How To Invest With Your Kids In Mind -- Barron's -- July 18, 2026

Locator: 51196INVESTING.

Is it time to pivot to ETFs only?

• SCHB
• SCHD
• SCHG
• IHE  

This is not an investment site. This is not for general readership; this is for me, and for my extended family members to know how I'm thinking. 

From the article: 

While this is the portfolio that should perform the best over time, Evensky, who made his reputation by understanding investor psychology, thinks most investors would sleep easier if they kept 10% in cash. They also could use that cash to buy stocks during market downturns.

I've never understood the recommendation that you keep 10% of your portfolio in cash as "dry powder." First of all 10% doesn't move the needle psychologically for me. 

Second, "percentages" in this case don't make sense. My multi-millionaire who lives next to me and thinks he's a middle class American and lives on $100,000 / year would have $1 million in cash in his portfolio. 

My answer to that (keeping 10% of one's portfolio in cash as "dry powder." Park cash into the most defensive ETFs possible and use new cash and/or cash parked in these ETFs to literally buy stocks every day. I concentrate on very good companies trading in the red when the overall market is up.

Link here.

*********************************
Disclaimer

Briefly: 

I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken and I am often well out front of my headlights. I am often appropriately accused of hyperbole when it comes to the Bakken.

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 something appears wrong, it probably is. Feel free to fact check everything.

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 Bakken, 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. Nvidia is a metonym for AI and/or the sixth industrial revolution. 

I've now added Broadcom to the disclaimer. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Broadcom. Now, I've added Amazon. And QCOM.

Longer version here.  

Saturday, July 18, 2026

Locator: 51195SAUDI.

This is not an investment site. See disclaimer. 

The Iran War has exposed what the Mideast countries really are: nothing more than medieval islands of oil (apologies to Winston Churchill, 1914; Richard Nixon, 1973).

Saudi Arabia: has pulled out of LIV (completely). Has cut way back on NEOM. Saudis think they can negotiate with Iran.  

47:

• Iranian revolution: 1979 -- 47 years ago;
• President Trump: 47th president. 

In all those 47 years, Saudi Arabia let a terrorist nation grow militarily unlike anything the world had seen before. Depended on the USA for protection. 

Link here. 

Link here.

Bakken -- EOR Update -- June 17, 2026

Locator: 51194EOR.

Sent to me this evening from a reader. Thank you very much. In a short, throw-away note I sent the reader -- I am very, very aware of EOR and the fact that there's a lot of oil left in the ground -- I remember the early days of the Bakken boom -- the Whiting folks telling us that only 1 to 3 percent of the oil was being captured, but they knew they could get to 12%.  

I was not aware of this article -- it says only 15% of the Bakken oil has been recovered. Completely believable. The amount of oil in any of these oil fields is directly proportional to the price of oil. So, maybe we'll see some of that oil considering what's going on in the Middle East right now. 

Link here. 

Query: The oil industry first started drilling four-mile and u-turn horizontal lateral wells in North Dakota Bakken. Accurate?

Reply:

A Cheesy YouTube And Nothing To Do With The Bakken -- July 18, 2026

Locator: 51193CALIFORNIA.

For the extended family and friends. Nothing to do with the Bakken or investing or Apple or anything else except California.  

This is so cheesy. But I can't keep from watching it. LOL.

I wear (my) nostalgia on my sleeves.

My wife, I don't think, has any room for nostalgia. 

But I showed her this video, link here, and was surprised how much she liked it.  

The video has been disabled except on YouTube. 

I didn't see California until I was 18 years old -- my freshman year in college -- six of us squeezed into a muscle car and drove out to southern California -- San Diego -- for Christmas break. I still remember the first that told me we weren't in Kansas any more: palm trees. 

Two or three years later I spent a month in northern California, UC-Santa Cruz, visited two great-aunts in Watsonville, and a day trip to Pebble Beach when one could still visit the course for free (or a nominal entry fee -- I forget). One of many highlights was visiting San Francisco for the first time, learning to use chop sticks, and eating Peking Duck for the first time. 

Four years later, I went back to California where I lived and studied for four years, but this time in Los Angeles. 

I married a woman who was living in Los Angeles at the time. From there, we moved back to northern California, Travis AFB, Fairfield / Vacaville, CA, where we lived for three years.

That was my last time in California for any extended period of time, but I've been back many, many, many times, visiting extended family and friends. 

I think I did it right. I saw San Diego and San Francisco first -- really, just short visits -- two weeks and four week, respectively. But then four years in Los Angeles -- where I really, really, really got to know California -- at least that part of the state. 

And that's why I enjoyed that cheesy video linked above. 

I said all that to say this. We have a granddaughter now who is going to school in northern California. At least we think she's going to school in northern California. In her first two years there, she's been on an archaeological dig in Peru, and participated in research in/on the Galapagos Islands. She learned to fly through a USAF flying program and a year-and-half later was back at Edwards AFB for an engineering research program, one of five USAF ROTC students from across the United States to be selected for the program. Later this summer she will be undertaking field training at Maxwell AFB, AL. From there she will be going to Australia for some other school-related course. 

She's looking to spend a year (actually half-a-year because that's all the ROTC program will allow) abroad in Singapore. 

So, we were talking last night -- that granddaughter and me -- and then tonight I was watching that cheesy  video linked above -- all about Hollywood -- and I'm so glad I "did" California in the order that I did -- San Diego and then northern California before finally ending up in Los Angeles. 

For me, Los Angeles IS California. Hollywood, Mulholland Drive, David Lynch, the Rose Bowl, USC football, Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski, California Institute of Technology, UCLA, LAX, Pasadena, Compton, Santa Monica, Venice Beach, James Dean, East of Eden, Griffith Park and the Observatory, Spock narrating a video at the observatory, Hollywood & Vine, Disneyland, Universal Studies, California Dreamin', Cher, the Monkees, Route 66, General Hospital, the soap opera, and LA County (General) Hospital. And the palm trees. 

My granddaughter's experiences will be the San Francisco experience. Completely different.

Link here. 

Investing -- What To Do? July 17, 2026

Locator: 51192B. 

A talking head whom I had never seen before was on CNBC near the close today.

He was a financial advisor of sorts whose clients were high net worth who had a habit of holding too much cash.

He suggested such individuals should use some of that "cash on the sideline," and invest in defensive stocks. Music to my ears. His defensive stocks:

• Copper -- mentioned first;
• then, he mentioned energy (oil); and, finally,
• agriculture. 

So, there you have it. 

I think one could add fiber-optics to copper. Not sure if that's defensive or just common sense. 

This is not an investment site.

*********************************
Disclaimer

Briefly: 

I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken and I am often well out front of my headlights. I am often appropriately accused of hyperbole when it comes to the Bakken.

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 something appears wrong, it probably is. Feel free to fact check everything.

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 Bakken, 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. Nvidia is a metonym for AI and/or the sixth industrial revolution. 

I've now added Broadcom to the disclaimer. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Broadcom. Now, I've added Amazon. And QCOM.

Longer version here.