Davos: Tech Execs Sound More Bullish Than Ever -- Barron's -- January 22, 2026

Locator: 49783TECH. 

Micron: to buy a chip plant for $1.8 billion. Link here. 

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Amazon

Amazon: hits back at Walmart with new megastore; it won't be easy. Link to Barron's.  
 

• location raises more questions than answers: 

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Barron's: Tech Execs Remain More Bullish Than Ever 

Link here. 

Four takeaways:

• early innings; pushing back on "AI bubble" narrative
• almost impossible eve to rent a Nvidia GPU these days
• Larry Ellison's (Oracle's) business model
• AI demand is still incredibly strong
• arguing against large job losses
• enterprises now ramping up whereas before it was all consumer-driven

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Folks Using Chatbots To Manage Their Portfolios

I saw this coming. Link here. 

Chatbots being compared, top five, in order of performance:

• Grok 4 (x)
• Claude Sonnet 4.5 (Anthropic)
• Opus 4.5 (Anthropic) -- Anthropic's 4.5 flagship model
• Deepseek V3
• Gemini 2.5 Pro (Google)
• GPT 5.2 (OpenAI)
• GPT 5.1 (OpenAI)
• Owen 3 (Alibaba)

Thursday -- January 22, 2026

Locator: 49782B. 

As we go into Thursday:

• this weekend, not one person in north Texas "believes" in global warming. LOL.  Despite what many at Davos saying. 
• what's not being talked about -- the homeless in Dallas (DFW area) this weekend; that needs to be top priority; most of these folks are likely to be unaware what is about to hit
• busses to indoor sports stadiums would be my first option
• with light rail transit, most folks could get out to the airport
• Cuba: regime change by late summer, collateral damage; 
• Marco Rubio will run that country also
• Minneapolis has a serious problem, and it's not going to get better any time soon
• folks who think they don't have a dog in that fight, will start to see dollar costs spread across their neighborhoods 
• with AI, the gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots" will widen exponentially
• Trump remains a formidable negotiator
• Dallas: we ain’t seen nothin’ yet. NYC banks moving to Dallas.
• Gaza Board of Peace -- completed, signed, delivered in less than six months?
• wouldn't it be interesting if a Trump condition for not bombing Iran again is for Iran to sign on to the Gaza Board of Peace, representing Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas 
• Iran: what’s going on? It’s eerily quiet.
• the American military might is more than unprecedented -- 
• think about this: 150 military a/c flying into one of the most protected regions in the world
• accomplish an extraction of two individuals
• almost no collateral damage; only casualties appear to be enemy combatants
• not one US military a/c lost; not one US casualty;
• although on a much, much smaller scale, the deception / secrecy of timing of operation rivaled that of D-Day -- despite a gazillion people who would have leaked the timing if they could have
• we no longer talk about American air superiority -- the tag phrase since the Vietnam War; we now talk about American air dominance 
• and it's not just one branch; it's the unprecedented coordination of at least four uniformed military branches -- and we don't even know what the intel community provided. 

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Back to the Bakken 

WTI: $60.25.

New wells reporting:

• Friday, January 23, 2026: 37 for the month, 37 for the quarter, 37 for the year,
• 40078, conf, Devon, Cuda 15-27F 4H, 
• 39802, conf, BR, Carlsbad 4B, 
• 36616, conf, BR, Sandie 2C-MBH, 
• Thursday, January 22, 2026: 34 for the month, 34 for the quarter, 34 for the year, 
• None.

RBN Energy: Europe likely to remain a key outlet for US LNG as exports accelerate. Link here. Archived.

Buoyed by record-level feedgas demand and several planned export terminals reaching important development milestones, 2025 was a banner year for U.S. LNG. But while the U.S. has cemented its role as the world’s leading LNG exporter, a position it will likely retain for decades to come, the industry’s rapid growth has given rise to suggestions that it might become a victim of its own success. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll examine these near-term challenges and discuss where demand could increase in the long term to accommodate the additional LNG cargoes expected to hit the global market over the next several years.

In Float On, the first blog in our short series on LNG market conditions, we looked at why some observers have suggested that a massive wave of new LNG supply, emanating primarily from the U.S. and Qatar, could result in economics bad enough to precipitate a pullback in U.S. LNG exports. But we also explained why the fears of oversupply and U.S. cargo cancellations may be exaggerated, with the “great wave” some expect more likely to resemble a gradually rising tide. U.S. LNG export capacity, which now stands at about 15 Bcf/d, is expected to top 30 Bcf/d by the early 2030s, as shown in Figure 1 below. 

  

Another Anti-ICE Non-Story -- Definitely Not The Bakken -- January 21, 2026

Locator: 49781ICE. 

A reader alerted me to a news story that I missed -- so, to Google Gemini, to fact-check:

AI prompt: apparently there's a directive that's been signed that tells ICE agents they are allowed to enter a private residence without a warrant if their purpose is to arrest an illegal immigrant. First, is that true, that such a directive has been issued, and if so, under whose authoritity? What is the constitutional argument supporting that directive? 

Google Gemini reply: 

One can discuss the pros and cons, the ifs and buts, until the cows come home, but again, like so much that happens in Washington, DC, and is reported by The New York Times and The Washington Post, this, too, is a non-story. 

At worse, if you are a legal resident:

• there will be a knock on the door, during daylight hours (in most cases);
• you will go to the door and graciously invite your guests in for a cup of tea; and,
• then everyone will go back to what they were doing before that knock on the door. 

I recall that during the Revolutionary War, George Washington and his troops pretty much slept wherever they wanted.

We've come a long way. 

Two New Permits; Seven Permits Renewed -- Jauary 21, 2026

Locator: 49780B. 

HEB: San Antonio-based H-E-B was ranked the No. 1 grocery retailer in the U.S. for the fifth time in nine years,

 
Pet peeve: I'm getting tired of bankers like Jamie Dimon telling us a cap on credit card rates for one year would be economic disaster. It makes me wonder why Dimon, et al, haven't tried to raise credit card interest rates to 100% if such credit card interest rates are so good for borrowers. The number for tree huggers is net zero and 2°C; the number for bankers, apparently, is 24%. The Federal Reserve led by Jay Powell appears to still be looking for "their" number. 

Intel: earnings announcement scheduled for 5:00 p.m. ET tomorrow, after market closes.  

Siri: to become an AI chatbot. 

SEC: a lot of folks want the US government to get rid of the SEC. Trump, apparently is already doing that -- enforcement cases by "Trump's SEC" has dropped to record lows. Maybe if the anti-ICE folks weren't distracting the administration so much, other branches could do more, like the SEC and the IRS. LOL. I can guarantee you the American business community doesn't mind, nor the billionaires.

ChatGPT: is now using "age prediction" to restrict what minors see / read. 

Venezuela: US refiners are taking advantage of Venezuelan heavy oil. I never would have understood this had I not been blogging since 2007. 

Transformative: regardless of the price of Venezuela oil, more heavy oil means more runs. There has not been a more transformative president since FDR; before him Lincoln; before him Washington. But clearly Trump is doing it his way, and instead of reacting to events (like the other three) he is initiating events! Absolutely audacious. It is beyond amazing that he happened to be president during America's semiquincentennial! 

Greenland: apparently Trump will buy some parts of Greenland this year. If not this year, soon. Trump is taking advantage of the Mercator map. IYKYK. Source: NYT via x. The Times must be going nuts. But seriously, this is the big deal. This provides Taiwan and mainland China a civilized way of resolving differences. 

Trump's market: $700 billion was added to US stock market today -- market value. Link here. I think that is well beyond what the GOAT (Warren Buffett) ever did. We are truly going to miss President Trump when he's out of office. The political theater alone is priceless.

Jamie Dimon: major anxiety -- says a 10% cap on credit cards would be an economic disaster. For him. 

Intel: is just incredible. I am really, really happy for small, mom-and-pop retail investors. It's been an incredible run. This is absolutely the most fascinating company right now. Earnings to be reported tomorrow. This stock is popping at 10% on some days, including today. Disclosure: I own no shares in Intel. I am adequately "weighted" in tech stocks and am simply adding to existing positions. If I add a new tech position, it won't be a "chip" stock.

AI: tech CEOs at Davos sound more bullish than ever. Here's what Barron's had to say, link here. 

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $60.50.

Active rigs: 27.

Two new permits, #42657 and #31658:

• Operator: KODA Resources
• Fields: Grenora and Hanks, Divide County;
• Comments:
• KODA Resources has permits for two Amber permits, SESE 36-160-103, 
• to be sited 475 FSL and 457 / 492 FEL.

Seven permits renewed:

• Enerplus (6): Sleeper, Pin, Chef, MHA Split, MHA Duckpin, and MHA Trophy; Heart Butte oil field, Dunn County;
• Oasis: Lars, Cottonwood oil field, Mountrail.

USAF Cloud One -- An Update -- January 21, 2026

Locator: 49779USAF. 

Time to do some USAF Cloud One research. 

Link here. 

Website here. 

Did SecDef Pete Hegseth cancel this program? According to Google Gemini:

Yes, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth canceled the Air Force'sCloud One Next

resale contract in April 2025 as part of broader cuts to IT and consulting spending, stating it would save the DoD $1.4 billion by shifting to in-house services, though some question the true cost savings.

There may be a confusion with names, further search revealed this:

Cloud One Next (C1N) ishe U.S. Air Force's initiative to modernize its enterprise cloud environment

, evolving from the original Cloud One, by creating a standardized "cloud landing zone" with common services, tools, and security (like Zero Trust) to help mission owners migrate data and applications from on-premise data centers to various cloud providers. This multi-award contract program, with winners like Accenture and Leidos, focuses on architecture, application modernization, migration, and managing cloud services, aiming for a more automated, secure, and efficient IT infrastructure.

My hunch: this program isn't going anywhere. It may get a new name and the funding my come via different routes, but the program itself is unlikely to die. Unless Pete Hegseth wants to give the entire program to Microsoft or Palantir or some other publicly-traded company. 

I have not dog in this fight. This is simply for the archives.

However, having said that, I have no trouble with Hegseth canceling a program. It will require folks to justify the program and re-start it if necessary. In my 30+ years in the USAF, many of those years at headquarters level -- I saw a lot of programs that needed ot be canceled. Most were not.