Texas Clashes with Bitcoin Mining Firm RIOTIn the heart of Texas, a clash of interests has erupted as Riot Platforms' ( NASDAQ:RIOT ) ambitious plans for a Bitcoin mining facility encounter staunch opposition from local residents and authorities. What initially seemed like a promising venture for economic growth and job creation has now become a battleground, highlighting the environmental and social concerns associated with the burgeoning Bitcoin mining industry.
The Rejection:
On March 11, the Navarro County Commissioners dealt a significant blow to Riot Platforms ( NASDAQ:RIOT ) by rejecting their proposal for a reinvestment zone, a crucial step in establishing the largest Bitcoin mining facility in Texas. Citing overwhelming public opposition, the commissioners opted against approving the zone, signaling a shift in sentiment towards Bitcoin mining in the Lone Star State.
Residents' Concerns:
The rejection reflects a growing chorus of concerns voiced by Texans regarding the environmental impact, energy consumption, and noise pollution associated with Bitcoin mining operations. Despite Texas' historical embrace of industrial activities like oil drilling and fracking, residents are now questioning the benefits of incentivizing Bitcoin miners, especially in light of the industry's hefty resource demands and limited job creation.
Water and Energy Consumption:
Foremost among residents' concerns is the substantial water and energy consumption inherent in Bitcoin mining operations. With Texas grappling with water scarcity and rising temperatures, the prospect of a Bitcoin mine consuming 1.5 million gallons of water daily during peak summer months raises significant alarm. Moreover, the industry's contribution to an estimated $1.8 billion increase in the state's yearly power bill underscores the strain on resources and the environment.
Social Impact:
Beyond environmental considerations, critics argue that the promised economic benefits of Bitcoin mining have failed to materialize. Despite Riot Platforms' pledges of job creation and investment, the reality falls short of expectations, with only a fraction of projected jobs materializing and minimal economic spillover into local communities. This disconnect between promises and outcomes fuels skepticism among residents and officials alike.
The Industry's Response:
In response to mounting opposition, Riot Platforms ( NASDAQ:RIOT ) and other Bitcoin mining companies defend their operations, highlighting the economic activity generated by their facilities and the ancillary benefits to local businesses. However, concerns persist regarding the industry's reliance on automation, which limits job opportunities, and its failure to align with the broader interests of Texas communities.
Future Prospects:
As Riot Platforms ( NASDAQ:RIOT ) contemplates its next move in Navarro County, the broader implications of the Bitcoin mining clash reverberate across Texas and beyond. The standoff underscores the need for a balanced approach to economic development, one that considers environmental sustainability, community well-being, and long-term prosperity. Whether Bitcoin mining can reconcile its ambitions with the concerns of local residents remains uncertain, but the outcome will undoubtedly shape the future of the industry in Texas and beyond.
Texas
Macro Monday 31 ~ Dallas Fed Manufacturing Index (Key Levels)Macro Monday 31
U.S. Dallas Fed Manufacturing Index
This Index is compiled from a monthly survey conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas to assess the health of manufacturing activity in the state of Texas. It provides insight into factors such as production, employment, orders, and prices, offering a snapshot of economic conditions in the region.
Why is the Dallas Fed Manufacturing Index Important?
▫️ As stated above the index covers manufacturing activity in the state of Texas, the state of Texas ranks 2nd only to California in factory production & comes in at 1st as an exporter of manufactured goods, thus Texas is an important state for gauging manufacturing & production in the U.S. economy.
▫️ Texas also contributes an incredible c.10% towards the U.S. Manufacturing gross domestic product making the index an important metric to consider towards potential GDP trends in the U.S.
▫️ The Dallas Fed Manufacturing Index (DFMI) is one of several regional manufacturing surveys that feed into the national Purchasing Managers Index (PMI). The PMI is released later this week on Thursday 1st Feb thus the DFMI on Monday will give us an early indication of the potential direction of the PMI later in the week. FYI, I will be covering the PMI for you on Thursday so stay tuned for that.
How to read the index?
A reading above 0 indicates an expansion of the factory activity compared to the previous month; below 0 represents a contraction; while 0 indicates no change.
The Chart
The chart only dates back to 2005 so we have a limited dataset however we can still see definitive levels of importance and trends over this shorter historic backdrop.
A few findings from the chart:
The + 36.8 Level
Since December 2005 any time we have hit the +36.8 level on the chart it has typically represented a peak in manufacturing and production signaling that a decline would likely follow. This has occurred 3 times and each time within 20 – 23 months of this +36.8 peak we had a recession or a financial crisis.
1) December 2005
21 Months later we had the Great Financial Crisis.
2) June 2018
20 months later we had the COVID-19 Crash.
3) April 2021
23 months later the U.S Banking Crisis occurred in March 2023 resulting in 3 small to mid size banks failing.
- The remaining banks being saved by the Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP) which appears to have successfully contained the contagion for now. The BTFP is ceasing in March 2024 👀
▫️ We can see above that in the event we reach the +36.8 level in the future, history informs us that within 20 – 23 months major economic issues will likely present. If we had known this back in April 2022. After April 2022 the S&P500 fell 15% to its recent lows.
▫️ The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) could declare the current period we are in as a soft recession. For the last six recessions, on average, the announcement of when a recession started was declared 8 months after the fact meaning we will would only get confirmation of a recession once we are 6 - 8 months into it. Its worth noting that some recessions were confirmed by the NBER after the recession was over.
- 36.8 Level
A reading below the -36.8 level has historically confirmed a recession. We have not hit this level since the COVID-19 Crash with May 2020 being the last time we have been at this level.
Periods in Contractionary Territory
There have been 2 previous periods where we have remained in contractionary territory for greater than 6 months. These are worth reviewing as we have been in contractionary territory for the 20 months now (April 2022 - Present).
1) Sept 2007 – Nov 2009:
We fell into contractionary territory during the Great Financial Crisis for 26 months. From 2009 to 2016 the index seemed week oscillating around the 0 level and not really breaking out into persistent expansionary territory until 2017 forward.
2) Jan 2015 – Oct 2016:
We fell into contractionary territory for 21 months however there was no recession.
3) Apr 2022 – Present:
We are currently on month 20 of contraction. Now this could be just like point 2 above whereby we recover to expansionary territory in month 21 or 22 (Jan - Feb 2024) however if we do not, we are moving towards a timeline similar to point 1 which was the 26 month Great Financial Crisis. Q1 of 2024 will be very revealing in terms of what we can expect next. In the event we end up in contraction for 26 months or if we hit the -36.8 level we can presume, based on history, that we likely have a recession on our hands. And, if we recover into expansionary territory maybe we have got away with it this time 🙂
You can clearly see that the Dallas Fed Manufacturing Index is significant for assessing the U.S. economy because it provides timely insights into the health of one of the nation's key economic sectors: manufacturing & production. Since Texas is a major hub for manufacturing activity, trends observed in the Dallas Fed index can offer valuable indications of broader economic trends. It is one of several regional indices that contributes to a comprehensive understanding of the manufacturing landscape, aiding policymakers, investors such as ourselves, and businesses in making informed decisions about the state of the economy.
The current economic environment just gets more and more interesting every week
Thanks for coming along again folks 🫡
PUKA
BSRTF a low cap reit with room to growHere we have a low cap REIT that I can see will grow into the billions (one day soon, but not so soon as I would like).
Immigration has ben slow these last covid years but that tide is turning now so Texas should grow.
California is expensive and people are moving to Texas so it should grow.
Tesla and other companies are moving to Texas so Texas should grow.
Work from anywhere culture is moving to Texas so Texas should grow.
People need places to live, Shopping centers need ten year leases to build out Lows, and Target stores, to service these new people.
From a chart technical standpoint I would like to see another bounce or retest the lows of the price of this company.
If I do see a retest am buying more.
There is a gap that has yet to be filled further down from here from way back in 2020. That does not mean it needs to get filled, but if it does, I am buying more.
A friend of a friend works at this company and he is smart and his friend is smart and believes the management is smart.
REIT's are not in favor right now - the large interest rates have scared off some investors, but those rates might come down, so the first to buy land with variable interest rate loan will have the refinancing build right into the loan. Imagine your interest rate falling every year of your loan for the first five years? That is what I would do if i worked at this company.
If you buy a house for 1 million and the interest rate is 7% the note will be a monster, but if that rate falls to 3.5% over several years you will be happy and the interest payments will be cut in half. Take the other half of that interest payment and put it in escrow to save up for a downpayment on a new property. The investment will grow in value as the price of that interest payment will be factored into the assessment of your property and all the properties in the neighborhood.
A year from now you could leverage the value for the property to buy more property.
That is what I think these guys are going to be doing for the next few years.
That is why I will buy the dip if there ever is one.
Oracle: Sweet Temptation 🔥Oracle is moving dangerously close to the resistance line at $85.58, which would activate our alternative scenario. In that case, the stock would rise further into the green target zone between $85.45 and $92.50 to finish off the grey wave alt.I before sinking back into a correction. Primarily, we expect the course to drop into the green target zone between $72.66 and $63.46 to complete the grey wave II. After completion, we predict Oracle heading North in the longterm.
TXN exposure to ChinaThe U.S. warning China it could face devastating sanctions if it defies the ban on doing business with Russia!
This is a move that could have huge impact on American companies.
54% of TXN Texas Instruments revenue comes from China.
My price target from TXN is $134.
Looking forward to read your opinion about this.
US Stock In Play: $TXRH$TXRH operates and franchises restaurants under Texas Roadhouse
breaking out of its second HTF, & VWAP from ATH on its wkly. RS bullish divergence from dec to feb is reflected on daily.
one could position this on wkly as a hedge if you are overloaded with O&G & commodities name
inverse H&S on weekly chart for TCBITCBI looks primed for a strong rebound as financials have a strong year with rising rates.
TCBI is a regional bank trading at a 1.22 P/B ratio. This indicates there is significant value here. Texas is fast becoming the new place to be for booming businesses such as space exploration and crypto.
Inverse Head and shoulders on the weekly along with a golden cross. Waiting for confirmation of this trend, but looks promising.
ET - Texas Energy Increasing demand$ET is looking interesting as Texas has become a centre for business (Samsung mega chip factory) and cryptocurrencies ($BTC mining 20% global hash rate) combine this with the winter and increased gas prices as a result from last winter, oh and did I mention more frequent and severe storms. This will all lead to higher natural gas and energy prices which leads to ET making a ton of money, last year in Feb freeze they made $2.5B in a few days, we like that.
This makes me super bullish on ET - what do you think?
If it's good enough for Oaktree - it's good enough for me!Ashford, like most hotel operators, took a serious hit due to Covid. They are hanging on and I believe they'll survive thanks to their strong portfolio of properties. I caught this one back in late December and early January and happened to notice that Oaktree Capital was supplying AHT liquidity. After further research, I am long. I think this one is going to skyrocket as normal patterns of business and living resume--and they will!
In the short term, and as I write this, the weak hands are selling out of this because earnings will be reported 2/24/21 after hours. These Covid and wintertime affected earnings will likely suck, I expect that. The real test is gong to come the spring/summer/fall of 2021.
Ashford owns many high-end hotels, with a good amount of those in TX and FL. I keep things very simple: We're witnessing a large population flow to these states, I believe that will inevitably continue. You wanna move to TX-- you're gonna need to go down and scope things out--so you get a hotel for a few days. Business is booming in these locations and there is a tourism draw as well. Sure, some will stay in some musty ma and pa rental, but I guarantee that local businesses will have contract rates with the big guys. When a prospective software engineer flies into Austin, Orlando, Jacksonville, for an interview, they will be staying at the Hilton, Embassy Suites, etc. on the house.
There is some CA exposure I'm concerned with. The one positive: AHT is positioned well to serve tourists as they are located in great places.
Overall I'm very excited about this one. I have a decent but reasonable position going if things don't work out.
USDWTI H1 - Short SetupWTIUSD H1 - Western texas has been gaining since the start of the week, significantly, we have recently seen a double top exhaustion at a relevant resistance zone. We are now trading on support, further bearish pressure to break current price could see support turn to resistance and a s subsequent selloff to look to fill last Sundays market gap
Natural Gas and Energy in the United States (East Coast)This is hopefully a cautious review of the last 50 years of Southwestern Energy.
Southwest Energy is a natural gas exploration team headquartered in Texas HOWEVER, most of their work is in the East Coast of the United States and perhaps they also have some locations of gas/oil properties in the near future located in Canada? SWN reports only having about 900 to 1000 full time employees including both a management team and a board of directors.
What are the most interesting parts of SWN's Stock Timeline?
From 1977 to 2004 the company had a fairly variable and yet stable stock price fluctuating around $1.00 per share. However these years 1977 to 2004 for SWN have also been some of the largest changes on a log or exponential scale. The company is perhaps overly familiar with "huge" changes in "stock price" over these "pre-2004" years.
From 2004 to 2008 Southwestern Energy gained the most value in its history and perhaps some of this growth was questionable as a result the price of the stock fluctuated at an extremely high value of about $40 per share up from a few dollars with the P/E ratio during this time period was about 20.
April 2014 was perhaps one of the most important times in the history of Southwestern Energy. The stock "dropped" to "valuation levels" of the early 1990's. However, the P/E ratio also fell to someplace between 10 and 2 around the year 2017. The financial record for SWN shows "significant" negative "net income" for at least two years in a row of somewhere between 5 to 3 (2015 and 2016?) billion dollars!? With revenues in previous years in the 4 to 3 billion dollar range?
NOTE: The yellow lines are "some estimate" of "how high" or "how low" the company value should be relative to the "vast history".
The company's primary exploration and production activities are in the Appalachian Basin provide mostly "natural gas" and "oil" but mostly "natural gas".
NOTE: Natural gas was the United States' largest source of energy production in 2016, representing 33 percent of all energy produced in the country. Natural gas has been the largest source of electrical generation in the United States since July 2015? However, its difficult to believe that Natural Gas is "electricity" in the US? Or even how this might be related to or compete with hydro electric power (which is much more renewable hydro/solar/wind)?
The United States oil and gas industry is often informally divided into "upstream" (exploration and production), "midstream" (transportation and refining), and "downstream" (distribution and marketing). Petroleum and natural gas share a common upstream (exploration and production) sector, but the midstream and downstream sectors are largely separate.
Most oil fields produce some gas, and vice versa, but the ratio of oil and gas varies considerably. In fields developed to produce oil, the natural gas is in a raw form called associated gas. Some fields, called "dry gas" fields, produce only gas. Of the top ten gas-producing fields in the US, only one, is also among the top ten oil fields. Because most of the fields on the "east coast" are gas that SWN "owns" this suggests maybe a low amount of oil because they are about 90% natural gas and not "oil"?
Interestingly "natural gas" is a different business than "oil" on the East Coast. Most of SWN's facilities are "gas" only with only some "oil" less then 10%... The relative amounts of oil and gas produced vary greatly. Of the top ten natural gas-producing companies in the US, only three were also among the top ten oil producers. Interestingly some of the largest discoveries of Natural Gas have happened recently in the "mid 2000's".
Finally also interesting is that most of the "gas pipelines" in the United States center around 3 main areas. Louisiana, Eastern Texas and the Appalachian Basin where Southwest Energy natural gas exploration facilities are.
Hope this helps and was interesting and useful!
These ideas are open to debate and will hopefully help everyone.
:)
OIL BEARS Coming Out Of HibernationI have been long term Bearish on oil expecting a few rallys up on the way down. Here is my long term projection for oil, anticipating $25 a barrel. We landed on the 38% retracement here last year as a response to the decline down from 2009. I think that rally to the .38 was the last for bit.
Possible Scenarios for OILWelcome to this MONTHLY chart showing possible scenarios over the next years, after OIL has bounced once again on the level of $50 in the past months potentially taking us higher near term up to $70. Let us now depict the possible scenarios out of this market, with the conditions that would trigger any of them and some arguments supporting each.
The first thing to consider, is that after the bounce at $50 and its current positive trend, it would be very likely that the levels of $70 could be tested before the end of 2019. Given the recent US sanctions against the Venezuelan government, affecting the OIL supply coming from that country, prices might see an immediate fuel until $70 levels are tested. However, if the level of $70 is reached it might be wise to consider that this level has acted before as a resistance and act carefully then. Would see a good long trade only if this level is surpassed, where we could expect prices reaching up to $84 until 2021, where the the next possible resistance is located.
Now, given that Oil has seen the surge of Shale Oil increasing the supply in the market, and the fact that at these price levels Shale is pretty much profitable, we could see a downward bounce on the levels of $70, back to $50 by 2021. An added pressure to the downside would be a production adjustment from OPEC, as well as the world's efforts to increasingly develop renewable energy supply around the globe, which would affect the demand for oil in the long run. If we see carefully, a possible head and shoulders could be formed by the fractal formed if the price bounces back from $70, resulting in prices below the level of $50 after 2021.
Well, there they are. Two possible scenarios. Upvote if you liked it!
Sorry to burst your bubble Natural GasSorry to burst your bubble NATGASUSD .
Permian Basin drilling has not only increased Oil Supply, responsible for the lower prices we've seen lately, but also increased Natural Gas Supply.
Supply on Texas has been so much that USA is offering it for free or even paying to get rid of it (source: NGI Bidweek Alert 29th Nov 2018 ), meanwhile markets still haven't ajusted price because of the perceived cold of winter and speculation.
The major issue is logistics. While many places report a low Natural Gas storage by this time of year, other places have no room to store it. While Trump campaigns for low Oil prices, Permian Basin drillers can't seem to make profit and cover their debt due to infrastructure loans, so basically they are ditching the Natural Gas and focusing on the Oil.
If you live on USA and feel the chilling frostbyte of winter, remember, it's just business (or lack thereof).
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Trade Idea TXNApple may have given Texas Instruments more love with latest iPhone
Brian Womack
American City Business Journals•September 26, 2018
Texas Instruments Inc. (NYSE: TXN) may have fared better with the Apple Inc.'s latest iPhones. The semiconductor company, which makes various products for an array of industries, is supplying a couple of components that help with processes around power management and battery charging in the new iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max. That's according to a new report by iFixit, which tears down new gadgets to see which companies are getting parts into devices. The Apple handset, which is released each September, always gets attention in the industry given the handset’s longstanding popularity.