Two Wells Come Off The Confidential List Today -- June 23, 2020

Market: holds gains; futures look good.

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.

Corona virus: without question, I think folks are getting ahead of themselves. Although having said that, I am conflicted. I really have no desire to post my thoughts on how this will play out. I vacillate between two extremes. I don't even know whether to call it Wuhan flu, Covid-19, COVID-19, corona virus, or coronavirus.

Prisons: we've talked about this previously -- in Texas, for example, the number of cases reported surged, the number of cases did not. Link here.

Behind Bars: America's biggest coronavirus clusters out of America's eight biggest coronavirus outreaks -- seven are in jails or correctional facilities. That's according to a list from the New York Times which shows that the biggest national cluster is in the Marion Correctional Institution in Ohio which has 2,439 cases as of June 16, 2020. Another facility in...but look at the facility that is not a prison ...

Seattle chopped: to be fair, at the end of the day, at least at this point in time, I think the Seattle mayor and police chief handled the protests just fine, at least up to this point. I thought differently when the events first began to unfold, but given the hand they were dealt, they did a great job. I'm not being sarcastic, and I don't think the adjective "great" is out of place.

Falling, Julee Cruise

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs:

$41.45	6/23/2020	06/23/2019	06/23/2018	06/23/2017	06/23/2016
Active Rigs	12	64	65	58	30

Two wells coming off the confidential list: Tuesday, June 23, 2020: 56 for the month; 201 for the quarter, 428 for the year:

• 37202, drl/NC, Crescent Point Energy, CPEUSC Jean 10-9-4-157N-99W-LL TFH, Lone Tree Lake, no production data,
• 36874, drl/TASC, Equinor, Domaskin 30-31 XW 1H, Alger, no production data,

RBN Energy: crude oil's misfortune is positive for natural gas; or it it?

Lower crude oil prices whack oil-directed drilling, slashing crude production, which cuts associated gas output, tightening the gas supply-demand balance, and boosting gas prices enough to spur more gas-directed drilling — it’s a classic case of commodity market schadenfreude, where one product benefits at the expense of another. That’s the way it was supposed to work, according to various trading strategies touted a few weeks back. But here we sit, with crude oil prices still around $40/bbl and gas prices languishing at a paltry $1.66/MMBtu. Was there something wrong with the schadenfreude thesis, or do we have to look deeper to understand how prices will behave in this convoluted COVID era? In today’s blog, we’ll explore this question and what it may mean for natural gas prices in the coming months.

Notes On A Monday Night -- June 22, 2020

Corona virus pressure? Dak Prescott signed. Regular readers know my thinking on this one. This is a one-two contract story, so it's not over yet. Prescott signed a $31.4 million contract "under the franchise tag." He must report to training camp, or risk being fined. He and the Cowboys are still working on a long-term contract. Links everywhere; here's one (paywall). Same story, no paywall.

As it stands now, Dak is guaranteed $31.4 million to play one year, 2020 - 2021. He and the Cowboys have until July 15, 2020, to sign a longer term contract. If they can't come to an agreement, we will go through this again in 2021.

So, when will the NFL begin playing before full stadiums? My hunch: the day after the November, 2020, general election.

MLB: sounds like no one cares. 

Prop 65: Bayer, Roundup, cancer -- Bayer wins ruling blocking warming in California. Completely unexpected. 

Did anyone else catch this, or did corona virus drown out the news: NASDAQ closed at a record high, no doubt propelled by the likes of AAPL. NASDAQ up 1.11% to 10,056.48. Link here.

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Warren Buffett

For background, see these posts:

• June 10, 2020;
• June 9, 2020;
• June 8, 2020;
• the Investor's Business Daily article, June 8, 2020;

Since that story was posted on June 8, 2020, this imaginary portfolio:

• the four airline holdings mentioned increased from $2.7 billion to $2.942 billion, a 9% increase;
• meanwhile, AAPL holdings in this imaginary portfolio increased from $2.7 billion to 3.845 billion, a 42% increase in value (between March 24, 2020, and June 22, 2020);

 And, of course, the real question: would you rather be holding the four airlines or AAPL stock in your portfolio today?

This spreadsheet is unlikely to make much sense to anyone. I am posting it for the archives. 

The Buffett hypothetical spreadsheet, airlines vs AAPL:

	Airline	Shr Price: 3/31/2020	Dollars: 3/31/2020	Shares	Shr Price: June 22, 2020	Total: June 19, 2020
	DAL	28.53	675,000,000	23,659,306	29.45	696,766,562
	UAL	31.55	675,000,000	21,394,612	36.47	780,261,490
	AAL	12.19	675,000,000	55,373,257	14.64	810,664,479
	SWA (LUV)	35.61	675,000,000	18,955,350	34.54	654,717,776
			2,700,000,000			2,942,410,306
	AAPL	254.29	2,700,000,000	10,617,799	362.10	3,844,704,865
						902,294,558
						2,942,410,306
						30.67%
March 24, 2020		224		10,617,799		2,378,386,881
6/19/2020		362.10		10,617,799		3,844,704,865
						1,466,317,983

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All Caught Up

I'm calling it a night. Nights like these come only once in a blue moon, as they say. I am all caught up.

I have cleared my desk; everything is scanned, everything is thrown away or electronically filed. I no longer file hard copies but for some some very, very rare exceptions. Every bill has been paid, including bills that are in sealed envelopes but won't go out until July 1, 2020. I could pay all bills electronically but there are a few I like to pay the old-fashioned way.

There is nothing on television worth watching. I'm not interested in any of my DVDs. Our cars have all passed annual inspection and are registered for another year. Every member of the extended family is home or if not  home, where they want to be.

It's only 9:45 p.m. I don't go to bed until after midnight. Three hours of bliss. And how will I spend it?

Listening to Charlie Rich. I will start with Charlie Rich. From there, who knows where I will end up.

There Won't Be Anymore, Charlie Rich

CLR With Four New Permits On Indian Hill; WTI Settles Above $40 -- June 22, 2020

Active rigs:

$40.46	6/22/2020	06/22/2019	06/22/2018	06/22/2017	06/22/2016
Active Rigs	12	64	65	59	29

Four new permits, #37658 - #37661, inclusive --

• Operator: CLR
• Field: Indian Hill (McKenzie County) 
• Comments:
• CLR has permits for four Harrisburg wells in NENW 27-153-101, Indian Hill, all 1625' FWL and most about 450' FNL

An Enerplus well was resurveyed:

• 36275, Sturgeon, is correctly in SWNE 03-148-94 (was incorrectly listed as SWNE 03-149-94); this well is tracked here;

Notes From All Over -- Early Afternoon Edition -- June 22, 2020

Apple Special Event streaming now: https://www.apple.com/apple-events/event-stream/. One may need to be on Apple browsers to access.

1Q20 hedge fund top 30 picks: link here. You can easily scroll through #30 to #26, but to get to the top five you need to listen to a video. AAPL, by the way, was #10. Here they are:

5. Alphabet (GOOG) -- unchanged since previous quarter (shows up in the linked list above at #7; there is an error somewhere).
4. Alibaba -- unchanged since previous quarter
3. Facebook (fell one spot since previous quarter)
2. Microsoft (a huge influx since previous quarter)
1. Amazon -- huge.

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site.  Do not make any investment, financial, career, travel, job, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here.

NFLX: wow, all the attention was on AAPL. But there was more! NFLX "broke out." NFLX was up $14.32, up 3.16% for the day, closed at $468.04, with an intra-day high of $468.59. I first talked about Netflix as the next big thing on March 21, 2013. Wow, what a ride. NFLX was #16 among hedge funds, 1Q20, see above.

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Apple Special Event
WWDC 2020

Generally these events are live and streaming.

This almost looks taped.

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iPhone / IOS 14

App Library: organizing the apps

• all app pages are there but can be hidden
• IOS automatically organizes the app icons
• but these are only suggestions, and one can move them around

Widgets:

• new designs; new sizes;
• widgets can be easily moved to iPhone home page (among all the app icons)
• Smart Stack: AI will sort

Picture-in-picture video

• continuous movie watching while using the iPhone

Siri: new update.

• old Siri: completely obscures home page
• new Siri: no longer obscures other pages when being used

Yes, this WWDC 2020 is taped. 

Siri

• better dictation
• translations improved
• new app called: "Translate"
• operates completely off line so conversation is kept private
• conversation mode in landscape mode

Messages:

• memoji and groups
• conversations
• pin most important conversations; keeps them at the top
• groups: AI will bring order to chaos
• will help with "Family" group messages
• looks a lot like "Meeting" or "Zoom"

Maps

• new "Maps" rolled out earlier this year
• to more countries (UK)
• introduces dedicated cycling app to maps; limited to major cities worldwide
• previously car, public transportation, walking
• introduces EV routing; will route to compatible stations

CarPlay

• available in almost every new car sold
• re-thinking car keys
• digital version of car keys
• car can be locked/unlocked by iPhone; keys can be left at home;
• can turn off car remotely through iCloud;
• can share electric keys; let anyone drive one's car by "sharing" electronically
• 2021 BMW 5-series: first to support; next month;
• working on standards with industry groups

App Store

• "App Clips" -- small, quick to load,

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iPad OS 14

All about the Apps

Widgets: similar to IOS 14

Photo organization improved

• same approach used to organize notes, calendar, music, etc

Siri:

• again, compact design
• won't block out entire screen when being used

Search:

• much improved
• looks like google but can be launched from any screen, while using any other app

Pencil:

• goal: make "writing" as efficient as "typing"
• "Scribble" -- huge 
• wow: once one picks up an Apple Pencil they don't like to set it down; Apple took that and ran with it; can use Apple Pencil / handwriting everywhere;

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Air Pods 

Air Pods will route to any audio source

Spatial audio: immersive surround-sound experience: incredibly sophisticated; one needs to see the video;

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I'll Stop Here

13:03 CDT: AAPL: market is fairly flat, slightly green. AAPL is up an amazing $6.80, up almost 2%, now trading at $356.60 well into the WWDC presentation. This suggests analysts liked what they saw.

13:24 CDT: AAPL: hit another intra-day all-time high -- $357.67. Just before the announcement that Apple will make their own chip.

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macOS: Big Sur

macOS: Big Sur
biggest change since introduction of macOS X;

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Big Changes

Tim Cook takes the stage again.

A huge leap forward: fourth major change -- transitioning to Apple's own chip.

Renewable Energy In ISO New England -- June 22, 2020

Electricity is relatively inexpensive in New England today, but look at the contribution being made by renewable energy. It's almost embarrassing considering how much resources, time, money, advocacy have been poured into renewable energy over the years decades. And look how absolutely steady, dependable nuclear energy is.

Five percent -- that's the contribution being provided by renewable energy -- in the big scheme of things, is a rounding error, in the sense that if "renewable energy" somehow disappeared today, natural gas could fill the void, and probably at a cheaper rate once all the costs are factored in.

For ISO New York, the renewable energy contribution is even more laughable. In this case, "wind" energy really is a rounding error, coming in at 0.12% contribution. Not 12%; not 1.2% but 0.12%. That's almost not even measurable. Thank goodness for hydroelectricity, I guess. And thank goodness Amazon, Inc, didn't build in Long Island -- the electricity demand would have been huge and prices would have gone up significantly. AOC knew what she was doing when she stopped Amazon, Inc, from coming into her neighborhood.

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