Clearing Out The In-Box -- December 6, 2021

Football:

• record-setting college TD passer;
• his team loses to Wisconsin-Whitewater, 51 - 21, quarterfinal.
• Texas high school football playoffs.
• College "bowl" games: only one still MIA -- the "toilet bowl."

James Bond: license to kill fun.

Nvidia: soaring chip demand eases "deal setback." Link here.

Russia's wheat exports: tumbling. And Bloomberg says Russia sets next export target at 9 million metric tons. Needs to be fact-checked.

Free cash flow. OMG. OXY. Link here. 

CAPEX upstream and cost to find a new barrel of oil. Why is crude oil so cheap? 

Natural gas: prices plummeting.

Above-average temperatures across the US for next two weeks: link here.

Shale oil: why share prices not responsive to higher oil and gas prices. SeekingAlpha. Same old stuff.

OPEC:

• basket price: link here.
• production, Saudi Arabia: link here.

EU/UK energy crisis:

• winter weather in sharp focus as European gas stocks dip below 70%;
• Sweden quietly re-starts oil-fired power plant to alleviate Polish crunch.
• it just got worse; biggest victim so far in the UK when Bulb failed;
• continues to rage: power prices reading through to $150+ / bbl of oil;
• electricity prices across much of Europe surging; amazing to see how expensive it's gotten in Poland; link here;
• there is an explanation why even France, with all its nuclear reactors, has such high energy prices; helloooo .. it's part of the EU.

Port crisis continues. Update. Smoke and mirrors.

Investing:

• ETF fees.
• Reserve ratio definition. Or "required reserve ration (RRR)."
• Required rate of return definition.

Apple: ready to break out (again)? Financial Times. 

Transitory inflation: supply chain woes. 

Covid-19:

• the farce will never end.
• South Africa stats.
• weekly US "flu" report.
• Sixth Circuit Court frustrates Biden; Biden may have opened a can of worms not worth opening;
• prior to the Biden mandate: trending toward 750,000 vaccines per day being administered; now, trending toward 2.2 million vaccinations being administered daily.
• Covid-19: less dangerous and less symptomatic than the "common cold"; link here. Analogy: the Spanish flu; we discussed this at the beginning of the Covid-19 outbreak. The only president that could have handled this much better? Barack Obama.

Southern surge:

• no longer on anyone's radar scope; haven't seen a story in weeks on this issue;

The end of globalization.

• Omicron: final nail in the coffin.

Technology:

• six best note-taking apps for the iPad in 2021; I keep forgetting one doesn't need to type to take notes any more; can use the "pencil" and simply write.