Saturday Morning -- Part 1 -- Remember: We're In A Recession And It's Only Gonna Get Worse -- January 28, 2023

Laser-focused on dividends: ten companies that raised dividends this past week (remember, we're in a recession):

• CVX, KMB, NSC, CMCSA, ADM, HAL, MRO, NUE, BLK, HCA, SPGI, SCHW.
• Barron's has a negative article on railroads; 
• CMCSA headlines were bad when earnings reported;
• CVX: well, what can I say?
  

US crude oil, commercial supplies, days of supply: second consecutive week the number of days increases; setting recent records. Link: https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=W_EPC0_VSD_NUS_DAYS&f=W. More than four weeks. For this time of year, more than twice as long as needed.

Investing: in 50 years of investing (rare, occasional, short-term exceptions), two sectors in which I never invested: airlines and refiners. That changed this past year.

 

Transition: it appears some investors were unaware of the post-Covid global re-opening. I was not unaware, but I did not anticipate some of the major changes. McKinsey, et al, should have been incredibly busy the past twelve months, but my hunch: probably not.

The nice thing about investing: if a particular equity concerns you, there are 15,000 others among which to choose.

Refiners: link (https://twitter.com/barronsonline/status/1619160862870192132).

 

Natural gas:

• link here;
• link here.

Fed policy: signs it may be working (https://twitter.com/barronsonline/status/1619162528772235265).

US debt:

• link here; as a percent of tax receipts —
• US interest payments so we could have nice things / tax receipts: 2.5% (needs to be fact-checked)
• amount to spend to have a nice house 28% of income
• link here, fact checking: looks like I'm correct;
• pet peeve: when folks don't provide denominators, and/or don't put things in historical perspective; and, myths about global warming -- but that's about it -- that's about the only pet peeves I have.
• oh, one other pet peeve: hand-wringing over money spent by government during Covid-19 lock downs
• and one more: PSA (police standing around).

 

Railroads: link here.