Oil giant Exxon Mobil has increased its dividend for the last 17 years without fail. They want to increase it again this year. They don’t have the money, so they are going to borrow it. Stock dividend payments are a way that companies pay profits directly to their shareholders. When a company earns money, they […]
Companies these days are borrowing at unprecedented rates, although the real threat here isn’t so much default as it is sacrificing future profits for shorter-term stock love. If you are holding stocks these days, which a lot of people are, you just have to love what companies are doing with their balance sheets in this […]
The market always does its best to price in risks with its stocks. Boeing has had quite a bit of risk priced in already, but we may be underestimating the total cost of this fiasco. The two Boeing 737 MAX aircraft that fell from the sky and killed everyone on board has resulted in the […]
Broadridge Financial should be as stable of a company as they come. They make their money in both good and bad times. The company’s stock is far from stable though. Sometimes we may wonder if they send analysts out in the wilderness to live in isolation and send their reports about their neck of the […]
At first glance, it might seem pretty odd that the world’s most popular search engine would get into the banking business. Google offering banking actually makes sense. Google is a huge internet company that already has a big footprint in our lives. It all started with an idea to improve upon search engine performance on […]
McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook had been guiding the company very well over his 4-year tenure. He was unceremoniously dumped this week, for reasons that should startle us. Steve Easterbrook started his career with McDonald’s in 1993 as a manager of one of their restaurants in London. The fast food industry, including McDonalds, has never been […]
The backlash against salmon farming is just beginning. Not all salmon farms are dangerous though, and one Norwegian company has found a safer way to do this. One of the reasons why salmon or any seafood doesn’t come close to the volume of sales that chicken, pork, and beef do is that the supply for […]
Apple had a fabulous fourth quarter and easily beat the expectations on the street. The 5G iPhone is at least a year away, and in the meantime, China is rolling out 5G now. In spite of just rolling out a stellar quarterly earnings call, which saw Apple earn $3.04 per share versus the consensus estimate […]
Ford gets 150% of its profits from the sale of trucks, including SUVs. This in itself tells us a great deal about their business. Sales matter a lot, profit, obviously not so much. In spite of car sales have declining, truck sales in the United States are still booming. A full 70% of the vehicles […]