Locator: 51664ECONOMY.
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Movie Night
Lost In Translation. Too many to count "lost in translation" videos on YouTube.
Here's one. Link here.
Locator: 51664ECONOMY.
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Movie Night
Lost In Translation. Too many to count "lost in translation" videos on YouTube.
Here's one. Link here.
Locator: 51662GIFTING.
Pageviews: just went over 91 million page views cumulative. Current run rate, 400,000 pageviews/hour.
The WSJ.
A must read.
I've added this article to my family blog on investing.
Locator: 51661B.
Iran: pundits "unhappy" that Trump calls the conflict against Iran "small potatoes." He's correct. Will the US hit Pickaxe over the three-day weekend? Tea leaves suggest that could happen.
Lebanon: Israel using their time and resources wisely -- taking out Hezbollah, one day at a time. We're seeing the transformation of the Middle East in real time.
WMB: up slightly today; trading near its 52-week high; pays 3%.
Brent: WTI will go into the three-day weekend above $91. Never thought I would see this price this high this long. MPC up a bit today; CVX down over one percent (profit trading or euphoria over Venezuela has evaporated). Bullison on Brent (see below); same with WTI.
Saudi Arabia, Humain: link here.
Broadcom:
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Back to the Bakken
WTI: green for the day; at close, trading at $91.48.
Active rigs: 35.
No new permits.
Seven permits renewed:
Locator: 51660B.
Quick connects:
Locator: 51659CATFOOD.
Oh-oh: like the dot-com era, we've now entered the "silly season." CNBC anchors appear to be interviewing each day and every day no less than dozens of CEOs of start-up companies that are offering the equivalent of delivering cat food treats to your doorstop. But with a tag that says "made with AI in mind. Your cat will love it."
Locator: 51657BYRNE.
Equity investing during wartime. The US economy hitting on all 12 cylinders and we get this, LOL:
It's been a long time since I've seen so much red.
Oscar race:
Link here. "Life During Wartime."
David Byrne: on the autism continuum, and that was before the vaccine controversy. LOL.
I always wondered when I would get a chance to post this video?
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As Good As Any Place To Post This
Karen out in Santa Monica, CA, led me down this rabbit hole. Fifteen minutes of my life that I will never get back.
Tag: CalPers California Natalie Winters
Didn’t BlackRock have securities compliant with DEI?
Yes, BlackRock historically integrated Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) metrics into its regulatory filings and investment stewardship policies. As the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock routinely files required securities disclosures with the SEC.
For years, these documents actively detailed its commitment to DEI and laid out clear diversity benchmarks for the companies it invested in.
Query:
Does Saudi Aramco comply with Sharia Law?
Reply:
Query:
CalPERS invests in a very, very small number of Shariah-compliant securities, such as Saudi Aramaco. Do any other states or public entities or the US government invest in such securities?
Reply:
Locator: 51656DEBT.
Rick Santelli: to retire October 2. He has one last jobs report to report.
From JPM's "Rear Window" report. Link here.
To what extent is the US Treasury even relevant even more with regard to debt issuance?
Locator: 51655CRAMER.
MARINE TRAFFIC link: link here.
Some would argue that Cramer is always "off." In today's context, Cramer being "off" refers to Cramer have the morning "off" -- not being on the air this morning. LOL.
I may do the same thing: take the day off.
Some last comments:
Jobs report:
Locator: 51654INVESTING.
I don't have a dog in this fight, but with all the great opportunities out there, I have no idea why mom-and-pop retail investors would consider investing in Boeing any time during the past few years.
For the past five years, a negative 3% return.
For investors, the glory years for Boeing investors was 2018 - 2019. Since then ... "max":
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Disclaimer
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. Now, I've added Amazon. And QCOM. Longer version here.
Locator: 51653JOBS.
Open borders: it would be interesting to know what the unemployment rate in this country would have been had Biden not opened the borders.
It's well known that there is a subset of workers (undocumented visitors) that are not counted and take jobs away from Americans. I'm not making a value judgement or whether the US could do so well without these undocumented visited -- I'm simply reporting a factoid that is seldom mentioned except among the MAGA folks.
Most interesting: this was one of the very rare times that the U6 number (total unemployed) number was also reported.
I've always felt that U6 was a much better gauge than the U3 number. I've posted that on the blog years ago when I actually tracked the jobs report each month. Now, I report it rarely. Mostly on otherwise slow news days.
New jobs: 162K vs 53K expected. 3.05x.
July report (the previous report) was revised and showed an even better report: 21K (positive) vs a negative 23K.
71K on average for the past three months. Some suggest the number is a) due to volatility; b) fake.
Unemployment rate: remains at 4.1%.
Incredible report.
We will see it posted later.
Even the "total unemployed" (U6) improved from 7.9% to 7.7%.
These numbers are incredible.
Steven Liesman, of course .... aguafiestas. Cherry-picking. Doesn't like the two-month report -- doesn't fit the narrative; now Steve goes back three months to show that "nothing has changed."
Futures fall after the release of the jobs report -- more likely that the Fed will increase the "Fed rate" in September. If next CPI report is even a bit "negative" with regard to inflation (which it most likely will be), the Fed will be forced to raise rates 25 basis points. Aguafiestas.
For the view from The NYT, link here:
Locator: 51652AI.
RBN Energy continues to set the bar on energy reporting. Scroll to bottom of the article. Note the shout out by Gemini.
States:
Unless I missed it, for some reason Project Kilby, 2.67 GW facility near Pecos, Texas, a joint venture between Microsoft-Chevron.
Reply:
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A Bit More
Thank you:
Thank you so much. No, nothing else. Yes, I mentioned on my blog Project Kilby seemed to be a sleeper. Announced In June 22, 2026, it seems to have been missed by a lot of folks. RBN Energy has a huge blog on it. But again, thank you so much for adding Project Kilby to the list.
Reply:
Locator: 51651AI.
Chevron-Microsoft-BTM Power-The Permian-20-Year-Agreement-Pecos-Reeves County-Energy Forge One-Joulent
Energy Forge One: 50/50 joint venture between Chevron and Joulent (a new energy company)
Kilby: a 50/50 joint venture between Energy Forge One and Chevron
This has been previously posted but might have been lost in all the clutter. This is a big, big deal.
It was first announced by Microsoft / Partner back on June 22, 2026, but seems to have been a sleeper. Considering the size of this project and novel financial / partnership features, it certainly didn't seem to get much press.
RBN Energy: how Chevron's Project Kilby aims to rewire the Permian Basin for the AI power era. Link here.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the global energy landscape faster than any technological shift in recent memory, but electricity has become the defining constraint. Chevron’s Project Kilby, a natural‑gas‑fired, behind‑the‑meter (BTM) power plant built specifically to supply a Microsoft‑operated data center under a 20‑year agreement, represents a strategic pivot for Chevron into a new business vertical: supplying hyperscale AI computing with dedicated energy infrastructure. In today’s RBN blog, we explain how this venture is a potential blueprint for how natural gas, land, water and industrial engineering could be combined to meet the demands of the AI era.
AI has strained the grid, interconnection queues stretch for years, renewable generation remains intermittent, and transmission buildout lags far behind demand. Hyperscalers need power now, at unprecedented scale, with reliability approaching that of mission‑critical industrial systems. In this environment, the companies that can deliver dedicated, dispatchable, high‑density electricity directly to compute infrastructure will define the next decade of digital growth.
Oil supermajor Chevron is forging the path to a solution by partnering with Microsoft to construct and deliver reliable, dedicated power for next-generation AI infrastructure in West Texas. Project Kilby is the first major initiative of Energy Forge One, a 50/50 joint venture between Chevron and Joulent, an energy company formed in June to supply electricity directly to AI-focused data centers. (Joulent was founded by investment firm Engine No. 1 in collaboration with GE Vernova.) Daniel Droog, Chevron’s VP of Power, points out that data centers are not just a project, but a systems engineering challenge. Energy Forge One integrates land, energy, water, supply chains, community engagement and infrastructure, a level of development at scale that few companies can match. A final investment decision (FID) is expected by year-end 2026 with first power expected in 2028 and full capacity likely in 2031.