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Five Energy Investments to Buy for Profiting from More than Oil

Five energy investments to buy for profiting from more than oil include natural gas providers. The five energy investments to buy for profiting from more than oil feature two funds and three stocks that are showing strong promise to appreciate while also.

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Five energy investments to buy for profiting from more than oil include natural gas providers.

The five energy investments to buy for profiting from more than oil feature two funds and three stocks that are showing strong promise to appreciate while also paying dividends. Rig activity by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has significantly lagged lately likely due to a substantial amount of oil that has been held off the market, except by Iraq, according to BofA Global Research.

The situation also raises questions among industry observers about how forcefully OPEC activity may ramp up during 2022, especially if U.S. oil production growth surprises to the upside, BofA opined. Rising U.S. oil production gains could result in an unexpected tapering of output by OPEC+ nations at some point in 2022, the investment firm added.

Gas Exploration and Production Aids Five Energy Investments to Buy

With uncertainty about how oil production may progress later in 2022, hydrocarbon energy such as natural gas may find an enhanced role in meeting the needs consumers and businesses alike. Investors who like to back companies that produce strong free cash flow should be pleased that the 15 energy stocks covered by BofA are forecast to increase that performance metric by 74% between 2023 and 2021.

Gas exploration and production (E&P) generates the highest free cash flow in the energy industry, not midstream activities such as storing, processing and transporting crude oil and raw natural gas products, pipelines and storage facilities, refining or oilfield services (OFS). No other energy sector will even come close to generating this kind of free cash flow growth over the next couple of years, BofA reported in a recent research note.

Not completing the Keystone Pipeline, opening federal lands for drilling, overregulating on permitting of existing fields or releasing more than a four-day supply from the Strategic Oil Reserve have stoked inflation with no White House response other than to ask OPEC to step up production. Common sense has apparently been abandoned in Washington, said Bryan Perry, a Wall Street veteran who now heads the Cash Machine investment newsletter, as well as the Premium Income, Quick Income Trader, Breakout Profits Alert and Hi-Tech Trader advisory services.

Paul Dykewicz interviews Bryan Perry.

Perry Picks One of Five Energy Investments to Buy for Profiting

Perry proposes investing in energy through the Alerian MLP Exchange Traded Fund (NYSE: AMLP), which seeks investment results that correspond generally to the price and yield performance of the Alerian MLP Infrastructure Index. The index is a capped, float-adjusted, capitalization-weighted composite of energy infrastructure Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs) that earn most of their cash flow from midstream activities such as the transportation, storage and processing of energy commodities.

Chart courtesy of www.stockcharts.com

The United States is the world’s largest producer of oil and gas, with MLPs providing exposure to long-lived assets that generate inflation-protected cash flows. Plus, MLPs have low correlation to other yield-oriented investment such as bond and utilities.

Dividend lovers will appreciate that Alerian MLP ETF offers a current dividend yield of 7.7% and does not force investors to contend with a troublesome K-1 document. I once asked a partner at an accounting firm what he advises clients to do if an investment sends a K-1 at the end of each year and he replied, “Sell it.”

Carlson Chooses XLE as One of Five Energy Investments to Buy

The top energy investment for conservative to moderate investors recommended by Bob Carlson, a pension fund chairman, is Energy Select SPDR (XLE).

Chart courtesy of www.stockcharts.com

Energy stocks had a strong finish to 2021 and most of the reasons for it continue in 2022, said Bob Carlson, who also heads the Retirement Watch investing newsletter. Inflation is likely to remain high for much of 2022 and perhaps longer, likely lifting energy stocks, which traditionally serve as a good inflation hedge for such conditions, he added.

“In addition, capital investments in the energy sector lagged the last few years, continued Carlson, chairman of the Board of Trustees of Virginia’s Fairfax County Employees’ Retirement System with more than $4 billion in assets. “Capital investments aren’t going to surge enough to increase supply anytime soon. In fact, some governments are discouraging or prohibiting additional investments in traditional energy sources, and many banks and other capital sources reduced their exposure to the sector as part of their environmental policies.”

The result is demand likely will surpass supply, without a recession, Carlson counseled. Many energy companies, especially shale oil producers, have made clear that they will be more attuned to shareholders going forward. Instead of investing heavily to maximize production, energy companies will focus on profitability and ensuring shareholders have cash distributions and stock price appreciation, he added.

Pension fund and Retirement Watch chief Bob Carlson answers questions from columnist Paul Dykewicz.

Five Energy Investments to Buy for Profiting Include EOG Resources

Energy is one of the limited number of industries that are benefitting from the current rising yield environment. Increased prices are producing buying opportunities for energy industry investors, according to the Fast Money Alert trading service led by Mark Skousen, PhD, and Jim Woods.

Mark Skousen, a descendant of Benjamin Franklin, meets with Paul Dykewicz.

EOG Resources, Inc. (EOG) is an American energy company engaged in hydrocarbon exploration. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, the company recently was recommended by Skousen and Woods in Fast Money Alert. The stock produced a fast, double-digit investment return and they chose to recommend that their subscribers sell the position to cash out.

They recommended EOG on Oct. 4 but opted to recommend the stock’s sale on Jan. 31 after it has soared 33%. However, the stock remains a recommendation of BofA.

Chart courtesy of www.stockcharts.com

Skousen, named one of the world’s Top 20 living economists by www.superscholar.org, is the leader of the Forecasts & Strategies investment newsletter, as well as the Five Star Trader, TNT Trader and Home Run Trader advisory services. Woods writes the Successful Investing and Intelligence Report investment newsletters, as well as heads the Bullseye Stock Trader and High Velocity Trader advisory services.

Jim Woods and Paul Dykewicz discuss stocks to buy.

EOG Shines Among Five Energy Investments to Buy for Profiting

BofA set a price objective on EOG of $118 and praised the stock for offering the highest dividend yield of exploration and production companies. The investment firm rated EOG among its top ideas in the “conservative beta” category.

Two key risks for EOG to attain BofA’s price objective are the oil and gas price and margin environment, as well as any significant delays to the new upstream projects critical to its production targets. BofA wrote in a recent research note that it expects EOG to lower cost guidance over the course of 2022 to clear the way for greater clarity on cash return priorities, such as enhanced emphasis on ordinary dividends and buy backs rather than “one off” special dividends.

With a new CEO at the helm of EOG, BofA expects the company to pivot to moderate medium-term growth and provide the tools to win back investors, while offering conservative exposure to an ongoing commodity recovery. BofA forecasts that EOG will be able to sustain a 3.3% dividend yield, the highest among the “pure play” E&Ps.

APA Ascends into Five Energy Investments to Buy

APA Corporation (NYSE: APA), the Houston-based holding company for Apache Corporation, is engaged in hydrocarbon exploration. BofA recommends the company, gave it a price objective of $47 and views it as a good value investment in the energy industry.

Modest international gas exposure bolsters APA’s unhedged free cash flow outlook that is 60% committed to give back to the company’s shareholders, BofA wrote. In fact, APA could theoretically buy back 20% of its stock in 2022, the investment firm continued.

Ways to top the $47 price objective would include: 1) higher commodity prices 2) exploration success in Suriname 3) exploration success and 4) increased drilling activity in Egypt, BoA wrote. Risks to achieving the price objective are: (1) lower commodity prices (2) Egyptian political risk and (3) exploration risk in Suriname.

In addition to commodity price leverage, Apache has two organic catalysts that BofA wrote can narrow the valuation gap: improved contract terms in Egypt that can reinvigorate activity and exploration success in Suriname, where success to date appears to be a free option.

Chart courtesy of www.stockcharts.com

Ovintiv Finalizes Five Energy Investments to Buy for Profiting

Ovintiv Inc. (NYSE: OVV), once known as Encana Corporation, is a hydrocarbon exploration and production company headquartered in Denver. Founded and previously based in Calgary, Alberta, the company then was the largest natural gas producer in Canada.

BoA set a $56 price objective on Avintiv but that was based on $60 Brent / $56.50 WTI oil prices, rather than the current levels that are about $30 above both right now. Risks to attaining BofA’s price objective are (1) the oil and gas price and margin environment, (2) significant delays to the new upstream projects, (3) inability to capture the price environment due to cost pressures and (4) potential currency exchange risk.

Outperformance is possible, too. It could happen, BofA noted, amid potentially improving cost of capital as the company deleverages its balance sheet and increased oil & gas prices.

Chart courtesy of www.stockcharts.com

COVID-19 Concerns Continue as Cases and Deaths Keep Climbing

Data show the new Omicron subvariant is transmitting faster than the original, so public health officials still are warning not to ease restrictions and calls for vaccinations prematurely. Plus, Pfizer-BioNTech moved a step closer to authorization for their vaccine aimed at children under the age of 5.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that the continuing threat is leading additional people to obtain COVID-19 boosters. But more than 60 million people in the United States remain eligible to be vaccinated and have yet to do so, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief White House medical adviser on COVID-19.

As of Jan. 30, 249,892,470 people, or 75.3% of the U.S. population, have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, the CDC reported. Those who are fully vaccinated total 211,695,131, or 63.8% of the U.S. population, according to the CDC.

COVID-19 Concerns Subheading

COVID-19 deaths worldwide, as of Feb. 2, topped the 5.6 million mark to hit 5,688,006, according to Johns Hopkins University. Worldwide COVID-19 cases have zoomed past 381 million, reaching 381,722,919 on that date.

U.S. COVID-19 cases, also as of Feb. 2, soared beyond 75 million, totaling 75,350,359 and causing 890,770 deaths. America has the dreaded distinction as the country with the most COVID-19 cases and deaths.

The five energy investments to buy for profiting from more than oil give investors a chance to avoid the early-2022 market pullback. Even though traditional oil and gas investments have fallen out of favor with many investors who have adopted environmental, social and executive governance standards, open-minded Investors willing to invest in established energy stocks may find both profitability and dividend payouts.

Paul Dykewicz, www.pauldykewicz.com, is an accomplished, award-winning journalist who has written for Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, USA Today, the Journal of Commerce, Seeking Alpha, GuruFocus and other publications and websites. Paul, who can be followed on Twitter @PaulDykewicz, is the editor of StockInvestor.com and DividendInvestor.com, a writer for both websites and a columnist. He further is editorial director of Eagle Financial Publications in Washington, D.C., where he edits monthly investment newsletters, time-sensitive trading alerts, free e-letters and other investment reports. Paul previously served as business editor of Baltimore’s Daily Record newspaper. Paul also is the author of an inspirational book, “Holy Smokes! Golden Guidance from Notre Dame’s Championship Chaplain,” with a foreword by former national championship-winning football coach Lou Holtz. The book is great as a gift and is endorsed by Joe Montana, Joe Theismann, Ara Parseghian, “Rocket” Ismail, Reggie Brooks, Dick Vitale and many others. Call 202-677-4457 for multiple-book pricing.

 

 

 

 

The post Five Energy Investments to Buy for Profiting from More than Oil appeared first on Stock Investor.

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International

This is the biggest money mistake you’re making during travel

A retail expert talks of some common money mistakes travelers make on their trips.

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Travel is expensive. Despite the explosion of travel demand in the two years since the world opened up from the pandemic, survey after survey shows that financial reasons are the biggest factor keeping some from taking their desired trips.

Airfare, accommodation as well as food and entertainment during the trip have all outpaced inflation over the last four years.

Related: This is why we're still spending an insane amount of money on travel

But while there are multiple tricks and “travel hacks” for finding cheaper plane tickets and accommodation, the biggest financial mistake that leads to blown travel budgets is much smaller and more insidious.

A traveler watches a plane takeoff at an airport gate.

Jeshoots on Unsplash

This is what you should (and shouldn’t) spend your money on while abroad

“When it comes to traveling, it's hard to resist buying items so you can have a piece of that memory at home,” Kristen Gall, a retail expert who heads the financial planning section at points-back platform Rakuten, told Travel + Leisure in an interview. “However, it's important to remember that you don't need every souvenir that catches your eye.”

More Travel:

According to Gall, souvenirs not only have a tendency to add up in price but also weight which can in turn require one to pay for extra weight or even another suitcase at the airport — over the last two months, airlines like Delta  (DAL) , American Airlines  (AAL)  and JetBlue Airways  (JBLU)  have all followed each other in increasing baggage prices to in some cases as much as $60 for a first bag and $100 for a second one.

While such extras may not seem like a lot compared to the thousands one might have spent on the hotel and ticket, they all have what is sometimes known as a “coffee” or “takeout effect” in which small expenses can lead one to overspend by a large amount.

‘Save up for one special thing rather than a bunch of trinkets…’

“When traveling abroad, I recommend only purchasing items that you can't get back at home, or that are small enough to not impact your luggage weight,” Gall said. “If you’re set on bringing home a souvenir, save up for one special thing, rather than wasting your money on a bunch of trinkets you may not think twice about once you return home.”

Along with the immediate costs, there is also the risk of purchasing things that go to waste when returning home from an international vacation. Alcohol is subject to airlines’ liquid rules while certain types of foods, particularly meat and other animal products, can be confiscated by customs. 

While one incident of losing an expensive bottle of liquor or cheese brought back from a country like France will often make travelers forever careful, those who travel internationally less frequently will often be unaware of specific rules and be forced to part with something they spent money on at the airport.

“It's important to keep in mind that you're going to have to travel back with everything you purchased,” Gall continued. “[…] Be careful when buying food or wine, as it may not make it through customs. Foods like chocolate are typically fine, but items like meat and produce are likely prohibited to come back into the country.

Related: Veteran fund manager picks favorite stocks for 2024

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Spread & Containment

As the pandemic turns four, here’s what we need to do for a healthier future

On the fourth anniversary of the pandemic, a public health researcher offers four principles for a healthier future.

John Gomez/Shutterstock

Anniversaries are usually festive occasions, marked by celebration and joy. But there’ll be no popping of corks for this one.

March 11 2024 marks four years since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic.

Although no longer officially a public health emergency of international concern, the pandemic is still with us, and the virus is still causing serious harm.

Here are three priorities – three Cs – for a healthier future.

Clear guidance

Over the past four years, one of the biggest challenges people faced when trying to follow COVID rules was understanding them.

From a behavioural science perspective, one of the major themes of the last four years has been whether guidance was clear enough or whether people were receiving too many different and confusing messages – something colleagues and I called “alert fatigue”.

With colleagues, I conducted an evidence review of communication during COVID and found that the lack of clarity, as well as a lack of trust in those setting rules, were key barriers to adherence to measures like social distancing.

In future, whether it’s another COVID wave, or another virus or public health emergency, clear communication by trustworthy messengers is going to be key.

Combat complacency

As Maria van Kerkove, COVID technical lead for WHO, puts it there is no acceptable level of death from COVID. COVID complacency is setting in as we have moved out of the emergency phase of the pandemic. But is still much work to be done.

First, we still need to understand this virus better. Four years is not a long time to understand the longer-term effects of COVID. For example, evidence on how the virus affects the brain and cognitive functioning is in its infancy.

The extent, severity and possible treatment of long COVID is another priority that must not be forgotten – not least because it is still causing a lot of long-term sickness and absence.

Culture change

During the pandemic’s first few years, there was a question over how many of our new habits, from elbow bumping (remember that?) to remote working, were here to stay.

Turns out old habits die hard – and in most cases that’s not a bad thing – after all handshaking and hugging can be good for our health.

But there is some pandemic behaviour we could have kept, under certain conditions. I’m pretty sure most people don’t wear masks when they have respiratory symptoms, even though some health authorities, such as the NHS, recommend it.

Masks could still be thought of like umbrellas: we keep one handy for when we need it, for example, when visiting vulnerable people, especially during times when there’s a spike in COVID.

If masks hadn’t been so politicised as a symbol of conformity and oppression so early in the pandemic, then we might arguably have seen people in more countries adopting the behaviour in parts of east Asia, where people continue to wear masks or face coverings when they are sick to avoid spreading it to others.

Although the pandemic led to the growth of remote or hybrid working, presenteeism – going to work when sick – is still a major issue.

Encouraging parents to send children to school when they are unwell is unlikely to help public health, or attendance for that matter. For instance, although one child might recover quickly from a given virus, other children who might catch it from them might be ill for days.

Similarly, a culture of presenteeism that pressures workers to come in when ill is likely to backfire later on, helping infectious disease spread in workplaces.

At the most fundamental level, we need to do more to create a culture of equality. Some groups, especially the most economically deprived, fared much worse than others during the pandemic. Health inequalities have widened as a result. With ongoing pandemic impacts, for example, long COVID rates, also disproportionately affecting those from disadvantaged groups, health inequalities are likely to persist without significant action to address them.

Vaccine inequity is still a problem globally. At a national level, in some wealthier countries like the UK, those from more deprived backgrounds are going to be less able to afford private vaccines.

We may be out of the emergency phase of COVID, but the pandemic is not yet over. As we reflect on the past four years, working to provide clearer public health communication, avoiding COVID complacency and reducing health inequalities are all things that can help prepare for any future waves or, indeed, pandemics.

Simon Nicholas Williams has received funding from Senedd Cymru, Public Health Wales and the Wales Covid Evidence Centre for research on COVID-19, and has consulted for the World Health Organization. However, this article reflects the views of the author only, in his academic capacity at Swansea University, and no funding or organizational bodies were involved in the writing or content of this article.

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Government

The Grinch Who Stole Freedom

The Grinch Who Stole Freedom

Authored by Jeffrey A. Tucker via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Before President Joe Biden’s State of the…

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The Grinch Who Stole Freedom

Authored by Jeffrey A. Tucker via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Before President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, the pundit class was predicting that he would deliver a message of unity and calm, if only to attract undecided voters to his side.

President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on March 7, 2024. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)

He did the opposite. The speech revealed a loud, cranky, angry, bitter side of the man that people don’t usually see. It seemed like the real Joe Biden I remember from the old days, full of venom, sarcasm, disdain, threats, and extreme partisanship.

The base might have loved it except that he made reference to an “illegal” alien, which is apparently a trigger word for the left. He failed their purity test.

The speech was stunning in its bile and bitterness. It’s beyond belief that he began with a pitch for more funds for the Ukraine war, which has killed 10,000 civilians and some 200,000 troops on both sides. It’s a bloody mess that could have been resolved early on but for U.S. tax funding of the conflict.

Despite the push from the higher ends of conservative commentary, average Republicans have turned hard against this war. The United States is in a fiscal crisis and every manner of domestic crisis, and the U.S. president opens his speech with a pitch to protect the border in Ukraine? It was completely bizarre, and lent some weight to the darkest conspiracies about why the Biden administration cares so much about this issue.

From there, he pivoted to wildly overblown rhetoric about the most hysterically exaggerated event of our times: the legendary Jan. 6 protests on Capitol Hill. Arrests for daring to protest the government on that day are growing.

The media and the Biden administration continue to describe it as the worst crisis since the War of the Roses, or something. It’s all a wild stretch, but it set the tone of the whole speech, complete with unrelenting attacks on former President Donald Trump. He would use the speech not to unite or make a pitch that he is president of the entire country but rather intensify his fundamental attack on everything America is supposed to be.

Hard to isolate the most alarming part, but one aspect really stood out to me. He glared directly at the Supreme Court Justices sitting there and threatened them with political power. He said that they were awful for getting rid of nationwide abortion rights and returning the issue to the states where it belongs, very obviously. But President Biden whipped up his base to exact some kind of retribution against the court.

Looking this up, we have a few historical examples of presidents criticizing the court but none to their faces in a State of the Union address. This comes two weeks after President Biden directly bragged about defying the Supreme Court over the issue of student loan forgiveness. The court said he could not do this on his own, but President Biden did it anyway.

Here we have an issue of civic decorum that you cannot legislate or legally codify. Essentially, under the U.S. system, the president has to agree to defer to the highest court in its rulings even if he doesn’t like them. President Biden is now aggressively defying the court and adding direct threats on top of that. In other words, this president is plunging us straight into lawlessness and dictatorship.

In the background here, you must understand, is the most important free speech case in U.S. history. The Supreme Court on March 18 will hear arguments over an injunction against President Biden’s administrative agencies as issued by the Fifth Circuit. The injunction would forbid government agencies from imposing themselves on media and social media companies to curate content and censor contrary opinions, either directly or indirectly through so-called “switchboarding.”

A ruling for the plaintiffs in the case would force the dismantling of a growing and massive industry that has come to be called the censorship-industrial complex. It involves dozens or even more than 100 government agencies, including quasi-intelligence agencies such as the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which was set up only in 2018 but managed information flow, labor force designations, and absentee voting during the COVID-19 response.

A good ruling here will protect free speech or at least intend to. But, of course, the Biden administration could directly defy it. That seems to be where this administration is headed. It’s extremely dangerous.

A ruling for the defense and against the injunction would be a catastrophe. It would invite every government agency to exercise direct control over all media and social media in the country, effectively abolishing the First Amendment.

Close watchers of the court have no clear idea of how this will turn out. But watching President Biden glare at court members at the address, one does wonder. Did they sense the threats he was making against them? Will they stand up for the independence of the judicial branch?

Maybe his intimidation tactics will end up backfiring. After all, does the Supreme Court really think it is wise to license this administration with the power to control all information flows in the United States?

The deeper issue here is a pressing battle that is roiling American life today. It concerns the future and power of the administrative state versus the elected one. The Constitution contains no reference to a fourth branch of government, but that is what has been allowed to form and entrench itself, in complete violation of the Founders’ intentions. Only the Supreme Court can stop it, if they are brave enough to take it on.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, and surely you have, President Biden is nothing but a marionette of deep-state interests. He is there to pretend to be the people’s representative, but everything that he does is about entrenching the fourth branch of government, the permanent bureaucracy that goes on its merry way without any real civilian oversight.

We know this for a fact by virtue of one of his first acts as president, to repeal an executive order by President Trump that would have reclassified some (or many) federal employees as directly under the control of the elected president rather than have independent power. The elites in Washington absolutely panicked about President Trump’s executive order. They plotted to make sure that he didn’t get a second term, and quickly scratched that brilliant act by President Trump from the historical record.

This epic battle is the subtext behind nearly everything taking place in Washington today.

Aside from the vicious moment of directly attacking the Supreme Court, President Biden set himself up as some kind of economic central planner, promising to abolish hidden fees and bags of chips that weren’t full enough, as if he has the power to do this, which he does not. He was up there just muttering gibberish. If he is serious, he believes that the U.S. president has the power to dictate the prices of every candy bar and hotel room in the United States—an absolutely terrifying exercise of power that compares only to Stalin and Mao. And yet there he was promising to do just that.

Aside from demonizing the opposition, wildly exaggerating about Jan. 6, whipping up war frenzy, swearing to end climate change, which will make the “green energy” industry rich, threatening more taxes on business enterprise, promising to cure cancer (again!), and parading as the master of candy bar prices, what else did he do? Well, he took credit for the supposedly growing economy even as a vast number of Americans are deeply suffering from his awful policies.

It’s hard to imagine that this speech could be considered a success. The optics alone made him look like the Grinch who stole freedom, except the Grinch was far more articulate and clever. He’s a mean one, Mr. Biden.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Mon, 03/11/2024 - 12:00

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