It has been a brutal six months for United States Oil (NYSE: USO), a major exchange traded fund for oil, and United States Natural Gas (NYSE: UNG), a major exchange traded fund for natural gas.  Over the last six months, United States Oil has fallen by more than 50 percent (chart below).  It is much […]

CNOOC Ltd (NYSE: CEO) is a major Chinese oil company that offers a dividend yield and a profit margin that is more than twice that the average for a member of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (NYSE: SPY). While that is certainly appealing, making CNOOC Ltd very attractive now is that it is trading […]

Total Energy SA (NYSE: TOT) is a major oil and natural gas firm that is down for the last week, year, month, quarter, six months, and year of market action.  For 2015, Total Energy SA is already down by 5 percent (chart below).  The loss of its highly regarded chief executive officer has not helped […]

United States Natural Gas (NYSE: UNG), the main exchange traded fund for natural gas, is up for the week.  Cold weather has the demand for natural gas increasing, which takes the share price of United States Natural Gas higher.  That is needed as United States Natural Gas is down for the last month, quarter, six […]

A Business Development Company (BDC) is a public corporation that helps small- and mid-sized companies with financing.  What is appealing to income investors is that BDCs must pay out 90 percent of its taxable income each year to investors in dividends.  That can result in high dividend yields from such BDCs as Apollo Investment (NASDAQ: […]

Not only is ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM), the world’s largest oil and natural gas entity, trading at its 52-week low, it is substantially below what legendary investor Warren Buffett paid for his shares. ExxonMobil is down for the last week, month, quarter, six months, and year of market action (chart below). Over the last six months […]

While it has been a bull market for stocks, it has bearish for energy stocks such as BP (NYSE: BP), Chevron (NYSE: CVX), ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM), and many others. The main exchange traded fund for oil, United States Oil (NYSE: USO), is down more than 50 percent for the last six months of market action […]

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSE: DIA) and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (NYSE: SPY) have been on a bull market stampede since March 2009. But the overall American economy has not been feeling as bullish. The policies under Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke favored the stock market.  Low interest rates made stocks more […]

2014 was another bull market year with both the Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSE: DIA) and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (NYSE: SPY) doing well.  As with any time period, certain sectors did well with others disappointing.  Oil and natural gas plunged, as did the exchange traded funds, United States Oil (NYSE: USO), and […]

The carnage in the energy sector has been deep and wide with United States Oil (NYSE: USO), a major exchange traded fund for oil, and United States Natural Gas, (NYSE: UNG), a major exchange traded fund for natural gas, off significantly. While that has been the story for many individual oil and natural gas stocks, […]