Wednesday, July 3, 2024

Headlines -- July 3, 2024

Locator: 48042HEADLINES.

Retail:Saks is merging with Nieman Marcus with help of Amazon.

Politics and geopolitics: 



 AAPL:




JPM, big story on CNBC's "Half-Time Report" today -- must have cost JPM a lot of money this past year.


At the close:


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Fireworks Post Fourth-Of-July? July 3, 2024

Locator: 48041POLITICS.

Updates

Later, 3:07 p.m. CDT: Dr Jill wins. Joe says he’s staying. The waffling is over. This will be fascinating to watch. Now, let’s see what the pundits have to say.

Later, 11:45 a.m. CDT: this is the problem "we" have now. 

Americans do not like uncertainty or "what-ifs." Waffling -- Biden saying he is weighing options -- is a much worse situation for the Democratic Party as a whole, than just making a decision and sticking with it.
For Biden, who has probably already made up his mind, his waffling is not a problem. In politics, in fact, it is a fact that a politician doesn't not make a final decision until the last possible moment. So, for a lifelong politician, this waffling is not a big deal; it's part of the process -- a process he has been through a million times.
What I'm not seeing, because I don't watch television, is all the partisan ads (and news bites by right-wing outlets) looping videos of Biden at his worse. And that will only get worse and worse and worse while he is dithering. The opposition party sees blood in the water.
Obama --> "don't let a crisis go to waste" --> who's been on the campaign trail before? --> who would feel right at home on the presidential campaign trail? --> all roads -- or should we say, all presidential campaign trails -- lead to Michelle. Michelle doesn't need a platform. She would simply save the nation from Trump, just as Trump saved the nation from Hillary. Who comes out of this looking the best -- or has the most to lose -- Mr Obama, himself. If he hangs on too long in his support for Biden and it doesn't go well for Biden, then Obama loses his legacy. That's all Obama has right now: his legacy and, ironically, it's tied to the one man who Obama said, "don't underestimate Joe's ability to .... " Link here. To the extent this was apocryphal, I do not know.

Original Post

In politics, this is about as close as one gets to an official announcement:

  • unless this was taken out of context, no politician admits "defeat" or starts to rationalize "defeat" or a "decision to step down;"
  • The NYT would not have printed this story if the editorial staff had not already pulled their support;
  • tipping point: running out of time
  • two tracks:
    • how to convince Jill to get on board; how to get Joe to step down;
      • George S. could have the interview of a lifetime, but that interview won't be live
      • right now, the individual quickly becoming the most-disliked political person? Jill Biden. For lack of a better word, she's looking more and more like a gold-digger.
    • picking a replacement; lots of pressure on Michelle O. to run

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $82,84.

Friday, July 5, 2024: 7 for the month; 7 for the quarter, 343 for the year
40384, conf, Kraken, Wayne 11-14-23 2H,

Thursday, July 4, 2024: 6 for the month; 6 for the quarter, 342 for the year
40222, conf, CLR, Marshall 4-13H,
39892, conf, Hess, EN-Madisyn-LE-154-94-0705H-8,,

Wednesday, July 3, 2024: 4 for the month; 4 for the quarter, 340 for the year
40306, conf, Stephens Williston, Cabot 15591-0112-5H,

RBN Energy: on-purpose propylene doesn't come easy.

Fast-rising NGL supplies during the early years of the Shale Era fueled excitement about the potential for new petrochemical plants in the U.S., especially ethane-only crackers to make ethylene and other byproducts, along with propane dehydrogenation (PDH) plants to make propylene. While 11 new ethane-fed crackers have come online in the U.S. since the mid-2010s and the world’s largest — Chevron Phillips Chemical and QatarEnergy’s 4.8-billion-lb/year facility — is under construction in Texas, only three of the many PDH projects proposed over the same period were actually built. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll look at why the initial rush of new PDH project announcements resulted in so few new U.S. plants.

The Shale Revolution changed a lot of energy fortunes in the U.S. Pre-shale, the U.S. had become heavily dependent on foreign crude oil and was planning to import LNG to help meet natural gas demand, but with shale, the U.S. is now the world’s largest producer of oil, gas and NGLs and a significant exporter of all three. Plentiful domestic supplies of NGLs and purity products like ethane, propane, butanes and natural gasoline also helped revive the petrochemical industry and turn the U.S. into a global supplier of both petchem feedstocks and plastic resins.

North American PDH Units

Figure 1. North American PDH Units. Source: RBN 

Before 2015, the U.S. had a slew of mixed-feed crackers that were built to “crack” different feedstocks such as ethane, propane, butane, naphtha and gas oil to produce ethylene, propylene and other byproducts — the building blocks of too many chemicals to count. INVISTA’s Houston-area facility (blue pentagon in Figure 1 above) — built by PetroLogistics LP in 2010 and later sold to Koch Industries — was the only PDH unit in North America at the time as propylene demand was largely met with enough “byproduct” production — propylene output from mixed-feed crackers or refineries. There are now five PDH units operating in North America (more on those later).

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Chips -- Update, Commentary -- AMD To Build A Supercomputer? July 3, 2024

Locator: 48040TECH.

Updates

September 8, 2025: added moat-wide Broadcom and XPUs.

Original Post 

With regard to tech, chips, and investing, I consider this a big deal (for me). Note the usual disclaimer -- everywhere on the blog and also at the bottom of this page.

In the big scheme of things, I see:

  • NVDA: GPUs
  • AMD: CPUs
  • AVGO: XPUs (Broadcom) -- added September 25, 205
  • MU: memory
  • NPUs: multiple, proprietary
  • AAPL: SoC

Tabs at the top of the page:

The big source: wiki.

System on a chip: Apple and Broadcom graphics at wiki --

A quick perusal of all these sites, plus:

  • the blog, January 20, 2023;
  • Chip War, Chris Miller, c. 2022;
    • around 2022, I pivoted from energy to tech and developed an investing map based on that book

Putting that altogether ....

.... so, when I saw this, I was quite pleasantly surprised.

AMD: to build a supercomputer, 30x larger than the world's largest operational supercomputer? Link here. Press release from AMD:

Be sure to read the comments at the link. Particularly this one: https://x.com/WatchThisIWC/status/1808252744056426652. 

So, it that just idle chatter coming out of nowhere? It sure seems "pie in the sky," but then this credible source, tom'sHARDWARE:


Possibilities:

  • US public: only intel agencies, and AMD wouldn't be discussing this if that's where the offer existed
  • US private: there are only a few companies that could pull this off; think of the trillion-dollar market cap club: Amazon, possibly; Apple, no; MSFT, no; Musk (TSLA), possibly; NVDA, obviously not.
  • sovereign nations:
    • as noted above, US, no
    • Saudi Arabia: wouldn't surprise me
    • Japan: why?

The timing is incredibly interesting. An AMD press release following an international conference: see above.

The Frontier computer at wiki.

Then to come full circle:

Putting that altogether ....

.... so, when I saw this, I was quite pleasantly surprised. As an investor, this is almost actionable intel:

  • unlike global warming, climate change, the tech revolution is not controversial;
    • the tech revolution is very, very real
    • huge FOMO among sovereign countries, and large market-cap publicly-traded companies
    • unlike the dot.com bust several decades ago, "real" hardware -- not just webpages and dreams -- are being sold
  • the tech revolution is being "run" by huge, well-known, well-managed tech companies, not be start-ups that we saw during the dot.com bust
  • unlike the dot.com period when start-ups depended on huge amounts of hedge-fund support, the companies involved in the tech revolution have huge cash reserves; they have huge cash reserves and/or equity valuation that is not considered wildly out of line
  • this revolution is occurring despite high interest rates; imagine what happens when the Fed makes that first cut;
  • tech companies are growing into their evaluations
    • Exhibit A:
      • Nvidia: a p/e of 73
      • AAPL: below it's "usual" p/e
      • AVGO: 73; 10-1 split pending
      • QCOM: 27
      • INTC: 33
While writing the above:
  • MSFT hits a new all-time high;
  • AAPL turns positive again; if closes in the green, will set a new record; hits a new all-time high;
  • NVDA snaps several-day losing stretch and is now (nicely) green today;
  • MU up nicely today.

****************
Disclaimer Briefly Reminder
  • I am inappropriately exuberant about the US economy and the US market, 
  • I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple. 
  • See disclaimer. This is not an investment site. 
  • 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. All my posts are done quickly: there will be content and typographical errors. If anything on any of my posts is important to you, go to the source. If/when I find typographical / content errors, I will correct them.
  • Reminder: I am inappropriately exuberant about the US economy and the US market, 
  • I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple.  

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BR Activity In Hawkeye And Charlson Oil Fields -- The Washburn Wells And The Sequoia Wells -- Interesting Well Names -- July 3, 2024

Locator: 48039B.

This page won't be updated. 

See also this post of December 27, 2023.

In yesterday's daily activity report:

Approved for re-entry:

  • 17309, BR, Washburn 44-36H, bottom hole location - NWSW 35-153-95; sections 35 / 36 -153-95; Charlson

The BR Washburn wells are tracked here.  

  • 17309, conf/270, BR, Washburn 44-26H, Charlson, t7/08; cum 139K 1/20; off line 2/20; remains off line 4/20; back on confidential list; hasn't produced since 11/21:
DateOil RunsMCF Sold
11-20211350
2-2020060
1-2020285405
12-2019249306
11-2019267191
10-20192550
9-20190287
8-2019235394
7-2019265176
6-2019230265
5-2019229327
4-201923977
3-2019203683
  • 25655, 2,856, BR, Washburn 43-36TFH, Charlson, t12/13; cum 393K 4/20; cum 451K 4/24;
  • 25656, 1,104, BR, Washburn 43-36MBH, Charlson, t1/14; cum 366K 4/20; cum 428K 2/24;
  • 25665, 2,952, BR, Washburn 44-36TFH, Charlson, t12/13; cum 355K 4/20; cum 436K 4/24;
  • 25678, 2,976, BR, Washburn 41-36TFH, Charlson, t1/14; cum 450K 4/20; cum 544K 4/24;
  • 25679, 2,800, BR, Washburn 41-36MBH, Charlson, t1/14; cum 386K 4/20; cum 460K 4/24;
  • 25680, 2,544, BR, Washburn 42-36TFH, Charlson, t1/14; cum 373K 4/20; cum 426K 4/24;

The map: 

The "new" wells with intereseting naming style; it will be interesting to see the size of the spacing units. Having said that I think BR is hemmed in by other operators; not sure; haven't looked in a long time.

  • 37620, conf, BR, Hawkeye, Sequoiafill 1A, Hawkeye,
  • 37619, conf, BR, Hawkeye, Sequoiafill 1B, Hawkeye,
  • 37618, conf, BR, Hawkeye, Sequoiafill 1C, Hawkeye,
  • 37617, conf, BR, Hawkeye, Sequoiafill 1D, Hawkeye,
  • 37616, conf, BR, Hawkeye, Sequoiafill 1E, Hawkeye,
  • 37615, conf, BR, Hawkeye, Sequoiafill 1F, Hawkeye,
  • 37614, conf, BR, Hawkeye, Sequoiafill 1G, Hawkeye,

The horizontals of these wells will go south into the Hawkeye oil field, sections 4/9-152-95. There are already eight horizontals in those two sections. Seven more will now be added?


See this post of December 27, 2023.
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Tuesday, July 2, 2024

WTI Drops Back Below $83; S&P 500 Closes Above 5,500 For First Time Since JPow Highlights Inflation Progress -- His Comments Today Were Viewed As Hawkish -- July 2, 2024

Locator: 48038INV.

Tech: this is a tease. Sorry. But I have family commitments and won't get back to this until later this evening. [Later: comments posted here.]

I made a "huge mistake" with regard to tech. In the big scheme of things, it's not a "mistake per se" and to what degree it is, it's a "good mistake," if there's such a thing as a "good mistake" with regard to investing. Hint: it has to do with my comments regarding Nvidia and AMD and how they differ.
JPow: comments today suggest JPow is not going to cut rates any time soon. He seems "angry" about something. If not "angry," at least frustrated. Corroborates my commentary from a couple days ago.

My hunch: JPow is getting a lot of flack from politicos -- high rates are costing the government lots of money in interest. Based on his statements today. Think about it. What would the interest payments be if interest rates were 0% or 1% compared with 5% now?


AAPL: if "Fast Money" folks talked about AAPL today, I missed it. I saw most of the program, but missed the first twenty minutes.

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $82.81.

Active rigs: 39.

Five new permits, #40894 - #40898, inclusive:

  • Operators: Prairies Horizon Land, Phoenix Operating, Hess (3)
  • Fields: Big Butte (Mountrail); Skabo (Divide); wildcat, Stark County
  • Comments:
    • Hess has permits for three EN-McKenna wells, lot 4, section 6-156-93; 
      • to be sited 1308/1309 FNL and between 655 FWL and 721 FWL.
    • Phoenix Operating has a permit for a Jacobson well, NENW 19-160-98; 
      • to be sited 310 FNL and 2302 FWL
    • Prairie Horizon Land has a permit for a Grasshopper well, NENE 16-137-94, 
      • to be sited 332 FNL and 312 FEL.

Approved for re-entry:

  • 17309, BR, Washburn 44-36H, bottom hole location - NWSW 35-153-95; sections 35 / 36 -153-95; Charlson

One producing well (a DUC) reported as completed:

  • 40093, n/d, Whiting, Sanish Bay W 5293 34-1 5T, Mountrail County
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