Wednesday, February 27, 2019 -- Nothing About The Bakken

Phillips 66: Michael Fitzsimmons over at SeekingAlpha. Predicts PSX will increase its dividend by 12.5% to 90 cents/share. Currently trading at $97.64; Fitzsimmons thinks shares could go to $125. Currently paying $3.20 or 3.29%. At MarketRealist, share appreciation perhaps to $103, but also suggests a double-digit dividend increase in 2019 (if you want to see a lot of ads, click on that MarketRealist link).

Oops! Amazon did it again: Amazon will back out of deal to lease building in downtown Seattle over tax issues.

Amazon is abandoning a prominent downtown Seattle office project 10 months after it threatened to do so if the city imposed a new business tax.
While the Seattle City Council ultimately reversed itself on the so-called head tax, Amazon confirmed Wednesday it will not occupy the 722,000 square feet of space it had leased in the Rainier Square tower under construction at 5th and Union.

The lease was one of the biggest in Seattle history — enough space to hold at least 3,500 employees and perhaps up to 5,000. 

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

Housing sales: all that hand-wringing a week or so ago about the slump in housing sales is history. The slump occurred during the partial government shutdown and in retrospect it appears the housing industry is more sensitive to government slowdown than most anticipated. Whatever. Today is it is being reported that US pending house sales rise 4.6%. The number of existing homes that went under contract in the U.S. rose strongly in January, a sign of improvement for the housing market at the start of the year.

The Fed: slowing down on rate increases? Some even suggest next "rate action" could be a cut.

5G: a lot of articles about 5G rollout. I'll believe it when I see it. It's going to be expensive for individual users.

Billionaires. 2018 data.  

• 2,470 billionaires worldwide
• 430 less than previous year (2017)
• total wealth of US billionaires decreased 9% to $9.6 trillion
• 1% wealth tax = $96 billion 
• US debt: $22 trillion
• $22 trillion / $96 billion = 230 years (and, of course, that does not into account interest payments due on the $22 trillion)
• US added 13 billionaires
• China added 52 billionaires
• Chinese Shu Ping, female, and her husband, become the richest restaurant owners in the world; $8.4 billion
• top of the list: Jeff Bezos:  $147 billion
• Bill Gates, #2, at $96 billion
• Warren Buffett, #3, at $88 billion -- who is giving away his wealth in incredibly small amounts but getting a lot of press for doing so
• China: 658 billionaires
• US: 584 billioinaires
• Germany: 117 billionaires