Wednesday, December 30, 2020

Notes From All Over -- Very Early Morning Edition --Top Story Of The Year: The Eradication Of "Seasonal Flu" In The US -- December 30, 2020

Updates

December 30, 2020: something that is not being widely reported and something for which President Trump is getting no credit -- the eradication of "seasonal flu" in the US.

Original Post

See this post for additional graphics and comments.

Now, this, today:

No way is Japan going to allow thousands of athletes and tens of thousands of fans to enter their country for the 2020ne Olympics unless global vaccination is incredibly successful. 

And Japan and Taiwan were recently doing so well. 

Coronavirus: statistics. By country. By state.


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Some Common Sense

Were animals responsible for spreading Covid-19? If link breaks, search: mink, Covid, Denmark.

Whatever.

US government says airlines can ban emotional support animals from flights. Multiple links. Forbes was reporting on this as early as January, 2020. It appears Alaska Airlines will be the first major airline to change its policy: no more comfort animals on flights: only authorized, validated service animals.

I don't know if I mentioned this on the blog; I mentioned it to a reader in an e-mail. On my recent return trip from Portland, OR, to Grapevine, TX, on Alaska Airlines, my row, six seats, middle seats unoccupied, four passengers and two huge dogs. Both very well behaved. I had no problem with them. But it was obvious these were not support animals. Their owners were simply bringing them along as non-paying "passengers."

Thank goodness for that empty middle seat. My hunch is that Alaska Airlines realizes that when flight operations get back to normal and that middle seat is occupied, there's no way large dogs can be accommodated. In my case, fifty percent of my row had passengers with large dogs.


Santa Claus Rally -- Day 5 -- December 30, 2020

Link here.  

Two days ago, the market had a huge day, a huge "Santa Claus rally." Yesterday, the market paused, but not by much. Again, we're seeing a "risk-on, risk-off" push/pull, much of it predicated on whether there will be a larger stimulus package before the end of the year (that would be tomorrow). 

Overnight, futures for the major indices were up slightly. The Dow pretty much hovered around 75 points on the upside during the night. Now, this morning about 5:00 a.m. CT, the Dow took a major jump, up 115 points in pre-market trading. 

At the same time:

  • S&P 500: up 16 points;
  • NASDAQ: up 50 points;

Most interesting for me, for multiple reasons: AAPL.

The buy point for many is $138/share AAPL. Two days ago it hit $138.79, only to drop back slightly yesterday. Right now, AAPL, in pre-market trading is up slightly. 

Later, mid-morning: market up nicely today but AAPL down, although it's recovering a bit. Still slightly negative after a negative day yesterday. Trading at $134. This suggests to me folks are taking profits in AAPL and buying in other sectors.

Tuesday, December 29, 2020

No New Permits; Six Permits Renewed -- December 29, 2020

Active rigs:

$48.00
12/29/202012/29/201912/29/201812/29/201712/29/2016
Active Rigs1356664839

No new permits.

Six permits renewed:

  • Enerplus (4): an Ole permit in McKenzie County; three "ducks" -- a Widgeon, a Scaup, a Pintail permit, renewed, all in Dunn County;
  • Whiting: a State Federal permit in McKenzie County;
  • Southwestern Production Corp: TMW 34-22, #25480, in Billings County. Link here. Southwestern Production has about 30 permits/file numbers, all of them in Tracy Mountain oil field; most of them are IA, TA, PNC, or otherwise non-producing. The company has only one well currently listed as "active."

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Distribution Of The Few Active Rigs In North Dakota

Notes From All Over -- Late Afternoon Edition -- December 29, 2020

Updates

December 31, 2020: two days ago we noted that, seemingly out of nowhere, the cases were surging in New York again. See original post. Now this today:

Original Post

Apple: I don't know if folks recall but on Christmas Day, Apple's iCloud crashed -- crash might not be the correct word -- better said, it appeared the iCloud was not able to keep up with the number of new mobile device (iPhones and Apple Watches, for the most part) activation, authentication, syncing, etc. Today we learn that "nine of ten US smartphone activations on Christmas Day 2020 were iPhones."  

Think about that. Nine of ten smartphone activations on Christmas Day were iPhones. 

Link here. Apple is now followed here. 

Minnehaha County: link here.  

Chinese flu watch: newly reported Covid-19 cases plummeting in the US. Link here. This is really quite fascinating. I predicted about a week ago that California would surge to the top of states reporting newly diagnosed cases. It took a few days longer than I expected, but here it is, the top five, California jumps to #1, Tennessee, previously #1, drops to #3. 

Meanwhile, Arizona moved into the #2 position, followed by Rhode Island, #4.

But look at this. Number 5 (#5) would have been Oklahoma but New York surged and is now #5. So, we either have the "top 6" or we still have the "top 5" with New York and Oklahoma tied for that fifth position. Not good news for New York when you re-join the "top 5" list. Florida is not far behind. 

Having said that, the "brown" map is getting very, very, very light. The only area that is really dark brown remains San Bernardino, California. 

Chinese flu penetration in the US: link here. 

  • North Dakota continues to lead the US with 12% penetration.
  • South Dakota remains in 2nd place with 11% penetration.
  • No one else is close. Iowa is 3rd with 8.7% penetration.
  • The US average is 5.9% with California, ranked #34, shows only 5.6% penetration. California has a long way to go. My recommendation: send all the vaccine to California.

Cases across the country are plummeting:

California: with regard to Covid-19, this state is the one of most concern right now (although the recent numbers coming out of NY are also of concern) and is currently the poster child in the US for "Covid out of control." Yesterday, the governor extended the draconian lock down measures "indefinitely." The graphics suggest California may have turned the corner, but it's early and very subtle:


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Miscellaneous

Quick! Pop quiz: when you are watching YouTube how often do you get advertisements for shipping your car cross country? You know, on one of those tractor-trailer automobile transporters. I will bet your answer is: never. 

So, today, while looking for a particular clip on YouTube I was rudely interrupted by one of those tractor-trailer automobile transporters ads to ship a privately-owned vehicle (POV) cross country. LOL. About one week ago, I went on-line, found a broker, and reserved a tractor-trailer automobile transporter to ship one of our cars cross country. LOL. The technology is amazing; the ability of "everyone" to track "everything" you do on the internet is simply amazing. I have no problem with that. I prefer targeted ads. 

Test: I'm going to see how good these companies are at tracking. I'm looking to buy two breeding ostriches for an exotic zoo-farm here is north Texas. Let's see if I get any targeted ads. And we move on. 

Drones:

Hess On A Roll In The Bakken -- Reports Another Huge Well -- December 28, 2020

The well:

  • 36681, drl/A, Hess, BL-Iverson C-155-96-2314H-10, 33-061-04445, Beaver Lodge, first production, 6/20; t--; cum 105K 10/20; huge well; FracFocus does not have frack data; recent production; note: absolutely no venting from the get-go -- very remarkable --
PoolDateDaysBBLS OilRunsBBLS WaterMCF ProdMCF SoldVent/Flare
BAKKEN10-20202522063221172027941405414050
BAKKEN9-20202423393233821200933004330040
BAKKEN8-20202217352173841119927632276320
BAKKEN7-20202838726385912611662240622400
BAKKEN6-20202322731810000