Mohacsy's Safe Portfolio Member Forum

[santafe2]

And if you're killed by a Japanese / NASA battery, it's very personal. I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but someone is going to get whacked by space junk and then it will keep CNN in business for another decade.

[dexprs]

Just before the close opened a long position in COOP.
Some of the bigger trades today were:
Sold Calls: MTW 30, PFE 15.
Sold Puts: MO 20, URI 2 rt., ALGN 4, VLO 6, PEP 5.
Have a good weekend everyone!

[dexprs]

Replaced AZZ with VKTX as I gather there could be something brewing in the latter, judging by the options market.

[dexprs]

Closed AZZ for a 10% loss, it is heading in the wrong direction.

[dexprs]

“The total mass of the batteries is estimated at 2.6 metric tonnes, most of which may burn up during the reentry,” ESA stated. “While some parts may reach the ground, the casualty risk—the likelihood of a person being hit—is very low.”
Unemployment statistics are only numbers, however if you are unemployed it is personal.

[dexprs]

Closing INTC with a loss fast was a good example of the first loss is the least loss. It is heading down below 30 again. Comfort zone? Lol.

[santafe2]

When space based equipment is no longer functioning, they just toss it out and let it orbit the earth until the atmosphere brings it down. Earlier this month two pounds of space junk came screaming through the roof and then the floor of a home in Naples Florida. It's going to get worse. It's all fun and games until they kill someone or worse, hit a plane in flight or a ship on the ocean. Story below:

Space-Junk Strike in Florida Signals New Era of Orbital Debris

Three years ago astronauts threw out the largest piece of trash ever tossed from the International Space Station. Now some of it has punched a hole through a house in Naples, Fla.

In what may be judged as a bizarre and twisted case of “breaking and entering,” last month a plummeting cylindrical object weighing nearly two pounds hit the roof of Alejandro Otero’s home in Naples, Fla., smashed through a ceiling and punched through a floor.

When this story was first published, this high-speed home invasion from the heavens had yet to be officially verified as a space junk strike. Now, however, after retrieving and studying the object, NASA has confirmed it is debris from trash tossed three years ago from the International Space Station (ISS) that subsequently reentered Earth’s atmosphere. As the latest close encounter with clutter from the cosmos, the event has already sparked technical and legal banter about the worrisome escalation of Earth-circling, human-made refuse.

TAKING OUT THE TRASH
Back in March 2021 astronauts onboard the ISS used a Canada-supplied robotic arm to tip an abnormally hefty hunk of refuse into space—the heaviest object ever jettisoned from the space station, in fact. NASA explained at the time that the trash, called Exposed Pallet 9 (EP9), had the approximate mass of a large SUV “and is safely moving away from the station and will orbit Earth between two to four years before burning up harmlessly in the atmosphere.”

After being ferried to the ISS via a Japanese cargo ship the previous year, EP9 had been filled with 5,800 pounds of spent nickel-hydrogen batteries. But a series of logistical complications—chief among them the fact that the battery pallet could only fit in Japan’s cargo ships, of which there were no more to fly—left EP9 stranded, taking up precious space on the ISS. So NASA decided to throw it overboard. After a few years of drifting aimlessly through space, EP9 finally met its fiery fate on March 8 when its decaying orbit sent it nose-diving into Earth’s atmosphere over the Gulf of Mexico.

The European Space Agency’s Space Debris and Independent Safety Offices closely monitored the reentry of the pallet of used ISS batteries. These batteries were to undergo “a natural reentry,” said ESA in a pre-reentry communiqué, using a twist on the term for an uncontrolled plunge from space.

“The total mass of the batteries is estimated at 2.6 metric tonnes, most of which may burn up during the reentry,” ESA stated. “While some parts may reach the ground, the casualty risk—the likelihood of a person being hit—is very low.”

A SERIOUS CANDIDATE
Before NASA’s analysis was complete, Marco Langbroek, a devoted satellite tracker and a faculty member in aerospace engineering at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, told Scientific American that it certainly looked possible that the object in Florida stemmed from the reentry of the EP9 battery pack.

Langbroek had reviewed EP9’s ground track as well as the reported timing and trajectory of its reentry. Handily, there was also a time-stamped security video and sound clip of the object that pierced the homeowner’s roof.

After entering the atmosphere and losing much of its speed, the debris piece probably spent a couple of minutes in subsonic free fall, Langbroek said.

“Reentries take multiple minutes, with the object fragmenting and the reentering fragments spreading along the trajectory over a stretch that can be hundreds of miles long,” he added. “Given the force of impact, I think this is a serious candidate for potential debris from this [EP9] reentry. It might well be a part of one of the nickel-hydrogen battery cells.”

At that time, Tobias Lips, managing director of satellite aerodynamics company Hyperschall Technologie Göttingen in Germany, told Scientific American that there was not much guesswork here. As a specialist in reentry analysis, he robustly simulated the fall of the ISS pallet of batteries days before the actual event occurred using “moderately conservative” rather than “worst-case” assumptions. Even so, his results suggested more than 130 fragments would survive to reach the surface. That’s “about 10 times more than for a typical reentry object of this size and mass,” he said.

Most of those predicted fragments, Lips said, would be cylinders made of Inconel—a high-strength nickel-chromium superalloy often used in aerospace applications. Nearly 350 such cylinders were in the EP9 pallet’s payload of spent batteries, where they served as power cells. “The fragment found in Naples, Florida, is most likely one of these cylinders,” Lips said.

“The recovered fragment was reported to be about two pounds in weight. Thirty-eight percent of my [simulation’s] surviving fragments are within this mass class,” he explained. “I would be very surprised if investigations of this fragment don’t confirm it being a battery cell from the ISS.”

NASA’S ANALYSIS
After NASA officials, in cooperation with Otero, took custody of the object for closer study at the agency’s nearby Kennedy Space Center, space agency spokesperson Joshua Finch told Scientific American that “more information will be available once the analysis is complete.”

At that time, Mike Weaver, a space debris expert at the Aerospace Corporation, told Scientific American that NASA’s analysis would likely begin with a rigorous examination of the object’s trajectory—as well as that of EP9—tracked against the locations of any other recovered debris.

“In this case, the location of the object in Naples, Florida, appears to be consistent with the timing and the location of the ISS battery pallet reentry,” Weaver said. “However, this is not sufficient to positively identify an object.”

Alongside the trajectory work, scrutinizing the candidate chunk of space junk for signs of scorching, melting and other effects of reentry heating would be desirable, Weaver said. Metallurgical analysis to determine its composition could be useful as well.

Sometimes serial numbers or part numbers can be found on an object, Weaver noted, which would rapidly simplify things.

Subsequently, in the April 15 blog post in which NASA announced the completion of its analysis, the agency confirmed that the item was in fact an Inconel cylinder. But rather than being part of a battery, the cylinder was a stanchion from the space agency’s “flight support equipment used to mount the batteries on the cargo pallet.”

WHAT GOES UP MUST COME DOWN
Threats from incoming orbital rubbish are real and set to grow, says Darren McKnight, a senior technical fellow at LeoLabs, a commercial provider of space domain awareness services, based in Menlo Park, Calif. As more space systems are deployed in low-Earth orbit, the old adage applies: what goes up must come down.

The vexing nub of the problem is that removing ever proliferating small pieces of orbital debris is vital for maintaining a safe space environment—and uncontrolled atmospheric reentry is by far the easiest way to do it. In fact, this happens automatically for objects in low-Earth orbit, which begin to fall as they bleed off momentum against the outer edges of our planet’s atmosphere. Yet the hands-off nature of this process means any sizable piece of unguided debris has a large swath of the planet upon which it or its fragments might fall, potentially constituting a low but real risk to multiple aviation corridors and population centers.

“The issue of aviation and ground hazard from space operations is a problem that will not go away any time soon,” McKnight says.

LEGAL LIABILITY
Before the downed debris in question was confirmed as coming from the ISS, Joanne Gabrynowicz, a professor emerita of space law at the University of Mississippi, told Scientific American that such a finding would likely prompt a dialogue about liability..

Some of the provisions of the United Nations Outer Space Treaty and its Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects, as well as the ISS International Governmental Agreement (IGA), could be relevant, said Gabrynowicz, who is also editor in chief emerita of the Journal of Space Law.

An analysis of various provisions in these sources and how they interrelate would probably be necessary, Gabrynowicz said, including Article II of the U.N.’s Liability Convention. Article II states that any country launching anything into space shall be responsible for damage any associated space objects may cause back on Earth’s surface.

In the case of an object striking a house, the launching nation would, at minimum, be liable for funding requisite structural repairs. Gabrynowicz added, however, that while this protocol is simple in principle, its translation to reality can become extremely complex. Things would get murky, for instance, if the errant object that struck Otero’s house had proved to be part of the spent batteries from EP9’s reentry: the batteries are NASA’s property, but they were attached to EP9—a payload launched by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

“That could be complicated, requiring analysis of various contracts, treaties, insurance policies and the IGA. Of course, the entities involved can also agree as to how to resolve the situation,” Gabrynowicz concluded.

AN ACT OF ABANDONMENT
“NASA will want to minimize this by saying chucking stuff off the ISS is rare and this isn’t a satellite or rocket body ... and therefore is disconnected to increasing launch rates,” said Ewan Wright, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of British Columbia and a junior fellow of the Outer Space Institute, in an interview with Scientific American prior to the agency’s April 16 announcement.

“But clearly there is an issue here that uncontrolled reentries are fairly accepted, and nobody thought to look into it much further,” Wright said. One reason for laxity, he noted, is that the risks from uncontrolled space debris reentry are literally and figuratively dumped in the ocean, which covers most of Earth’s surface. But treating Earth’s seas as a space junkyard is unlikely to be sustainable forever.

“There are over 50,000 ships in the ocean at any given time and hundreds of thousands of smaller boats. The chance of a ship being hit by space debris is likely to be small, but it’s growing, and we don’t know the number for sure,” Wright said. “A cruise ship being hit by uncontrolled space debris may not kill someone, but it would raise serious questions about our continued abandonment of space debris in orbit. And the launching state would be liable to pay damages.”

Many aerospace companies employ an ethos of “design for demise” for their space-bound components to try to ensure that if the parts do reenter, they reliably burn up at high altitude. Yet even leaving aside growing concerns about the resulting contamination of Earth’s upper atmosphere with heavy metals and other pollutants, some experts consider the practice ill-advised at best.

Moriba Jah, an expert in space debris tracking and management at the University of Texas at Austin and a co-founder and chief scientist at Privateer Space, a group focused on space sustainability issues headquartered on the island of Maui in Hawaii, is one such critic.

Jah emphasizes that discarding our detritus in low-Earth orbit in hopes that this material will “naturally reenter” the atmosphere “is not a responsible disposal method but rather an act of abandonment.” Even if not legally classified as such, uncontrolled reentry “is inherently irresponsible due to the potential risks it poses to life and property on Earth,” Jah says.

NASA officials have said that they’re on the case. “The International Space Station will perform a detailed investigation of the jettison and re-entry analysis to determine the cause of the debris survival and to update modeling and analysis, as needed,” the space agency noted in its April 15 announcement.

In some sense, the unlikely intersection of a probable piece of orbital debris with a home could ultimately prove to be a good thing: it could provide another wake-up call to policymakers, major aerospace players and the public at large that when it comes to space junk in low-Earth orbit, the sky really is falling.

[santafe2]

Glad to see you read Kindig. Very worthwhile.

[Elroy Jetson]

Batteries supplied 3.4% of ALL California electricity consumed past 48 days

A place to store surplus solar power in being build fast in California.

But solar installations have run ahead of forecasts so the California Independent System Operator, aka Cal ISO, is periodically dumping power at a negative price during peak solar periods.

https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/default.aspx#section-ra-capacity-trend

[Elroy Jetson]

The supply constraints on Nvidia have been HBM (high bandwidth memory) and "special packaging" which is connecting typically 6 or more GPUs onto one substrate inside a CPU enclosure.

Special packaging also includes stacking HBM 2 or 6 layers high with connectors running through them - and this special packaging includes transmitting heat away from the electronics in the "CPU container". Packaging is a many step process that takes months.

The same goes for other GPU makers like AMD, Qualomm, and in-house development like Open AI and Google and others through Broadcom.

The validation of SK Hynix solved the HBM supply problem for Nvidia. Longer term Samsung is ramping up supply and AMD probably has most of what they want.

Hung says Nvidia has the packaging capacity they need under contract, but I strongly suspect they could sell GPUs faster if they there were more packaging plants. Intel wanted to buy Tower Semi TSEM for their packaging technology putting many processors on a glass substrate, but China objected so they're working with Tower giving over 2/3 of one of their new plants in Arizona.

So "packaging" will be supply constrained for perhaps another 3 to 4 years - then there will be a glut.

[dexprs]

GOOG beats and INTC misses.

[dexprs]

This was my busiest day of trading for the year, several had a double rt and a couple with a triple round trip.
Too many to report today.
MSFT beats and is up.

[dexprs]

I hope they will not have a shortage again like two years ago, when Amazon and others were bilking the customers, hiking some prices 300% above the release price.

[Elroy Jetson]

Microsoft $MSFT is reportedly aiming to have 1.8 million GPUs by the end of 2024, tripling the amount it has.$NVDA $AMD $GOOG $AMZN

— Beth Kindig (@Beth_Kindig) April 25, 2024

[dexprs]

Alphabet options imply 5.0% move in share price post-earnings
THE FLY 1:49 PM ET 4/25/2024
Pre-earnings options volume in Alphabet is 1.6x normal with calls leading puts 10:9. Implied volatility suggests the market is anticipating a move near 5.0%, or $7.81, after results are released. Median move over the past eight quarters is 6.5%.

[dexprs]

I could use one or two.

[dexprs]

Nice recovery in the markets, gained back over 300 points from early morning.
Added ALGN via puts and just made a rt. as a bit of fear dissipated. Will have to sell those puts again, just waiting for my signal from PPO and RSI. I like the price negative and these signals just turning up.
RT in IBM and closed ALSN, it reports tonight after the close and I am a little concerned whether it will have a positive surprise and better yet a forecast for the rest of the year.
Another rt in DUOL.

[Elroy Jetson]

First NVIDIA DGX H200 in the world, hand-delivered to OpenAI and dedicated by Jensen "to advance AI, computing, and humanity".

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/data-center/h200/ $31k each

The H100s was first priced at $40k, with Nvidia currently selling them for $25k until the production of H200s ramps up fully.

[dexprs]

Closed ORN it missed in earnings. It was down 15% for me and that is a hard line in the sand. The first loss is usually the smallest loss.

[dexprs]

The nice part of this system once you set it up, with an occasional fine tuning, it buys back calls and sells puts, making $$$ both ways. It is taking advantage of human nature: Fear and Greed, the more extremes the better.

[dexprs]

Added a small position in TXO, RMNI and TAK 500 shares each.

[dexprs]

Some new positions: URI, BURL, OC, PPC all via sold Puts, actually URI just made a rt. for a 30% gainer.

[dexprs]

There is fear, thus it will be a good morning to sell Cash Covered Puts, looking at first: VLO, IBM, VRT, DUOL, AZZ. The ones who reported and beat estimates recently.

[dexprs]

Slower GDP at 1.6 than anticipated at 2.4.
2YR yields 5.002%.

[dexprs]

PepsiCo call buyer realizes 285% same-day gains
THE FLY 8:00 AM ET 4/25/2024
Symbol Last Price Change
PEP 177.41down 0 (0%)
QUOTES AS OF 04:00:00 PM ET 04/24/2024
Notable profits for the buyer who lifted the $0.43 offer for 1,999 PepsiCo(PEP) May-24 180 calls yesterday at 10:11ET when underlying shares were trading at $172.36. Shares closed at $177.41, and the calls at $1.65 for a mark-to-market profit of 285%, or $245K, on the $86K outlay.

[dexprs]

SPX responded to the economic numbers and is down now nearly 60.

[dexprs]

Q1 Core PCE is +3.7%.

[dexprs]

The top question in most holders of MO stock is how long can MO pay that nice, juicy dividend. Or are we looking at a slowly dying buggy whip maker?
Altria's Marlboro Shipment Volume Plunges 8.7% In Q1 - What's Going On?
BENZINGA 8:28 AM ET 4/25/2024
Symbol Last Price Change
MO 42.92up 0 (0%)
QUOTES AS OF 04:10:00 PM ET 04/24/2024
Altria Group Inc (MO) reported a first-quarter FY24 sales decline of 2.5% year-on-year to $5.58 billion, beating the analyst consensus estimate of $4.71 billion.

The revenue decrease was primarily driven by lower net revenues in the smokeable products segment, partially offset by higher net revenues in the oral tobacco products segment and the all other category.

Revenues net of excise tax decreased 1% to $4.7 billion. Revenue for smokeable products decreased by 3.6%, and oral tobacco products grew by 3.7%.

Smokeable products segment reported domestic cigarette shipment volume decrease of 10%, with Marlboro down 8.7%.

Gross profit fell 1.5% Y/Y to $3.280 billion. The operating income for the quarter decreased by 3% to $2.7 billion.

Adjusted EPS of $1.15 was in line with the consensus estimate.

In the first quarter, the company paid dividends of $1.7 billion. After the completion of the accelerated share repurchase program, Altria(MO) expects to have $1 billion remaining under the currently authorized $3.4 billion share repurchase program.

Altria (MO) held $3.6 billion in cash and equivalents as of March-end. Total debt of Altria(MO) amounted to $25.042 billion.

“In spite of the absence of an effective regulatory environment, we saw continued early momentum from NJOY and believe our businesses are on track to deliver against full-year plans,” said CEO Billy Gifford.

Outlook Reaffirmed: Altria(MO) sees FY24 adjusted EPS of $5.05 – $5.17 versus an estimate of $5.08.

The company expects 2024 adjusted EPS growth to be weighted to the second half of the year.

Price Action: MO shares are trading higher by 0.19% at $43.00 in premarket at the last check Thursday.

Photo via Shutterstock

[dexprs]

Looks like the SPX will start the trading day at -30+ points. The Bears are back, at least for a while.

[Elroy Jetson]

Arizona grand jury indicts Meadows, Giuliani, other Trump allies for 2020 election interference

The former president is listed as an unindicted co-conspirator.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/24/arizona-election-indictments-giuliani-meadows-trump-00154241

[santafe2]

My point is that 20 years doesn't matter. Methane unless it's massive in a locality, doesn't matter. It goes away quickly even on a human time scale. CO2 causes warming for conservatively 20 human generations. Methane is comparable to a massive volcano, awful for a few years but not an extinction model. CO2 is a Chicxulub level event in very slow motion. And to repeat several of my earlier posts, there is no exit for us. As a species, we're not smart enough to stop seeking additional comfort to save the planet that affords it.

For me methane is an angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin argument. Who cares? None of this matters as long as we continue to increase CO2 levels. And of course, we will. Let's not consider decreasing methane leaks or driving electric cars as anything more than a participation trophy. We're not winning. We're not even trying. I think any investor who doesn't understand this existential issue a rube.

[Elroy Jetson]

Honda making solid state lithium batteries

[Elroy Jetson]

Oh, sorry, did I wake you?




Not a joke, just the nightly news

[Elroy Jetson]

Assistant professor Katey Walter Anthony ignites methane from under the ice in a pond on the Fairbanks Alaska campus in 2009.

Massive amounts of greenhouse gases trapped below thawing permafrost will likely vent into the air over the next several decades, accelerating and amplifying global warming.



Methane beautifully trapped in ice before it could escape from a remote Canadian lake.

Most of the organic sediment on the bottom of pristine lakes gets turned into methane due to low oxygen levels.

[jbsliverer]

The article was based on a study comparing ng and coal and the GWP (Global Warming Potential) differences over 20 years time, and pointing out reduction of methane pollutants as a effective, easier, faster, and cheaper to do than CO2 removal on a global scale. I didn't get the impression that the author was saying "instead of", just saying "in addition to" that we can do now getting comparatively quick long term results. I felt that it was advocating for more attention to detection and correcting all the releases that was being shadowed by all the attention just to CO2, but continue the study and application of CO2 reduction.

The 20 year period and 100 year period are common standard time spans when calculating climate pollutants and their GWP, and takes into account different life cycles or decay rates, with a whole lot of other things. A pollutant that might last the whole 20 or 100 years will get a different rating than a pollutant that decayed out in half that time, but still the ratings are for the 20 and 100 span.

The study, or pier reviewed letter, that was referenced from states some of this.

Evaluating net life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions intensities from gas and coal at varying methane leakage rates
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ace3db#fnref-erlace3dbbib11

Abstract
The net climate impact of gas and coal life-cycle emissions are highly dependent on methane leakage. Every molecule of methane leaked alters the climate advantage because methane warms the planet significantly more than CO2 over its decade-long lifetime. We find that global gas systems that leak over 4.7% of their methane (when considering a 20-year timeframe) or 7.6% (when considering a 100 year timeframe) are on par with life-cycle coal emissions from methane leaking coal mines. The net climate impact from coal is also influenced by SO2 emissions, which react to form sulfate aerosols that mask warming. We run scenarios that combine varying methane leakage rates from coal and gas with low to high SO2 emissions based on coal sulfur content, flue gas scrubber efficiency, and sulfate aerosol global warming potentials. The methane and SO2 co-emitted with CO2 alter the emissions parity between gas and coal. We estimate that a gas system leakage rate as low as 0.2% is on par with coal, assuming 1.5% sulfur coal that is scrubbed at a 90% efficiency with no coal mine methane when considering climate effects over a 20 year timeframe. Recent aerial measurement surveys of US oil and gas production basins find wide-ranging natural gas leak rates 0.65% to 66.2%, with similar leakage rates detected worldwide. These numerous super-emitting gas systems being detected globally underscore the need to accelerate methane emissions detection, accounting, and management practices to certify that gas assets are less emissions intensive than coal.

Numerous studies compare varying temporal and spatial climate impacts of gas utilization compared to coal on an electricity basis [7–9]. These studies find that, if 2%–5% of natural gas produced leaks along supply chains, the electricity generated by natural gas is on par with coal plants in terms of the climate impact over a 20 year timeframe [10–12]. Considering the climate impact over a 100 year time frame, methane leakage rates up to 9% from gas are reported to benefit the coal-to-gas shift in power plants in numerous geographies [7].

.

[Elroy Jetson]

The largest source of Methane emissions has been thought to be decomposing waste in sewers, ponds, marshes along with Rice fields and Livestock.

But live Trees have now been found to possibly be just as large a producer of methane, which is really surprising to me.

https://e360.yale.edu/features/scientists-probe-the-surprising-role-of-trees-in-methane-emissions

Methane surveys of cities have found decomposing plant matter, garbage, and feces either wet or buried is the cause of most measurable methane in urban environments. Humans are champion methane producers when put up against cows. - https://medium.com/climate-conscious/do-humans-fart-more-methane-than-cows-a0f48c590fb0

For their small size, Gardener's compost pits are massive methane producers.

In agriculture, rice farming is the larger methane producer just because so much land is turned into methane swamps to raise rice. In the US those methane producing rice farms are in Northern California with irrigated land, Texas, and Texas - although the swamps in Florida produce massive quantities of methane, even without rice production.

Just four percent of all methane in the world is produced in the oceans, because most methane is eaten as food before it escapes the water - the same bacteria that chow down on oil in the ocean.

[santafe2]

First off, I want to say the goal to minimize methane leakage into the atmosphere is an excellent goal. Nothing wrong with it when accomplished without extraordinary additional cost. But this line quoted below from the article, (taken from one or more of the UN's AR reports), is at best a disingenuous scare tactic. Methane does create much more warming over a short period but the effects last only about 12 years as it oxidizes, whereas CO2 lasts hundreds to thousands of years.

As a climate pollutant, methane is over 80 times more potent than CO2 across a 20-year period.

The real danger with natural gas is an extremely large release over a short period of time. We tend to hear about this in relation to melting and/or possible melting of permafrost. The largest producer of methane, (about 1/3), are wetlands. There's not much we can do about this. Also, methane is not only released when mining and moving natural gas, it's released from both coal mines and when drilling for oil. So again, this is a good goal but using the short measurement period is classic lying with statistics.

[dexprs]

IBM Q1 Earnings: Revenue Miss, EPS Beat, HashiCorp Acquisition, AI Strategy Strength And More
BENZINGA 4:23 PM ET 4/24/2024
Symbol Last Price Change
IBM 184.1up +1.91 (+1.0484%)
HCP 31.41down +2.26 (+7.753%)
QUOTES AS OF 04:10:00 PM ET 04/24/2024
International Business Machines Corp (IBM) reported first-quarter financial results after the market close on Wednesday. Here’s a look at the key metrics from the quarter.

Q1 Earnings: IBM’s first-quarter revenue increased 1% year-over-year to $14.46 billion, which missed the consensus estimate of $14.55 billion, according to Benzinga Pro. The company reported quarterly adjusted earnings of $1.68 per share, which beat analyst estimates of $1.60 per share.

Software revenue was up 5% year-over-year, consulting revenue was flat and infrastructure revenue was down 1%.

Cash flow from operations totaled $4.2 billion in the quarter. Free cash flow came in at $1.9 billion. IBM(IBM) ended the quarter with $19.3 billion in cash and marketable securities, up $5.8 billion from year-end 2023.

“We began the year with solid revenue and free cash flow growth, reflecting the strength of our hybrid cloud and AI strategy. We continue to capitalize on the excitement and demand for enterprise AI from our clients,” said Arvind Krishna, chairman and CEO of IBM(IBM).

“Our book of business for watsonx and generative AI again showed strong momentum, growing quarter over quarter, and has now eclipsed one billion dollars since we launched watsonx in mid-2023. As a result, for the full year, we continue to expect revenue performance in line with our mid-single digit model and about $12 billion in free cash flow.”

Outlook: IBM (IBM) expects full-year constant currency revenue growth in the mid-single digit range. The company also reiterated expectations for generating $12 billion in free cash flow in 2024.

In a separate press release, IBM(IBM) announced that it entered into a definitive agreement to acquire HashiCorp Inc(HCP)for $35 per share in cash, representing an enterprise value of $6.4 billion.

The boards of directors of IBM(IBM) and HashiCorp(HCP) have both approved the transaction. The acquisition is subject to approval by HashiCorp(HCP) shareholders. The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2024.

Management will hold a conference call to discuss its quarterly results at 5 p.m. ET.

Check This Out: Visa Delivers ‘Solid’ Earnings Beat, 6 Analysts Provide Key Takeaways: ‘Blame Easter For Softer Trends’

IBM Price Action: IBM (IBM) shares were down 4.14% after hours at $176.40 at the time of publication, according to Benzinga Pro.

Photo: Shutterstock.
I am holding the responsibility fort 3 Puts sold. We shall see how we are doing tomorrow.

[jbsliverer]

Reality Check: Natural Gas’s True Climate Risk
Methane leakage as low as 0.2 percent puts gas’s climate impact on par with coal.
https://rmi.org/reality-check-natural-gas-true-climate-risk/

For decades, natural gas has been touted as a safer climate alternative to fossil fuels such as coal. Even the word “natural” suggests its alignment with sustainability goals — a misnomer that has, until recently, largely flown under the radar of public scrutiny. But factoring in methane releases from unintentional leaks and intentional venting throughout the natural gas supply chain quickly calls those climate-safe credentials into question.

Methane comprises roughly 70 to 90 percent of gas. So, when natural gas leaks, mostly methane is released. As a climate pollutant, methane is over 80 times more potent than CO2 across a 20-year period.

While CO2 has dominated mainstream conversations about climate change and emissions reduction strategies, tackling methane can deliver bigger reductions, at lower costs, sooner. Compared to the more complex global strategies to slash CO2 emissions for a safer climate future, cutting methane is low-hanging fruit. To put that opportunity in perspective, minimizing US methane leakage would be equivalent to taking all US cars off the road for a year.

New RMI analysis has definitively calculated gas’s global life-cycle emissions (from extraction all the way to end use) and compared those to coal’s global life-cycle emissions. This analysis gives users the tools to meaningfully compare coal-gas emissions based on quantitative data rather than qualitative assumptions. The article published in the scientific journal Environmental Research Letters concludes that leaky gas is as damaging to the climate as coal. We confirm past studies that compare gas to coal combustion and find that two percent methane release puts gas’s climate risk on par with coal. However, when considering the net emissions from all natural gas and coal greenhouse gases (including CO2, methane, and sulfur dioxide), the climate risk for natural gas and coal can be on par at just 0.2 percent methane leakage.

Gas leakage has been documented widely by the media over the past couple of years. Ongoing aerial surveys and a growing constellation of satellites are finding that methane leaks are far more frequent and intense than previously assumed. Massive methane plumes make it clear that production equipment alone can persistently leak beyond that 0.2 percent threshold. And the 0.2 percent leakage rate considered by industry and EPA is not low enough. Tighter methane detection and reporting will be imperative to protect the climate.

The latest data update from RMI’s Oil Climate Index plus Gas webtool (OCI+) assessing a majority of global gas and oil assets from 2015 to 2022 reveals that methane drives one-half of oil and gas industry GHG emissions. Fortunately, strategic interventions to cut methane emissions in the natural gas supply chain are relatively simple and cost-effective compared to the complexity and expense of decarbonizing the global economy. Prohibiting venting and routine flaring and incorporating routine equipment fixes and upgrades into maintenance plans can significantly cut methane emissions from production sites.

Emissions transparency throughout oil and natural gas supply chains can help policymakers and industry leaders act on specific interventions and emissions reduction solutions to stop methane leakage and wasted gas. Industry action could also boost profits by earning premium pricing for low-emissions natural gas and avoiding regulatory fines like the Inflation Reduction Act’s Methane Fee.

Natural gas produced and delivered for consumer end use with zero leakage has 30 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than coal. As long as this fossil fuel remains in the global energy mix, it is essential that industry leadership combined with strong policy, financial incentives, and technology innovation are urgently applied to cut methane across the natural gas supply chain. In this decisive decade, where a 50 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions is needed across the global economy to remain on track for a safer climate future, methane cuts are an immediately actionable step to prevent waste and avoid catastrophe.

Of course eliminating leakage, flaring, etc will cost. The fossil fuel industry doesn't like the "diminishing returns", they rather greenspeak and make money buying and selling carbon credits. And people don't like spending a dollar or two more for ng in the natural gas capital of the world, would rather spend ten or more on the future consequences.

So we'll just have more of these every day;




.

[dexprs]

Closed AMH ahead of earnings report on 5/02.

[dexprs]

Many May Put options are getting bought up among teck traders, which shows a concern ahead of earnings.

[dexprs]

I added AGNC in the REITS to the portfolio. It is ranked well and may have set a bottom recently at 9. Also it is going ex on 4/29 and pays over 15%. I will probably soon drop a less well liked REIT. Just checking the ex date.

[dexprs]

IBM Earnings Are Imminent; These Most Accurate Analysts Revise Forecasts Ahead Of Earnings Call
BENZINGA 10:12 AM ET 4/24/2024
Symbol Last Price Change
IBM 181.79up -0.4 (-0.2196%)
QUOTES AS OF 12:30:36 PM ET 04/24/2024
International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) is expected to release earnings results for its first quarter, after the closing bell on April 24, 2024.

Analysts expect the Armonk, New York-based company to report quarterly earnings at $1.60 per share, up from $1.36 per share in the year-ago quarter. IBM(IBM) is projected to report quarterly revenue of $14.55 billion, compared to $14.25 billion in the year-earlier period, according to data from Benzinga Pro.

On Jan. 30, IBM's(IBM) board of directors declared a regular quarterly cash dividend of $1.66 per common share.

IBM (IBM) shares rose 0.2% to close at $182.19 on Tuesday.

Benzinga readers can access the latest analyst ratings on the Analyst Stock Ratings page. Readers can sort by stock ticker, company name, analyst firm, rating change or other variables.

Let's have a look at how Benzinga's most-accurate analysts have rated the company in the recent period.

Jefferies analyst Brent Thill maintained a Hold rating and cut the price target from $215 to $210 on April 23, 2024. This analyst has an accuracy rate of 78%.
UBS analyst David Vogt maintained a Sell rating and raised the price target from $125 to $130 on April 22, 2024. This analyst has an accuracy rate of 76%.
B of A Securities analyst Wamsi Mohan maintained a Buy rating and increased the price target from $200 to $220 on March 14, 2024. This analyst has an accuracy rate of 75%.
BMO Capital analyst Keith Bachman maintained a Market Perform rating and boosted the price target from $155 to $210 on Jan. 25, 2024. This analyst has an accuracy rate of 78%.
Evercore ISI Group analyst Amit Daryanani upgraded the stock from In-Line to Outperform and increased the price target from $165 to $200 on Jan. 19, 2024. This analyst has an accuracy rate of 73%.

[dexprs]

B. Riley Securities Maintains Buy on AudioEye, Raises Price Target to $18.5
BENZINGA 8:43 AM ET 4/24/2024
Symbol Last Price Change
AEYE 15.04down +1.56 (+11.5727%)
QUOTES AS OF 12:19:52 PM ET 04/24/2024
B. Riley Securities analyst Zach Cummins maintains AudioEye(AEYE) with a Buy and raises the price target from $14 to $18.5.

[dexprs]

No sign of oil going away any time soon.
Namibia excites oil firms by opening up new frontier basin
REUTERS 6:57 AM ET 4/24/2024
Symbol Last Price Change
CVX 162.84up -0.01 (-0.0061%)
XOM 120.74up -0.29 (-0.2396%)
QUOTES AS OF 12:10:48 PM ET 04/24/2024
By Wendell Roelf

WINDHOEK, April 24 (Reuters) - Oil companies are flocking to Namibia, excited by the country's plans to open up a major new frontier basin with recent offshore finds ranking among the largest this century.

Namibia, which has yet to produce any oil or gas, has become an exploration hotspot after offshore discoveries by TotalEnergies and Shell, and wants to accelerate the milestone of the country's first output.

The southern African country is planning for its first oil production from TotalEnergies' giant Venus field in 2029/2030, its petroleum commissioner Maggy Shino said.

In the most recent strike, Portugal's Galp Energia said it had found at least 10 billion barrels of oil equivalent in its Mopane field, in the largely unexplored Orange Basin.

"It is one of the newest and most attractive areas being explored by the industry and we are very excited by the discoveries so far," James Parr, vice president for new ventures exploration and development at Woodside Energy, told Reuters.

"The oil is potentially some of the lowest carbon barrels being found currently so on the spectrum of oil its very attractive. There seems to be abundant gas which is also part of our transition and a big focus for Woodside," Parr added.

Woodside is evaluating data before committing to drill in PEL 87 offshore Namibia and expects to make a decision by June or July, he said on the sidelines of an energy conference.

Energy Minister Tom Alweendo said any clean energy shift should factor in Namibia's goals and priorities as it also strives towards net zero carbon emissions.

"We deserve an energy transition that takes a pragmatic approach to resolving energy poverty by making our own natural resources part of the solution," he told delegates at the event.

U.S. oil major Chevron(CVX) is expected to begin exploration in Namibia later this year, with Exxon Mobil(XOM) aiming to follow in 2025, commissioner Shino said.

Moving onshore, Shino said there are plans for a multi-drilling campaign by Reconnaissance Energy Africa in the ecologically sensitive Okavango region. (Reporting by Wendell Roelf; Writing by Nellie Peyton; Editing by Alexander Winning and Alexander Smith)

[dexprs]

Opened small positions in AEYE and EBAY.

[dexprs]

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4685466-realty-income-separating-the-wheat-from-the-chaff?mailingid=35140246&messageid=2800&serial=35140246.12010&utm_campaign=rta-stock-article&utm_medium=email&utm_source=seeking_alpha&utm_term=35140246.12010
Still holding O and selling Covered Calls on the shares.

[dexprs]

VRT hit the ball out of the park and I bought back my 10 Puts for a 78% gain.
Closed: NLOP for a 100% gain and also closed CGTX for a small one.

[Elroy Jetson]

I can't imagine having a taxable trading account without margin to avoid "trading violations", among other things.

[dexprs]

Very well said Eric.
We need to find a livable planet in the next 100 years, to move to and then mass that one up also, probably.