Schadenfreude -- March 29, 2025

Locator: 48392GERMANY.

This graph is meaningless -- okay, it's not meaningless but it's of limited value when provided out of context. But it sure is interesting. We knew Germany was in trouble but we did not know to what extent. Schadenfreude.

Link here.

UK Manufacturing Sector Worst Downturn Since 2008 — Source — November 1, 2023

Locator: 45906LNG.

America’s century.

Link here.

Yesterday, it was Germany.

Wow, this was predicted years ago on the blog. It is amazing how soon it happened.

American LNG exports in October, 2023, highest since April. By Charles Kennedy, so you know it’s a great story.

Tesla Update -- Significant Price Increases Across The Board -- June 16, 2022

TSLA: at open, down 4%; breaks below $670; trading at $669.01. Holy carbon, Batman! TSLA plummets. Down $46, could break below $655. I assume Cathie Wood is buying more. RIVN? Down 8%. But look at this: ELMS UP 200%. Later: TSLA now down over 9%, broke below $635 but according to a reader, Tesla is best in class. What does this mean for all the rest? Near the market close: down almost 10%. Trading at $633.

Coal: I'm still amazed, after all these years, folks still do not realize that EVs run on coal. 

Coal? Probably not, but one never knows. Probably not in my lifetime but certainly my grandchildren could see the Brits going back to coal. Back to the future. Back to Britain. Link here. Great Britain is "back-pedaling" on its climate pledges. 

Coal: link here. 

SecEnergy: time to buy an EV.

• "if you can't afford to buy gas, buy an EV" — US SecEnergy who is quickly going down as the US' worst SecEnergy ever
• "let them eat cake" -- some French queen

Tesla: link here.

• Tesla Model 3:
• from $54,490 to $57,990
• a $2,500 price increase
• Tesla Model Y:
• Tesla's most popular model
• a bigger price increase with both versions
• Model Y Long Range: from $62,990 to $65,990
• a $3,000 increase
• Model Y Performance: from $67,990 to $69,990
• a $2,000 increase
• Tesla also now sells a Model Y Standard Range, the new version build in Texas, but Tesla has yet to let people buy it through its online configurator and only offers it to local Model Y buyers in Texas on an invitation basis for now
• Tesla Model S
• this new price increase comes after a $5,000 price increase just a few months ago:
• from $99,990 t0 $104,990
• a $5,000 price increase today
• a $10,000 price increase over past few months
• no one is buying this car for global warming reasons or to save money on gasoline
• Plaid: remains at $135,990.
• Tesla Model X
• like the Model S, a significant price increase a few months ago, and now again
• from $114,990 to $120,990
• a whopping $6,000 price increase on top of previous price increase
• Plaid: remains the same at $138,990

See linked article for writer's thoughts on these price increases.

Notes From All Over -- Clearing Out The In-Box -- The Later Evening Edition -- January 27, 2021

I'm not checking the market until next week ... at least not on purpose. It's hard to avoid the market entirely but I will do my best. There's just too much craziness going on. I might check on GME. I don't want to miss the house of cards crashing. If not: "Houston, we have a problem."

Some random thoughts. 

First, something completely off-topic but lost in all the clutter of GME and AAPL today. 

Hinkley Point C. First two links : here and here.  

How did "we" miss this? From wiki:

Hinkley Point C nuclear power station is a project to construct a 3,200 MWe nuclear power station with two EPR reactors in Somerset, England. 

The site was one of eight announced by the British government in 2010, and in November 2012 a nuclear site licence was granted. On 28 July 2016 the EDF board approved the project, and on 15 September 2016 the UK government approved the project with some safeguards for the investment. 

As of October 2020, Hinkley is the only one of the eight designated sites to have commenced construction. 

Items of note:

• 2010: the Bakken was just reaching its stride
• UK was closing its coal plants and replacing them with nuclear plants, though windmills were getting all the attention
• ten years later: this is the first of eight and it is still under construction
  
• anticipated price: £20.3 billion
• anticipated completion date: 2025
  

Now this from The [London] Guardian: behind schedule and running over budget. LOL.

• project delayed
• delay will likely add another half-billion pounds to the total cost
• could delay start date by another six months
• reason for delay? Covid-19 (see linked article for explanation)
• launch is now anticipated for summer of 2026
• number of workers limited on site due to physical-distancing requirements: 5,000
• holy mackerel: limited to 5,000 workers at any one time!
• this is the second major cost increase for Hinkley in under two years
• back in 2019 -- well before Covid-19 -- EDF Energy said that delays would increase the cost of the nuclear plant by £2.9 billion
• so, now we're up to almost £4 billion in increased costs for a £20 billion project (my figures)
• the Guardian's figures: costs have risen by £5 billion in the last five years; it will cost almost double the amount to build as first thought in 2008, and it will begin generating electricity almost a decade later than the original start date of Christmas, 2017
• thank goodness for global warming; the Brits would be freezing by now
• interestingly enough: none of this extra cost is carried by British taxpayers. The rising cost of the project will be shouldered by EDF Energy, which agreed to a guaranteed price of £92.50 for every megawatt-hour of electricity produced by HPC. That price remains unchanged by the delays.

Much more at the link. My hunch is that most folks can see what's going on.

****************************************
Miscellaneous

Mergers, acquisitions: I was once told that when there were mergers and/or acquisitions, it was not uncommon to find one or both of the companies involved in a bit of financial trouble. Obviously that's not always true, but it must be considered.

Apologists for Tesla were falling all over themselves today trying to find/report the silver linings in Tesla's cloudy 1Q21 earnings report today. Remember, the P/E of Tesla is approaching 1,700, and "everyone" says Apple's P/E of 40 is way too high (whereas Microsoft's P/E of 37 is just fine). I think it was Jay Powell, by the way, who recently said that valuations no longer matter, at least not during the pandemic, which by executive order, government employees can no longer call "Chinese flu," which to the best of my knowledge, was never a real problem in the first place. Wow, what a digression.

Where was I? Oh, yes, mergers and acquisitions. Lost in the clutter of today's hysteria: 

A google search this evening did not reveal anything. 

EV manufacturers have two problems

• acceptance by the general public;
• competition from each other (circular firing squads)

This popped up in my e-mail earlier this week, link here:

The study based on 155 in-market consumers was published last week and concluded that three in five consumers found the F-150 pickup truck appealing — which Cox attributed to familiarity. 

The respondents were shown images of each vehicle, without brand and model indicators and minus product details. 

Curbside appeal: Ford was popular among those surveyed in terms of appeal, winning over 59% of the respondents. General Motors Company GM 5.14% Hummer Electric Vehicle took second place at 41%. 

Amazon.com, Inc and Ford-backed Rivian came ahead of Tesla at 39%. 

The Elon Musk-led automaker’s Cybertruck came in at the last spot at 19%. 

Willing to consider: In terms of consideration, Ford led the pack at 45%, with three-quarters of respondents likely to consider the vehicle. Tesla came in second at 32%, Hummer at 28%, and Rivian at 25%. 

“Tesla and Rivian R1T scored well with younger buyers, and Rivian performed well among female buyers as well,” said Vanessa Ton, senior manager, Cox Automotive. 

The non-traditional look of the Tesla Cybertruck didn't impress potential buyers, according to the study. 

Price, performance, design, and size matter the most to potential EV truck customers, while the brand name and work use were the least important. [I think "price" was listed first for a reason.]

“Ford leads in every attribute except tech advanced, where Hummer and Rivian are nearly tied for the lead,” according to Cox Automotive.

This is pretty interesting. A long, long time ago I posted a note suggesting that most folks buying a pickup truck are not buying them to haul things or tow things. 

Note above, repeating, the important part in red in case it was missed the first time:

Price, performance, design, and size matter the most to potential EV truck customerswhile the brand name and work use were the least important.

************
Today's Market Action

Wow, talk about excitement when the market dropped 600 points today. 

This is what the 600-point plunge looked like to some:

*************************************
Microsoft

Has anyone noticed no one sues Microsoft for stealing any patented innovations? Apple? Gets sued all the time. LOL. Racial equity and justice initiative. 

By the way, this is huge and I would not have known about it except for the fact my high school granddaughters told me this was a "big deal" in their government classes: "equity, equitable, and equality" all have very different meanings. I thought about that when I saw Apple using "racial equity" rather than "racial equality." 

Whatever. 

Whatever I think of Apple, every time I hear / see the word "Microsoft," I see this graphic:

Sunday, November 29, 2020 -- Part 3

Sports: wow, NFL today looks bleak until maybe the Sunday night football game. Breaking: NFL says Broncos' quarterback can't play today .... because ... he broke protocol. LOL. Shooting self in foot. Oh, I misread that. Not the Broncos' quarterback but all of the Broncos' quarterbacks. Somehow there must be more to the story. I must be missing something. If accurate, it should be a fun game to watch. LOL. NFL today. Broncos were to play the Saints later this afternoon. And apparently this game will be on Fox. My hunch? This will be the most-watched NFL game this year. LOL.

From Yahoo!Sports:

On Sunday afternoon, in Week 12 of the weirdest NFL season ever, the Denver Broncos will take to their home field without a quarterback. 

So they’ll reportedly turn to a practice squad wide receiver who has never played an NFL snap. 

And who, one month ago, was working a normal-person job. And who, when he last did anything resembling quarterbacking in 2018, completed two of eight passes for 2 yards – and one interception. 

With Denver’s entire QBs room ineligible due to COVID-19 contact tracing, the team will likely use Kendall Hinton, a former quarterback at Wake Forest and Southern Durham (N.C.) High School whom the Broncos signed to their practice squad earlier this month.

Egg on face: ESPN's Steven A. Smith said he was genuinely afraid for Roy Jones, Jr's life. Steven A. Smith was genuinely afraid Roy Jones would be severely injured if not killed by Mike Tyson.That was Friday, November 27, 2020. In fact: a draw.

Dividends: from Investopedia: Garmin (really?), Starbucks (okay, possibly), Target (okay, but share appreciation seems to be the bigger opportunity for Target), AbbVie (this one pops up often on many lists), and, BlackRock (I seldom see this on dividend lists). 

Perhaps for dividend growth but none of these returns impress me -- it must have been a slow day for Investopedia or someone was talking their book, as they say. Why start with a company with low dividend and wait for growth? Start with a great company with potential for growth that is already paying a nice dividend. Of the five mentioned above, none have a remarkable dividend except for AbbVie.

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.

Global warming, reality sucks: British coal plants are being fired up to meet "temporary" electricity shortfall. Remaining UK coal plants supply only 6% of the grid's electricity to cover power supply drop and cold weather. Link here. Sent by a reader; huge thanks.

Britain has fired up some of its last remaining coal power plants to help keep the lights on as the country’s wind turbines slow over a few days and the demand for electricity rises.

Three of the UK’s last coal power plants, operating at Drax, West Burton, and Ratcliffe, were called on to supply 6% of electricity on Thursday morning.

Coal’s share of the electricity mix was roughly double the share of wind and solar power in the electricity mix, and six times the average contribution made by coal plants in the final months of last year.

The coal plants are likely to keep running over the next few days, alongside a fleet of gas-fired power plants, before breezy weather returns to help meet the rising demand for electricity from renewable energy sources.

Jet Fuel Delivered Drops A Whopping 67% -- May 6, 2020

You've know we've had enough of the CDC and Wuhan flu when:

• the task force is shut down;
• Apple re-opens;
• California is forced to borrow money to cover unemployment benefits, but has enough money expand benefits for illegal aliens;
• when killer wasps become the new meme;

UK scientist who pushed "lock down," busted for having married girlfriend over to his house. Link everywhere. Best part of the story, from the married woman:

The woman lives with her husband and children in another home, the newspaper reported. Friends of the woman told the paper that she considered her household and Ferguson's residence to be one.

Comment: I lived in the England for quite some time during my time with the USAF. It was my impression the Brits had a different attitude regarding "affairs." Not necessarily all bad. 

Frost in May?

Hey, wait, don't go away! The weekly EIA petroleum report will be released within the next thirty minutes! Link here.

• US crude oil in storage (at least that which we know about): 532.2 million bbls (12% above the already fat five-year average for this time of year);
• US crude oil in storage increased by only 4.6 million bbls week/week;
• US refineries are operating at 70.5%; capacity:
• US crude oil imports: 5.7 million bopd; up by 410,000 bopd from the previous week; four-week average: 5.4 million bbls, 20% less than same four-week period last year;
• "Holy turbine, Batman." Jet fuel delivered fell by 67% year-over-year (four week average);

Re-balancing:

Week	Week Ending	Change	Million Bbls Storage
Week 0	November 21, 2018	4.9	446.9
Week 1	November 28, 2018	3.6	450.5
Week 2	December 6, 2018	-7.3	443.2
Week 3	December 12, 2018	-1.2	442.0
Week 4	December 19, 2018	-0.5	441.5
Week 5	December 28, 2018	0.0	441.4
Week 6	January 4, 2019	0.0	441.4
Week 7	January 9, 2019	-1.7	439.7
Week 8	January 16, 2019	-2.7	437.1
Week 9	January 24, 2019	8.0	445.0
Week 68	March 18, 2020	2.0	453.7
Week 69	March 25, 2020	1.6	455.4
Week 70	April 1, 2020	13.8	469.2
Week 71	April 8, 2020	15.2	484.4
Week 72	April 15, 2020	19.2	503.6
Week 72	April 22, 2020	15.0	518.6
Week 73	April 29, 2020	9.0	527.6
Week 74	May 6, 2020	4.6	532.2

Imports:

Crude Oil Imports
Week (week-over-week)	Week Ending	Raw Data, millions of bbls	Change (millions of bbls)
Week 0	March 11, 2029	6.4	0.174
Week 1	March 18, 2020	6.5	0.127
Week 2	March 25, 2020	6.1	-0.422
Week 3	April 1, 2020	6.0	-0.070
Week 4	April 8, 2020	5.9	-0.173
Week 5	April 15, 2020	5.7	-0.194
Week 6	April 22, 2020	5.6	-0.700
Week 7	April 29, 2020	5.3	0.365
Week 8	May 6, 2020	5.7	0.410

 
Jet fuel:

Jet Fuel Delivered, Change, Four-Week/Four-Week
Week	Week Ending	Change
Week 0	March 11, 2020	-12.80%
Week 1	March 18, 2020	-12.60%
Week 2	March 25, 2020	-8.90%
Week 3	April 1, 2020	-16.40%
Week 4	April 8, 2020	-0.22%
Week 5	April 15, 2020	-39.70%
Week 6	April 22, 2020	-53.60%
Week 7	April 29, 2020	-61.60%
Week 8	May 6, 2020	-66.60%

UK Halts All Fracking -- FT -- November 2, 2019

Link here.

The decision comes at the start of an election campaign where opposition parties are set to make environmental issues central to their attacks on Boris Johnson’s Conservative party.

The government said there would be a “moratorium” on fracking until “compelling new evidence” showed that it was safe.

Although ministers insisted until recently that shale gas could help Britain make the “transition” to a zero carbon economy, replacing imported gas from the Middle East, fracking has been increasingly targeted by a powerful new environmental movement. 

Apparently global warming not as serious as the Brits once thought. 

Solar Energy Debacle In The UK? -- Oilprice Article -- Top International Story Of The Year? Global EV Sales Fall For First Time In History -- September 12, 2019

I skimmed this article; looks like one for the archives.

Solar energy debacle in the UK.

Reported over at oilprice with a lot of links to other sources.

Archived.

Related: is this the beginning of the end for Tesla's solar business? Also at oilprice. Dated June 20, 2019.

Isn't this interesting? I can't read the story -- behind a paywall -- but the headline: global EV sales fall for first time in history. Link here. But a google search reveals many, many articles, most of which are accessible. A top story of the week.

Lies, Lies, And More Lies -- An Update On That UK Grid Failure -- August 16, 2019

From iceagenow:

A huge power failure in the UK on 10 Aug 2019 cut power to trains, traffic lights and millions of people at home. Two power plants caused the failure. The official report claims that the Little Barford gas-fired station in East Anglia failed first, then, 2 minutes later, an offshore wind farm (Hornsea) in the North Sea failed 2 minutes later.

This is a lie, says WUWT (WattsUpWithThat).

The truth as revealed by detailed research by blogger is that the wind farm clearly failed first, and caused the whole event. Like the captain of the Titanic aiming for a transatlantic speed record, the UK national grid were aiming for a record percentage of power from wind. They reduced the safety margin of grid inertia for this purpose, and the result was disaster:

... the blackout’s primary cause was the sudden loss of output from Hornsea wind farm, though the precise cause of that remains unknown at this stage: likely candidates are a failure at the offshore transmission platform where the voltage is boosted to 220kV, somewhere along the cable to shore, or at the grid connection point (at Killingholme on the Humber) onshore. The really damning evidence comes in this tweet that shows grid frequency based on 1 second data. 

So much more at the link. The story is tracked here.

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

The Sports Page

$330 Million Contract 

What A Great County

Probably Won't Catch Bryce Kneeling

Bryce Harper.

Last night's win.

The Cubs got yet another gem from Yu Darvish on Thursday night, and they led 5-0 going into the eighth inning.

At one point in the bottom of the ninth, the Cubs had a 99.4 percent chance of winning the game.

That's when the bullpen meltdown began. With one out, a David Bote error allowed the gates to open. Rowan Wick, Pedro Strop, and then Derek Holland proved unable to stop the bleeding.

The Phillies pulled to within 5-3, and with one out and the bases loaded Bryce Harper stepped in against Holland. First comes the power, then comes the glory ... a grand slam homer ...

And more:

Prior to tonight, the Cubs had won 489 straight games when leading by 4+ runs in the 9th or later, the longest active streak in the NL.That's also the first Phillies come-from-behind, walk-off grand slam since September of 1983. 

From wiki:

Harper won the National League (NL) Rookie of the Year Award in 2012 and tied for the NL lead in home runs in 2015. He was named the NL Most Valuable Player for 2015 by unanimous decision of the Baseball Writers' Association of America; at age 23, he became the youngest MLB baseball player to win the award.

As a free agent during the 2018–19 offseason, he signed a 13-year, $330 million contract with the Phillies, the richest contract in the history of North American sports at the time. 

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

Give Me Room

Once they go to EVs, Slim will have to change the lyrics.