Wednesday, September 1, 2021

Top Stories On CNBC News Break -- The Afghanistan Story Is Dead -- It's Over -- Resident Biden Can Sleep Better At Night -- September 1, 2021

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

First things first: AAPL hits a new all-time high. "Wolfe" reverses bear take. -- CNBC

Top stories on CNBC news break:

  • lights coming back on in New Orleans. First electricity coming from a natural gas power plant in local area. Noted: solar / wind not mentioned. Faux environmentalists need to picket this power plant immediately.
  • abortion bill in Texas. Directly challenges Roe vs Wade. Bill passed six weeks ago (?). Appeal being considered by US Supreme Court to take up the Texas law. Crickets. The big question: does the US Supreme Court want to "wade" into this issue all over again, but then, again, if it directly challenges Roe vs Wade, what can SCOTUS do? My hunch: they are reading the Texas law very, very closely to see if it violates Roe vs Wade. Just 'cause MSM says the bill directly challenges Roe vs Wade doesn't make that true.
  • I missed the third story: something about an evacuation. Not sure where: California? Afghanistan? New Orleans. It was probably related to California fires, but, like I said, I missed it.
  • Covid-19: Boston Red Sox -- tenth player on roster has tested positive; all-star shortstop. Taken out of line-up. 

Nothing about Afghanistan. This story is dead.

Toilet paper: there are reports today of spot shortages across the US as folks start to stock up again. My suggestion: order toilet paper on line. And while one is at it, SDA Laboratories markets 2 mg tabs, generic ivermectin, 200 count, for $16.95 as anti-diarrheal. I can't make this up. Prediction: we will soon see late-night television ads and "shopping network" market the Covid-19 bundle:

  • Tommie Copper Covid-19 face masks;
  • Tommie TP; and,
  • Tommie tabs (generic ivermectin)
  • order now and get two Japanese knives for free.
  • all for $99 in three convenient monthly installments
  • and a bonus Lambda-variant three-month supply for the first 1,000 to call in.

Notes From All Over -- Part 2 -- September 1, 2021

Sky-high electricity prices in Europe; now a top political issue in Spain (front page story in main newspapers); at an all time time; over $150 / MWh; more than double the 10-year average; link here;

  • the gas crunch hitting the UK and Europe now means prices are between five and six times higher than they were in September, 2019, link here;
  • the prices feed through to effect everything from household electricity and heating bills to the cost for industry;

Biden kills Keystone XL; US oil imports from Russia, link here:

  • 2017: 420K per day;
  • 2018: 310K per day;
  • 2019: 250K per day;
  • 2020: 440K per day;
  • 2021: 810K per day
  • an all-time high (EIA, Bloomberg)
  • double that of previous record years
  • is anyone paying attention; does anyone care?

Russia ranks second by petroleum exports to US in June, 2021. Link here. Or link to Tass directly. The link.

Got gas? Shale natural gas production in the Appalachian Basin reaches highs in first half of 2021. Link here. To EIA here.

Notes From All Over -- Why I Love To Blog, Reason #4 -- Part 2, 2021

Updates

September 23, 2021: summary of evidence here.

September 7, 2021: the Indian experience

September 6, 2021: a gedankenexperiment.

September 1, 2021: a very, very interesting, but very, very long article on ivermectin. Published May 1, 2021, this year in Mountain Home: Pennsylvania and the New York Finger Lakes.

Original Post

Ivermectin.

Ivermectin.

Ivermectin.

Yesterday I posted a long note -- thank you to a reader for sending me a note regarding the issue -- regarding Ivermectin.

One reader said he/she forwarded the link to that post "everywhere."

The reader must have sent one to a judge in Ohio.

Today, from ZeroHedge, an Ohio judge orders hospital to treat ventilated Covid-19 patients with Ivermectin. 

With regard to Ivermectin, let's take a look:

On a whim, a reader checked his/her formulary .... Silver Script/Aetna - I'm 65+, so it's an addon to Medicare.

Anyway, lo and behold, under "Anti-Infectives, Miscellaneous", Ivermectin is listed as a Tier 3 medication and a generic equivalent of "Stromectrol".

The Tier 3 level  is truly middle of the road.  It isn't subject to prior authorization, step therapy, limited access, quantity limits.  It's available mail order.  It's not classified as high risk.

So, it'd be under $50 bucks, but it's still a fixed cost to the patient.  The cheapest, Tier 1, are $8.  When you get into Tier 4 and Tier 5, the patient has to pay either 33% or 50% - no limit to the total dollar.

Is this why the government is so concerned about Ivermectin / Stromectrol? Apparently it's essentially an over-the-counter medication if I'm reading that correctly. 

Google it; easily available. $16.95 for 200 tablets. 

For investors: SDA Laboratories. 

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.

Looks like it's a 3mg tab

Notes From All Over -- Part 1, 2021

"Set to rebound": LOL. That was the crawler this morning on CNBC. [Note: I forced myself to watch. Jim Cramer apparently has the week off.] Yesterday the market barely, barely, barely closed in the red. I mean it was a very, very, very minor "pullback." LOL. A "pullback." Whatever. Today, CNBC has this crawler: the market is set to rebound. LOL.

  • Dow: up about 100 points, although it has dropped to 40 points in the green. volatility as the market opens
  • S&P 500: up 10 points
  • NASDAQ: up points

Reminder:

  • September is the worst month for investors -- CNBC
  • this is the first trading day of the last quarter of 2021

Most ridiculous meme: September is the worst month for investors.

NASDAQ has just hit another intra-day all time high. CNBC now trying to talk the market down. If they want to push that narrative, they need to find other folks to interview and they need to quit reporting all these new intra-day highs. 

WTI: has just dropped 1.7%; down $1.14; trading at $67.36

DXY: 92.44; down 0.19; all things being equal, WTI should rise; it didn't. It dropped. EIA's weekly petroleum report out in a few minutes.

TYT: 1.302%. Unchanged.

No Wells Coming Off The Confidential List -- September 1, 2021

Ivermectin: after my post yesterday on Ivermectin, a reader said he/she said she forwarded it "everywhere." LOL. Today, we learn that Ohio judge has ruled that hospitals in that state will require Covid-19 patients in ICUs to be treated with Ivermectin if the patients request such treatment.

Russia: we started posting this several months ago on the blog, now it's becoming a "thing" over on twitter energy feeds. Russia is now the second biggest importer of oil to the US.

Russia: limiting amount of natural gas it will send Germany via Nordstream 2. Who wudda thought?

Cost of energy: out of control in Europe. Again, we've been reporting this for months. And, again, like the Russian oil story, the cost of energy has become a "thing" over on twitter energy feeds. Cost of electricity in Europe is now out of control.

Cost of energy: several US states are seeing huge increases in price for electricity. Readers might be surprised when they see the list. Pending.

Bottleneck: another story we've reported many times over the years -- the backlog of cargo ships sitting off the coast of California has his another all-time high, and apparently the forecast is: this is just the beginning. See this link over at ZeroHedge.

Market: right now, there are four major US equity indices -- Dow, S&P 500, NASDAQ, Russell 2000. Prediction: ten years from now, a fifth index will be added: CW-40.

Afghanistan: yesterday we predicted that this story would disappear a week from now. Today, a reader told me that "Afghanistan" was the fifth story on NBC headline news this morning, preceded by a) military helicopter crash off coast of US; b) Hurricane Ida/Louisiana; c) rain in NYC; d) California fires; and, then, e) Kabul. This is happening faster than the US intel community predicted. LOL. When  the Kabul / Afghanistan story, the day after the August 31, 2021, deadline, comes in "after" the NYC rain story, one knows Resident Biden can sleep more easily knowing this has already become a non-story.

Step-up death tax: update pending. 

Market: September is the worst month for investors. How bad is September. On average, the "market" falls one percent during the month of September. Source? CNBC

Gasoline in Louisiana:

  • eight of nineteen Louisiana refineries remain closed;
  • 30 to 40 percent of gasoline service stations closed;
  • wait time for gasoline up to two hours

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Back to the Bakken

Whiting
: I have trouble believing Whiting has taken "all" its wells off line. NDIC has an IT problem and it's very possible the Whiting data has not yet been populated. I honestly don't know. But every Whiting well I looked at yesterday, and there were lots of them, show no oil production in 7/21. However, those wells all showed natural gas production and natural gas sales, so I have no idea what's going on with Whiting.

Active rigs": current data is reported at COB.

$68.74
9/1/202109/01/202009/01/201909/01/201809/01/2017
Active Rigs24*10646356

No new permits.

RBN Energy: Plains All American targets long-term growth from key shale infrastructure

The seven years since the heady days of $100/bbl oil in mid-2014 have been a tumultuous time for midstream companies tasked with funding a massive infrastructure build-out to support surging crude oil and natural gas production. 
Midstreamers have been buffeted by volatile commodity prices, waves of E&P bankruptcies, rapidly shifting investor sentiment, and, finally, a global pandemic. Perhaps no company has had a more challenging road than master limited partnership (MLP) Plains All American, which had to cut unitholder distributions three times over a turbulent five years as it built out a crude gathering and long-haul transportation portfolio focused on the Permian Basin. 
With its capital program winding down, commodity prices rising, and a new joint venture in the works, can Plains performance rebound and win back investor support? In today’s blog, we discuss highlights from our new Spotlight report on Plains, which lays out how the company arrived at this juncture and how well-positioned it is to benefit from the significant recovery in commodity prices and Permian E&P activity.