Thursday, September 12, 2024

Shout Out To Weinberger's In Grapevine, Texas -- September 12, 2024

Locator: 48570TEXAS.

Apple: hearing aids. Link here.

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Back to the Good Stuff

Reddit is a national -- or global -- social media site.

The other day some subject came up that involved Texas politics.

Out of the blue, this post, off-topic:

Probably the best deli restaurant anywhere in the continental US.  

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The Book Page

For the summer reading program, two new books today:

The Horse: A Galloping History of Humanity, Timothy C. Winegard, c. 2024.

Geniuses At War: Bletchley Park, Colossus, and the Dawn of the Digital Age, David A. Price, c. 2021.

The prologue from Geniuses At War:

Prologue

V-1, V-2, Wernher von Braun.

Bletchley Park: 55 miles northeast of London.

Germans never learned of Bletchley Park during the war.

Bletchley Park (BP): home of the British signals intelligence agency, cover name, Government Code and Cypher School, or GC&CS. Main task: reading intercepted radio messages of the Third Reich's military.

WWII: a cryptographic war like none before.

German U-boats drove the need for radio signals.

About 1/3rd of the way through the war: Enigma code broken.

Hut 8: team led by British chess champion Hugh Alexander and 27-y/o Cambridge-trained mathematician, Ala Turing. BP able to read naval Enigma traffic temporarily in 1941 and permanently starting in late 1942 -- Turing's invention, the Bombe.

The conquest of Enigma was only a warm-up. A different section of BP, known as the Newmanry, would become the site of the greatest decryption achievements of the war and the launch of the digital age.

I was part of the US intel network at the turn of the millennium and assigned to northern England.  

Reading this prologue made me incredibly "lonesome" for that period in my life. Unfortunately I can't talk about it much, but it was incredible period for me, a life-altering event that lasted several years, and still affects me today.  A first look at the book suggests it's pretty "light" reading but I anticipate a very, very interesting read.

Cramer's First Hour, Part 2 -- EV Prices Plunging -- Thursday, Septermber 12, 2024

Locator: 48569CRAMER.

Unity was on my watch list, but I missed it.

Cramer's first hour: a mix of facts, factoids, opinions from various sources -- often not cited -- while listening to Cramer's first hour on CNBC. 

First story: volatility yesterday.

EVs: prices plunging. Link here.

R2P (in the UK); P2P in the US? Google it. I get a kick out of folks complaining about R2P at McDonald's when "everyone" uses R2P at their local gas station or when charging their EV.  Bottom line: MCD is going to solve myriad problems when they go fully kiosk. I don't think a lot of folks understand how to best use apps when ordering.

Nvidia CEO: the collapse of Intel as a company. Time to get rid of all CPUs and replace them with GPUs. I missed this conversation yesterday. 

Nike: erosion of Nike equals the erosion of Nvidia. 

Personal investing: yes, Sophia will be adding to a tech position today. AAPL up in pre-market trading. Whoo-hoo.

Gasoline demand: link here.

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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. 
  • And now, Nvidia, also. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Nvidia.

Cramer's First Hour, Part 1 -- Thursday, September 12, 2024

Locator: 48568CRAMER.

Cramer's first hour: a mix of facts, factoids, opinions from various sources -- often not cited -- while listening to Cramer's first hour on CNBC. 

HIV: Gilead now has twice-a-year injection that "completely" prevents HIV. Color me impressed.

McDonald's: still my favorite hamburger. And no one else offers a better French fry. Period. Dot. Don't go out much any more. Maybe once every six months. Unless I'm traveling. Without question, McD's number one competitor is Chipotle and long term the latter will win out. See fifth largest economy in the world below -- their restaurant? Chipotle.

I was pleasantly surprised by the McDonald's I visited last night. Footprint about half the size of a typical McDonald's. Couldn't see the kitchen. All kiosks for ordering. Frank-Lloyd-Wright minimalist when it comes to front counter ordering. McDonald's of the future? For me, it really, really works. It no longer matters what language is spoken. It's all pictures. And numbers less than 10. From Reddit today:

Grocery inflation, link here. If you're not seeing this where you shop, your grocer is price gouging. I shop regularly at Walmart, Target, Kroger, and Tom Thumb / Albertson's -- and it's amazing how much prices vary. One of the four is consistently pricier. 

US Latino GDP hits $3.6 trillion. Fifth largest economy in the world. Currently leads GDP of India, France, and UK; will soon surpass GDP of Japan and Germany. Should be a business conversation, not a political conversation. But when the US Latino GDP surpasses the GDP of India that gets my attention. American exceptionalism.

Trump's alma mater: MAGA acolytes should prefer Harris' proposal over that of Trump's. Link here. Deficit estimates. Deficit increases this much under each of their proposals:

  • Trump: increases the deficit by $6 trillion
  • Harris: increases the deficit by $1 trillion
  • but most MAGA folks are a lot smarter than Penn's Wharton so this projection won't resonate.
  • childless cat ladies and pet-eating immigrants live rent-free in MAGA minds. 

**********************************
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. 
  • And now, Nvidia, also. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Nvidia.

The Magnificent 7 -- September 12, 2024

Locator: 48567INV.

Links today from twitter. 

TSMC stock rises after Nvidia CEO praises the chip maker. Link here.

Comp sheet for the major tech companies now that 2Q24 earnings have ended. Link here.

Fifteen companies that have had the most impressive 2Q24 earnings. Link here. Most are tech, but not all. CAVA makes the list. Palantir listed first; Qualcomm made the list.

And it sold off! Say what? Link here.



Buy the dips. Link here.

**********************************
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. 
  • And now, Nvidia, also. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Nvidia.

Thursday! TNF -- Buffalo - Miami -- September 12, 2024

Locator: 48566B.

ENB: I haven't paid attention to the market in the past two weeks -- not to the extent I usually do. In periods of great volatility, I avoid checking the market, though it's hard to avoid what's going on when one surfs the net like we all do. 

Having said that, I was blown away by how well ENB is doing -- checking out the one-month-, six-month-, and one-year chart. Pretty amazing, considering. And on top of that, ENB is now paying 6.63%. The story over at EPD is similar and EPD pays 7.25%.

Mag 7: there's a reason there's a "Mag 7." Something no one else has mentioned. We'll explore it later today.

Telecom: Verizon to acquire Frontier Communications, the latter, an internet service provider based in Dallas. Expected to close in 2026; a huge number of hurdles before this happens.  If completed, the deal would expand Verizon’s fiber network service “Fios” into Texas where Frontier Communications currently serves multiple cities. On the other hand, Verizon does not currently offer fiber network services in any part of Texas, according to its website. Does anyone else find that simply amazing: Verizon does not currently offer fiber network services in any part of Texas.

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $68.48.

Friday, September 13, 2024: 32 for the month; 160 for the quarter, 484 for the year
None.

Thursday, September 12, 2024: 32 for the month; 160 for the quarter, 484 for the year
39932
, conf, Hess, RS-Feldman-156-92-1423H-3,
39931
, conf, Hess, RS-Juma-156-92-1131H-4,

RBN Energy: rising interest in Gulf Coast natural gas storage spurs a slew of projects. Archived.

Fast-changing dynamics in Gulf Coast natural gas, electricity and LNG export markets are increasing the value of gas storage in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi — or, more specifically, the merit of quickly injecting and withdrawing gas to respond to market swings. As a result, interest in developing gas storage projects with high “deliverability" rates has taken off, with billions of cubic feet of new storage capacity already coming online and a lot more in the works. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll begin a look at why so many market participants — power generators, LNG operators/offtakers, midstreamers, marketers and traders — are chasing the “extrinsic” value of gas storage and where the new storage projects are being built.