For Investors Only -- February 14, 2014

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on what you read here or what you think you may have read here. 

Seven companies announced increased dividends or distributions.

Oil slips 16 cents, just above $100.

Magnum Hunter Announces Gas Discovery in First Utica Shale Well on Stalder Pad: Co announces that its first dry gas Utica Shale well, the Stalder #3UH located on the Stalder Pad (18 potential wells) in Monroe County, Ohio, was placed on production earlier this week and has recently tested at a peak rate of 32.5 MMCF of natural gas per day on an adjustable rate choke with 4,300 psi FCP.

In early trading: KOG, SRE, EPD, WMB all flat, but the majors are green, which is somewhat surprising, considering that oil slipped 16 cents in early trading.

In early trading: MDU trades at a new high, up about a dime.

Midday, stocks trading at new highs: MDU, ARII, UNP.

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I think I posted this story earlier, with a couple of additioanl links, but in case this is a different source, I've posted it:

NIPTON, Calif. — The Ivanpah solar power plant stretches over more than five square miles of the Mojave Desert. Almost 350,000 mirrors the size of garage doors tilt toward the sun with an ability to energize 140,000 homes. The plant, which took almost four years and thousands of workers assembling millions of parts to complete, officially opened on Thursday, the first electric generator of its kind.

It could also be the last.

Since the project began, the price of rival technologies has plummeted, incentives have begun to disappear and the appetite among investors for mammoth solar farms has waned. Although several large, new projects have been coming online in recent months — many in the last quarter of 2013 — experts say fewer are beginning construction and not all of those under development will be completed.

“I don’t think that we’re going to see large-scale solar thermal plants popping up, five at a time, every year in the U.S. in the long-term — it’s just not the way it’s going to work,” said Matthew Feinstein, a senior analyst at Lux Research.

Actually, the real reason for posting this link: next to the story is a great photo ad for women's lingerie. It may be a dynamic ad, in more ways than one.