The Market -- It's Back -- September 11, 2019

Updates

Later, 1:32 p.m. CT: in an "up" market I love it when the "computers / algorithms" take over. Starting slightly up this morning, the computers saw the trend developing and now, early afternoon, the Dow is up 130 points. There was no news between this morning and now to generate this surge in the Dow but the "computers / algorithms" saw the trend, and buying moved in.

• SRE: near its 52-week high; paying 2.73%, up $1.10 today, almost a 3/4ths of a percent
• UNP: down a bit
• AAPL: up over 2.5%; up $5.44; I don't think I've seen AAPL ever do this a day after one of their semi-annual presentations
• oils:down a bit today

Original Post

Philip Morris: raises dividend; yield is more than triple the S&P 500. But if one doesn't like PM, there are many, many other Blue Chip companies paying nice dividends. In addition, many companies still very, very cheap. Many companies off their 52-week highs. Back to PM: paying $1.17, up from $1.14/share; implies a yield of 6.28%.

• F: 6.29%
• Macy's (M): 8.83% ("accidental"; may not last)
• T: 5.54% (has been decreasing recently)
• Iron Mountain (IRM): 7.29%; increased this past year (back in December, 2018)
• CenturyLink (CTL): 8.36% (despite cutting dividend in half this past year)
• "CenturyLink Stock Is Soaring. Here's Why. -- Barron's; September 11, 2019
• CVX: stock may complete multi-year breakout pattern -- Investopedia, September 11, 2019 

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, job, travel, career, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or what you think you might have read here.

Dow high: was it 27,398 back in July, 2019? If so, we're near that level again, and if it weren't for Boeing, we might be flirting with a new record. Today, just short of 27,000. Ah, yes, there it is, thanks to a reader:

• Monday, July 15, 2019, record close: 27,359.16
• Intraday, July 15, 2019, record intraday close: 27,398.68

********************************

EVs

EV sales. This is really quite remarkable and I'm not seeing news stories about this. I've been waiting for all August data to be posted but there are a dozen or so automobile companies that have not yet posted August sales data. Having said that, it appears that both global sales and US sales of EVs dropped off a cliff in the last couple of months. US sales fell off the cliff in July and kept falling in August; global sales fell off the cliff in July, 2019, dropping from 264,591 units to 148,144 units, a drop of 44%. That is such a huge outlier, it seems we should see some analysis. This is the only story of any note.

Compare 2018 sales with 2019 sales, US and worldwide for the past few months. The last column with data for 2019 is August, 2019. Once all data for US sales is posted it is unlikely that US EV sales in August, 2019, will exceed 27,222 vehicles.

The graphic:

Meanwhile, in the land of fruits and nuts:

Link here.