Duncan Oil

Summary.    Few companies have a clear idea of where strategy making ends and execution begins. As a result they develop strategic plans where they’re not required and fail to develop strategic plans where they are. To help prevent this happening to you Graham Kenny offers a few dos and don’ts: (1) Don’t develop strategic plans for functions; (2) Confine “strategy” to the business level; (3) Keep strategy and action separate; and (4) Be careful how you use the terms “strategy” and “strategic.”

Today's Miami Valley Forecast 8/30/24

LIVE UPDATES Stock Market Today: What to Watch Investors await a July readout of the Fed's preferred inflation gauge Last Updated:  Aug. 30, 2024 at 6:08 AM EDT For all the recent gyrations, the Dow industrials and S&P 500 look set to end the month in the green. Typically a slow period as traders take holidays, August started with a bang as markets swooned on U.S. growth fears and the unwinding of some crowded trades. The selloff proved short-lived. Investors have come back around to the “soft landing” narrative, as U.S. growth remains strong and inflation pressures recede. As the last trading day of the month gets under way, the Dow and S&P 500 are up 1.2% and 1.3%, respectively, from where they ended July. Futures contracts for both rose this morning. The Nasdaq Composite is down less than 0.5% over August. Investors will get some more price data to round out the month, with a new readout of the Federal Reserve's preferred gauge, following updates earlier Friday on inflation in Europe and Japan. In recent market action: Index futures advanced. Futures for the Nasdaq-100 led, trailed by contracts tied to the Dow industrials and S&P 500. Global markets were also buoyant. The Stoxx Europe 600 hit a record intraday high, after data showed eurozone inflation slowing sharply to 2.2%, the lowest since mid-2021. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index climbed. A report showing faster-than-expected inflation in Japan raised the chances of another Bank of Japan rate hike. Coming up: The personal consumption expenditures index for July is due at 8:30 a.m. ET. Economists expect monthly increases of 0.2% on both a headline and core basis, when volatile food and energy prices are excluded. Core PCE is seen rising 2.7% from a year earlier. —By Angus Berwick

Ecuador has shut down one well and began dismantling infrastructure in a drilling site in a protected area of the Amazon, a year after Ecuadorians voted in a referendum to end oil drilling in a national park. The Ecuadorian government shut down the Ishpingo B-56 well, one of nearly 250 oil wells in the 43-ITT block in the Yasuni National Park, the country’s Energy and Mines Ministry said this week. In August last year, Ecuadorians voted against drilling for oil in the protected area of the Amazon that’s home to two uncontacted tribes and is a hotspot of biodiversity. Around 60% of voters in a referendum voted against continued oil drilling in the Yasuni National Park, which is home to the Tagaeri and Taromenani who live in self-isolation. The park was designated a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve in 1989. As a result of the referendum, state oil company Petroecuador is now forced to dismantle its operations. However, the beginning of the first such dismantling took place a year after the popular vote expressed clear willingness to end oil drilling in the environmentally sensitive area. The government has asked for an extension of five years to dismantle all operations in the Yasuni National Park and has been criticized for failing to implement the constitutional court’s order to close more than 200 wells within a year after the referendum from August 2023. Commenting on the start of well closures, Ecuador’s Energy and Mines Minister Antonio Goncalves said in a statement, as carried by the Associated Press, “I have come to verify that the decision of last year’s referendum, where the citizens voted in favor of the closure of this field, is being complied with.” “To comply with the closure of the ITT is not an easy job, it requires special and technical planning,” the minister added. Amazon Watch’s climate and energy director Kevin Koenig responded to the start of the well closures that “The government is bound by its obligations to the constitutional court, which gave it a year to close 227 wells. ... The fact that they closed one yesterday does not mean that they are complying with the court order.” By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com