This Is Not Good: Underwater Oil-Well Bolts Are Failing -- July 10, 2016

From The Wall Street Journal: Underwater oil-well bolts are failing, causing alarm.

General Electric Co. , oil drillers and U.S. regulators are scrambling to determine why massive bolts used to connect subsea oil equipment keep failing, prompting costly shutdowns and raising safety concerns about hundreds of wells in the Gulf of Mexico.

Safety regulators at the Department of the Interior began investigating the matter in 2013, after a GE oil-exploration equipment business issued a global recall for faulty bolts on one of its components. The bolts have corroded and sometimes snapped, raising the possibility of a major oil leak.

But the U.S. investigation and two recent bolt failures convinced regulators and industry officials that the problem goes beyond GE and its blowout preventers—safety gear used to halt oil-and-gas flow during a well emergency.

Flaws also have been found in bolts made by GE’s two main competitors for blowout preventers— National Oilwell Varco Inc. and the Cameron unit of Schlumberger Ltd. —and in bolts used in other areas on subsea wells, said Interior Department officials. 

Those commenting are probably correct on the cause. Off-shore wind turbines? Same problem?

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Some Folks "Invested" In Money Market Accounts Ten Years Ago; Others Did Not

From Investopedia: behind Exxon's 51.2% rise in ten years. Misleading headline, to say the least. Fundamentals:

Exxon Mobil reported net income of $16.2 billion in 2015 on total revenues of $269 billion. This represented a year-over-year decline of 34.7% on the top line, bringing the 10-year average growth rate to -3.2%. 

Sharp declines were also experienced in 2009 when oil prices dropped. Earnings growth rates were even more volatile, with large fixed costs creating operating leverage. 

Exxon Mobil's dividend steadily rose over the 10-year period from 2006 to 2016, with management explicitly focusing on dividend growth as a priority through lean times. 

To counteract the 2014 and 2015 price drop, the company shed operating and capital expenses.