Last week, when North Korea stated it had refined plutonium capable of manufacturing bombs, I wondered about the ramifications. Last night the saber rattling continued. As suggested, this could be simple posturing on the part of North Korea but if not, and it is intended as an actionable affront then it could destabilize southeast Asia. North Korea, trying to jolt Obama, warns South
This is a pretty critical day for markets. The S&P 500 slipped below 830 briefly this morning. At noon the bulls are taking a stand. We really do not want the market to close below 830.
Pretty good earnings from Big Oil. Shell surprised some by raising the dividend. In comments they surprised me by stating that it cost them $38/barrel to extract oil from Canadian sands. Pretty thin margin. Exxon Mobil’s 4Q earnings were down 33% to only $7.84 billion. For the year XOM earnings were up 11% as they squeaked by with $45 billion in profits. Do you have children or grandchildren? Buy them some XOM.
Scruffs were the young girls who would sit on the Apple studio steps and wait for the Beatles to emerge. As a tribute, George composed this one night and asked the three girls to come into the studio to listen. The only first-hand book describing this event is written by Carol Bedford, one of the Scruffs, in an out of print book. The book is available at Amazon for more than $200. Anyone can buy it for me. Listen. Apple Scruffs-George Harrison
