapidly ramp up the availability of around-the-clock electricity to power their new data centers gives companies like Amazon Google, Meta and Microsoft little choice but to rely heavily on natural gas-fired generation, at least for the near term. These gas-dependent plans conflict with long-stated “net zero” goals for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, however, so many of these same AI giants are taking aggressive steps to mitigate the environmental impact of their fast-rising gas use. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss their dilemma and a few of the approaches they are taking.
There are two primary drivers for U.S. gas demand in the late 2020s and early 2030s, namely the proliferation of new LNG export capacity along the Gulf Coast and a slew of new, energy-hungry data centers, most of them in a dozen or so key states. Due to the outsized role of these two markets, we’ve been blogging about them extensively — for example, in the past two and a half years, nearly 200 of our blogs made reference to existing or planned LNG export terminals and more than 100 blogs mentioned data centers and their massive energy requirements.
We also posted a Drill Down Report on data centers in April. The report’s title — Go Speed Racer Go — emphasized a critically important aspect of data center development: the perceived need among hyperscalers to get their projects up and running as quickly as humanly possible. And, along with the truckloads of Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and other chips required for each facility, these data centers need reliable, 24/7 electric power — and lots of it — from the get-go. Estimates vary, but it’s safe to say that data centers totaling more than 200 gigawatts (GW) of new compute capacity are under active development in the U.S. and that most of that demand will be met (at least initially) by gas-fired generation. (As we’ll get to, some also are building new wind, solar, geothermal and battery storage; others are turning to nuclear.)
A portion of that gas-fired power will be supplied from the electric grid, but an increasing share will come from onsite, “behind-the-meter” (BTM) power plants that serve data centers directly. Again, “speed to market” is a major factor — for the most part, it takes considerably less time to site, permit, and construct a BTM plant than a conventional, grid-connected plant because of the sometimes years-long queues for grid connections.
The catch for many hyperscalers — and there’s always a catch, isn’t there? — is that powering most of their new data centers with GHG-generating natural gas conflicts with the goals they very publicly established years ago to quickly ratchet down their carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and other GHG emissions and achieve net-zero emissions in short order. For example, Microsoft has said its global operations will be carbon negative by 2030; Google originally committed to net-zero emissions and matching 100% of its energy use with carbon-free energy (also by 2030) but has since backed away from those goals; and Meta and Amazon continue to stand bky their net-zero aspirations -- Meta bky 2030 and Amazon by 2040.
