Monday, November 16, 2020

Notes From All Over -- November 16, 2020

There's not enough news to justify another blog entry this early, but ..... I'm curious .... what are futures doing? Is there a chance the Dow will go over 30,000 tomorrow? Let's see where futures stand tonight. Generally, the 6:00 p.m. futures reflect the earlier closing action and don't reflect the trading for the next day. That we won't see until about 6:00 a.m. tomorrow.

But let's check: CNBC futures, 6:35 p.m. ET:

  • Dow: pretty much flat; up less than five points
  • S&P mini: ditto
  • NASDAQ: up about 68 points

Over at CNN Business, 6:37 p.m. ET:

  • Down: flat at 0.0000 change
  • S&P: up 2 points, i.e., flat
  • NASDAQ: up 57 points

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.  

My two cents: for those who have held shares in publicly traded energy companies through this debacle over the past four years, now is not the time to sell. I wouldn't recommend buying any energy shares right now except in peculiar situations, but I wouldn't recommend selling if you held out this long hoping for a turnaroud -- I guess that makes my general recommendation for energy shares, a hold. 

Repeating: 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.

In A Week Or So, Students Will Be Leaving Universities, Colleges For The Rest of 2020 -- Sports Commentator -- November 16, 2020

On a sports talk show it was just said that students will not be returning to their colleges or universities after the Thanksgiving break. One exception: the basketball players. The athlete-students will be coming back and the 2020 - 2021 college basketball season will be played. The commentator said there is just too much money in college basketball to give any thought to college basketball not being played this season.  

The big question, will students come back in 2021?

As Alice Cooper said, "school's out for Covid, school's out forever."

School's Out, Alice Cooper

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Chinese Flu Watch

Deaths / per capita, link here, set filter to "yesterday."

North Dakota continues to rank 9th where it has been for quite some time. The state is unlikely to move any higher for awhile, if ever.

South Dakota, however, has moved from 23rd (recently) to 19th today. South Daota should have no trouble moving up the list, getting ever closer to herd immunity.


Ramblings On AirBNB Going Public -- November 16, 2020

 Having just spent a couple of nights in an AirBNB this is quite cool. AirBNB is filing to go public

You know how folks reserve a block of hotel rooms for family and friends for a family reunion, wedding, memorial service, or graduation. In an era of Chinese flu, the AirBNB concept is so much better. 

With an AirBNB one rents the entire house, not just a single room. AirBNBs range from a single room (very, very rare) to dozens of rooms (rare, but more common than a single-room AirBNB. 

I suppose the size of a typical AirBNB is four to seven rooms with capacity for eight to twenty-one folks. And in an urban area there will be more than several AirBNBs. So, next time you are hosting a family reunion, wedding, memorial service, or graduation, consider lining up one, two, three or as may AirBNBs as you might need. You will be rooming with your own family and your own friends, as opposed to who-knows-whom you will be sharing a hotel hallway if you book a wing of hotel rooms. 

We just stayed in an AirBNB in Tucson, Arizona, the Wright House on 6th Avenue South. It was awesome. Five rooms. One to three people in each room. The wedding was held in the same house, and the reception was likewise held in the same house. Once we got there, no driving for 72 hours for this gala. And so much more ambience than a sterile Holiday Inn.

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. 

I don't know if AirBNB will be good investment but it will be fun to watch.

By the way, the only thing lacking at the AirBNB where we stayed in Tucson: no Keurig coffee machine in the downstairs kitchen / dining room area. 

So, anonymously, I sent the hostess, Maja, a Keurig coffee machine. According to Amazon, it was delivered to the house on November 12, 2020. LOL. True story. Anonymously sent. She will love it. I included a note that suggested she market the Keurig as a free carton of coffee -- 72 K-cups -- any party that rents the AirBNB for two nights. 

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Don't Tell Me I'm Not Being Tracked

Wow, I love this technology. I posted the Keurig - AirBNB note about an hour or so ago.

The first piece of spam I get in my mailbox:

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

Good, bad, or indifferent, I have not received a targeted ad for Viagra in decades (?).  I would rather have targeted ads than randomly generated ads based on my gender, age, ethnicity. I would be getting a lot of ads for lefse grills. I don't need any more. I already have one.

By the way, that coffee ad above was perfect for me. I checked out Angelino's. They offer K-cups for 30 cents/cup. Starbucks is 83 cents/cup. Some well-known names offer K-cups for 29 cents each. It's easy to comparison shop on Amazon. All prices above were taken from the Amazon site. I always have Starbucks available because some guests expect Starbucks, but for me, I pay 29 cents/K-cup. Imagine -- less than 30 cents for a cup of coffee.

BR With Three New Permits -- November 16, 2020

Monday Night Football: a 3 - 5 teams takes on a 5 - 4 team. One of the teams: the Vikings. I'll tune in for the start. Curious how long I last.

TCM:

  • 6:00 p.m.: "Jailhouse Rock," 1957
  • 8:00 p.m.: "The Diary of Anne Frank," 1959 (will put the current pandemic in perspective); 3 hours long;

Meteor shower: this will probably be the best show of the night

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Back to the Bakken

Director's Cut: should be released tomorrow, Tuesday, November 17, 2020, later afternoon. 

ICYMI: MDU increased its dividend for the 30th consecutive year. This time from 20.75 cents to 21.25 cents, or, assuming I did the math correctly, half a cent. If you own a million shares of MDU, you should receive ... one million x 0.005 = $5,000; record date, December 10, 2020, and payment date, January 1, 2021. What's not to like. I have somewhat less than a million shares of MDU. About a million less. I've held MDU off and on over the years, but generally have not been well rewarded. I guess my market timing is off. I didn't even do well with MDU during the height of the Bakken boom.

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.

Active rigs:

$41.47
11/16/202011/16/201911/16/201811/16/201711/16/2016
Active Rigs1457635538

Three new permits, #37974 - #37976, inclusive --

  • Operator: BR
  • Field: Little Knife (Dunn)
  • Comments: 
    • BR has permits for three Concord wells in section 10-147-97;
    • the wells will be sited 285' FSL and between 1694' and 1784' FEL

Six permits renewed:

  • Hess: six EN-Davenport permits in Mountrail County;

They're Reading The Blog -- November 16, 2020

From Yahoo!Finance today:

Morgan Stanley equity strategists are raising their S&P 500 forecast for next year, predicting earnings growth as the key force pushing equity prices higher.

“We extend our S&P 500 price target horizon to December 2021, and raise our base case estimate to 3,900 from 3,350,” wrote equity strategist Michael J. Wilson.

His team sees “a return to pre-Covid-19 levels of GDP by 2021 and returns to well above prior peak through 2022.”


On November 9, 2020, I wrote on the blog:
Market: the Dow was up a thousand points today -- rounding, of course. I haven't looked at the market in weeks (months?) and I haven't followed any news for similar length of time. I would not have known about the massive move had a reader not sent me a note. Wow. I don't have a dog in that fight any more: I don't follow the market and I'm not watching the news. The reader said it was due to good news, Pfizer and "the vaccine." In fact, I listened to that report while driving from Tucson, AZ, to Dallas, TX, yesterday. Excuse me but that was the most bland report I've ever heard. Much could be said, but it wasn't the "vaccine" news (actually non-news) that drove the market. I don't have a dog in this fight any more, but there's more to this than the Pfizer report. If my hunch is correct, we will see another 2,000 points on the upside in the Dow over the next couple of months. 

Using the 10:1 // Dow // S&P 500 rule: the new MS estimates easily exceed another 2,000 points on the Dow.

And no inflation in sight. 

Just a lot of debt. Which, apparently, no longer matters.

Good luck to all.

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.