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: […]
Jan
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Dec
31
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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, […]
Dec
30
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For patient, savvy investors looking for long term gains, Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) is a very appealing stock for a variety of factors. Caterpillar, a member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSE: DIA), is the world’s largest heavy equipment maker. It is also a very volatile stock. The beta for Caterpillar is 1.65. That means […]
Dec
19
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Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS-A) is continuing to expand in areas such as Africa and the Arctic, among others, even with the falling price of oil and natural gas. The largest oil and natural gas firm in the world, Royal Dutch Shell is “Big Oil” by every meaning. But its stock price is not as […]
Dec
18
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A recent article on this site detailed the hoax about how a schoolboy in New York City fooled the media into believing he had made $72 million trading securities during recess. Of little surprise, it turned out to be a hoax. The aftermath is replete with articles about how to spot a stock hoax. That […]
Dec
12
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BHP Billiton (NYSE: BHP), the world’s largest natural resources company, is restructuring its operations around the world. This is resulting in change in the business model of the firm as its sells off assets and realigns its strcture. This is naturally causing short term pain in the stock price of BHP Billiton. As a result, […]
Dec
10
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BP PLC (NYSE: BP), the second largest energy company in Europe, is down for the last week, month, quarter, six months, and year of market action. For 2014, BP PLC is down by nearly 17 percent. This is the same with other oil and natural gas firms like Chevron (NYSE: CVX), ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM), and […]
Dec
9
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Chevron (NYSE: CVX) is like ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) in that it is a “Big Oil” company that has not spun off units like so many others. As a result, Chevron, again like ExxonMobil, has not fallen in recent stock market action like so many other energy companies. Chevron is down for the last week, month, […]
Dec
3
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Like many other major oil stocks, ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) is down for the last week, month, quarter and six months of market action. For the last 52 weeks, ConocoPhillips has dropped, too (chart below). Projections are that ConocoPhillips and other oil and natural gas stocks will continue to fall. The exchange traded fund for oil, […]
Dec
2
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BHP Billiton (NYSE: BHP) is the world’s largest natural resources company with operations spanning the globe from its headquarters in Melbourne, Australia. It is very profitable, more than three times the average of around ten percent for a member of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (NYSE: SPY). But that still has not prevented BHP […]
