In every industry there is a market leader, some have near monopoly positions, but there is market leader in setting of prices, revenue, profits and we all generally look at that company to see how well they are doing. If they are doing well, then we can say that industry they cater to is doing good. If they are struggling then you look to the competitors to see how they are doing and make a decision on how that segment is doing.

In the retailing world, Walmart is the clear leader and since 2/3s of the economy of the US is related to retailing, Walmart’s results give a clear indication of how the economy is doing.

In an article by Anne D’innocenzio of the New York Times News Service, Walmart posted the slowest sales growth in 6 years as consumers in the US tightened their wallets.

Comparable sales at Walmart store rose 2.6%, the slowest growth in 6 years. The company’s stock fell on the news. The company had been doing very good because cost-conscious shoppers were flocking into the stores.

America’s biggest retailers said that consumers had been wary with their spending and keen to get value from every dollar spent, even if household balance sheets seemed healthy.

In the US, the Treasury Department has sent tariff refunds back to the importers. Walmart received $2.9 billion. Originally, Walmart was going to use most of it to improve stores or internally, now Walmart has lowered the prices of 11,000 items with the intent of making those reductions permanent when possible. John Furner, the CEO said we are investing in price because customers need us to.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, as a dividend investor you like big companies and generally you can make a good income buying them. They are big for a reason, they keep costs down, margins up and are profitable. However all companies have to deal with the economic cycle and where we are in it.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

If you think about the railways, the logistics went railway tracks were laid down was, how far till the steam boiler needed water and fuel? Then with the invention of diesel locomotives, the issue was how far did the next gas station? and each time technology improved the railway, a stop on the railway was discontinued and the community changed.

In the airline business, most airlines flew in and out of London, England as a hub. In the US, Delta and American have hub and spoke systems and the feeder airlines fly in Atlanta or Dallas or Chicago or LA. There are great efficiencies in the way the logistics are run. In worldwide travel, the oil money from the Middle East wanted to change where airlines used as a hub and spoke. Great sums of money were spent to make Dubai, the major stopover.

In an article by John Yoon of the New York Times News Service, before the war between Iran and the US, major Persian Gulf airlines such as Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad dominated intercontinental travel. Roughly 1/3 of the traffic between Europe and Asia and 50% of travelers between Europe and Australia went through the Middle East airports.

Since the war, airlines have shifted and now are stopping in Hong Kong, Istanbul, Seoul, South Korea, and Singapore.

The major Middle Eastern hubs Dubai and Abu Dhabi, UAE, and Doha in Qatar sit at the intersection of Africa, Asia and Europe, a few hours away from most of the world’s population. 16% of the world’s 417 million passengers went through the region according to the International Air Transportation Association.

After the war started, according to Alton Aviation Consultancy, transfer traffic is down 47%. Airlines are looking for alternatives and found them in Asia, where they grew 33%.

Seoul, South Korea’s airport is called Incheon International Airport and business is up 18% over last year and 63% on European routes. This has made it the busiest airport in the world passing Dubai International and Heathrow in London.

Airports stand to benefit because travelers whether they are landing or transmitting, pay passenger fees. Each traveler spends between $29 and $44 on airport shopping, dining and non-aviation expenses, according to Airport Council International and JD Power.

When there is peace in the Middle East airlines tend to like Dubai the best and bookings to the Middle East has increased or the surge to the Asia is a little less.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, in all industries there are alternatives. Sometimes the alternatives are not seen right away but there are alternatives that can be done, unless there is a shock to the system but alternatives exist. For your investments, what are the alternatives?

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

We all watch or listen to the news, and there are always a number of aspects going on. The first one is we want to know what is going on or we are an interested partner, The second is the company that provided the news needs to be paid and the way it is normally done is advertising. Third, the company sends its information through the airwaves, and the airwaves are owned by the government, which means the government has influence or a say in the business. Behind the news, there are always balls bouncing around. Most of the time, those who consume the news do not really see or think about how the news works.

In an article by Jocelyn Noveck of the Associated Press, one of the largest TV news companies, ABC is suing the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). There are many complications particularly ABC is owned by Disney and Disney has 8 licences.

The FCC has ordered an early review of the 8 licenses owned by ABC, normally licenses are given out for 8 years. The FCC cited the network’s diversity and inclusion practices. That is very unusual, regulators can regulate, they can take licenses away!

The lawsuit alleges time after time, the Administration has attacked ABC’s speech, the stories its journalists report and the viewpoints its network program air. Faced with the continual threats, ABC has no choice but to seek redress from the judicial branch for the Administration’s blatant retaliation for their First Amendment speech.

ABC wants the judge to tell the Administration to back off and leave them alone, until the licenses come up for renewal.

ABC also noted if the Administration gets its way, the message to every media company in the country will be unmistakable: tell only the stories the Administration deems favorable or face the coercive machinery of the federal government.

Ideally this is a long drawn out legal process. ABC and the FCC under its Chair Brendan Carr have been fighting for months, normally this type of thing does not make the court system.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, when you invest in a company you are investing for a particular reason but the reality is all companies have multiple “masters”. For investors, it is the Chairman and President and the Board of Directors (do they get along or are they fighting) there are large shareholders or very vocal one who want to unlock shareholder value (push the stock up); there is the communities in which the company does business in – they contribute to the economy but expect tax breaks in return; at some point there is government regulations, hopefully the companies you invest in at least try to live within government regulations; there is employees and management particularly involving high pay and in some cases unionized workers; and the list goes on. Rarely does the master have the ability to bring down the company, they can injure it, make life more difficult, take a couple years to turn the company are, but the company still thrives.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

War is not good, it is not good for the people involved and not good for any business not related to the defense industry, however war does exist and will continue. As investors, we tend to want to invest in domestic companies and want the country to be at peace or not at war within its border. As long as that happens, the economic cycles continue and you can tailor your investments to the economic cycle.

In an article from the Associated Press, the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, suggests that Ukraine is winning, even though there is no winner in the war. Russia was the dominant force, it has oil and gas reserves, a larger army and military machine and for 100 years the links between Ukraine and Russia were very strong, including most Ukrainians speak Russian, as well as the best universities for Ukrainians was in Russia.

In the last year, Ukraine has become very good at drones, which is less expensive than military equipment, and the range and level of expansive capacity has gotten longer. This changes the strategy of drone warfare. Because of the scorched earth policy of the Nazis in WW II, where they burned everything done, the world declared things such as infrastructure such as bridges and roads to be off limits or war crime possibilities, when the war is done. Military units and supply lines are always targets. The next target is energy infrastructure, so citizens suffer, but what is consider normal life can continue.

Russia has one of the largest oil and gas reserves in the world, so every once in while Ukraine’s drones hit refineries to ensure gas shortages or Russia cannot export oil and gas, which reduces their budget surpluses.

Recently Ukraine has been targeting Wildberries distribution centers. If you use or know Amazon, the process works that multiple small business send their products to Amazon distribution centers and then Amazon trucks deliver the products. In Russia, Wildberries does the same thing. The owner Tatyana Kim was worth $8.1 billion. The attacks on 20 Wildberries distribution centers across Russia meant billions of dollars worth of merchandise was burnt. Multiple small businesses have no income and on line shopping in Russia has a set back. In addition, to build the distribution centers, Wildberries took out loans at VTB (one of Russia’s biggest banks) and other lenders, paying the money back will be a challenge.

An estimated 500,000 to 800,000 sellers use Wildberries. The company has 100,000 retail storefront distribution points.

The government has asked lenders to restructure loans to small and medium sized businesses that lost merchandise. Wildberries has pledged to support sellers with discounts on storage, free transfer of goods to other sites, discounted loans and other measures.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, for those companies that operate in a war zone, have flexibility and many contingencies or Plan A, B, C, D….. is a way of survival. Companies not operating in a war zone could learn from the successful businesses. One of the reasons investors tend to buy these types of stocks is few people do not believe that in an economic downturn, the companies have the ability to have many contingencies to get through the downturn with the ability to make profits. No matter what the economic cycle is, can the company make money?

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

If you go into a supermarket, one of the items that is hard to miss is avocado. They are generally on sale because lots of people like them and supermarkets want to increase sales. If you go back less than 100 years ago, avocados were luxury items that luxury hotel chefs and their patrons enjoyed. How did avocados go to main stream? The book titled Green Gold written by Sarah Allaback and Monique F Parsons published by Counterpoint, LA and San Franciso, 2025 outlines the story.

Avocadoes are generally a good tasting food and millions of people enjoy them around the world. The avocado origins in Mexico and is and was a regional staple in Latin America.

People have been going to Latin America for centuries and it is not surprising, when people go to over countries they try the food of the country and some of the times they love it. There generally is a logistic problem that the food grows in a particular climate and much of the US has a frost line. If you have a garden, you know frost kills plants. If you a grower, you worry about frost, because that is your investment. The plant has to be adapted to grow in commercial quantities.

On New Year’s one of the traditions on TV is watching the Rose Bowl Parade. The Rose Bowl Parade has been going on since 1890 and comes from Pasadena, California. For generations, Pasadena has been a recognized center of gardening. Every story needs a wealthy benefactor, and avocados had one, railroad tycoon Henry Huntington, office building had a restaurant one floor below Mr. Huntington’s office where he ate avocados every day. Mr. Huntington was inspired enough to add an avocado orchard to his lavish estate gardens where William Hertrich was the nursery man.

When water was brought to LA (LA is essentially a desert like condition) through the 230 mile aqueduct, people starting grow a variety of tropical plants.

The first avocados planted in the continental US came to Florida. In 1833, Henry Perrine, the American consul in Campeche, Mexico was responding to a request from President John Quincy Adams for government officials to assist in identifying and shipping seeds of useful tropical plants to America.

The Lincoln administration formalized the federal government’s role in American agriculture in 1862 with the establishment of the Department of Agriculture and passed the Morrill Land-Grant College Act, allowing states to establish colleges in largely rural areas. This led to the founding of the University of California Citrus Experimental Station which usher in a new era in scientific fruit analysis, which continues to this day. How to find the best fruit for both consumer and producer which is disease resistant and travels well to markets around the world?

The Boston Cooking School Magazine published recipes to encourage people to try different foods. One banana recipe book was done for United Fruit. The published enjoyed tropical fruits and they also were good for you such as avocado salad.

Back in California, people such as Fred Popenoe planted a couple of avocado trees on his property and soon expanded his nursery. Avocados have a long history in Mexico and eventually people in California were looking for the fruit which could be picked and did not ripen too fast so it could be sold at premium prices. The search was all over Latin America, but the standard bearer was a tree from Atlixco, Mexico. The avocado had thin skin and a nutty flavor. Its seeds were planted in California and grew well so it became the standard bearer and is known as Fuertes.

Rudolph Hass decided to grow avocados and planted 300 sprouted avocado seeds of Guatemalan stock. Once the seeds became seedlings, he was trying to graft the Fuertes to the trees. One baby tree refused to accept the graft, even after multiple attempts. Mr. Hass decided to leave it alone. When that tree grew to have fruit, his children loved it and so did everyone who tried it. Mr. Hass copyrighted it and today you will likely see a Hass on the supermarket shelf.

Once the orchards were established, the California Avocados Association had to start drumming up sales otherwise the fruit would not last. What we consider normal – taste testing, recipes, advertising or marketing to people to try and then buy the fruit on a regular basis was done. The Super Bowl is the most watched TV show of the year, and the industry has branded guacamole as a staple. More avocados are sold at that time than any other time of the year. We all like them.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, every product we buy has a history and logistics on how the product gets to a mass market. In the food industry, taste and quality matter, after that it takes a lot of marketing, technology and work to get people to try and buy the product on a regular basis, otherwise the product is “toast”. But once that happens as long as the margins are good, profitability happens and dividends can be paid. Just remember, in the supermarket and other markets, many products are not there in 3 months, many are never to be seen again, but some stay a long time, why?

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

In the developed world, if you look closely at the people there are many people who are above the government recommended weight for their body type. The fashion industry likes smaller bodies, the government likes moderate bodies but the reality is most people are overweight. The good news is the weight loss industry will never lose clients and for weight loss using drugs from Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, the demand is only getting larger, particularly with the generic version coming soon. Losing weight using drugs has side affects – people eat less snacks, which means the package food snack companies have to adjust.

In an article by Richa Naidu of Reuters, Nestle SA is seeking to turn the rise of weight loss drugs (GLP-1) from a threat into an opportunity using artificial intelligence (AI) and nutritional science to develop products.

Chief technology officer Stefan Palzer said Nestle was using AI and other technology to analyze clinical research, identify nutrient combinations and develop products tailored to GLP-1 users.

One of the side effects associated with taking GLP-1 and having rapid weight loss, including muscle loss and facial fat often referred to Ozempic face.

About 16 million Americans are taking GLP-1, according to Boston Consulting Group and that number is rising as insurance providers pay for it. The insurance companies benefit from healthier patients or patients that pay premiums and do not use the services as much or tend to use low-cost services.

According to the results of weight loss, many people lose muscle mass. Nestle has found a combination of 2 micronutrients that stimulate the growth of muscle tissue. The product is marketed under the Vital Products brand.

Nestle US business created Boost Advanced Nutrition Shake, marketed as containing 35 grams of protein to support muscle health during weight loss. In Asia and Australia, there is a higher protein version of its Milo shake called Milo PRO High Protein.

Nestle has developed internal systems to analyze scientific literature, stimulate consumer behavior, identify emerging trends, and help product developers navigate a database of roughly 120,000 recipes. The company is also using AI to monitor social media and identify consumer trends.

If you have a body weight that is consider moderate, forget the products and continue eating fresh food that contains the same proteins and nutrients, said Amanda Avery, associated professor in nutrition and dietetics and the University of Nottingham in central England.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, one of the reasons you buy these companies is their ability to adapt to changing trends and continue to earn high margins which translates into profits. Dividend paying companies often have the resources to use the best technology i.e. AI to find solutions. There will be an adjustment, but companies can adjust and regain higher margin products to continue being profitable.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

In the news, you will have read or heard the AI revolution is jumping starting the economy with the building of data centers and more important the chips that are in it. The building means taxes for the town or region and the state that it is in. Data centers are huge, multiple footballs in size and look like huge distribution centers except after the building is built, few people actually work in the building. For states they could be cash cows, so new laws have to be passed.

In an article by Tony Romm of the New York Times News Service, in the state of Virgina which is south of Washington, DC there is area near Stone Ridge, there are hundreds of warehouses that the area is known as Data Center Alley. For states like Virgina, they are expecting $600 million in addition revenues.

At the heart of the AI policy debate are two possibilities.

The first is that AI will create an unfathomable economic boom, perhaps adding $15 trillion to the world’s economic output by 2030. That forecast alone has supercharged the valuations of major tech companies.

The second possibility is a doomsday brought about by the same pursuit of growth. If AI falters, it could cause a catastrophe for markets, while if AI succeeds, it could leave millions of Americans unemployed. And it could concentrate more wealth into the hands of the few.

At the heart of the policy response is a fundamental shift in the relationship between local government and the powerful interests of Silicon Valley.

Once, communities nationwide eagerly courted companies such as Amazon, Meta, Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft lavishing them with tax incentives and other perks. Chasing an economic boom, local officials were willing to make short-term fiscal sacrifices in exchange for covered jobs and potential tax revenue.

But the industry’s demands – and profits – grew exponentially. Sometimes, their promises did not pan out. And the new data centers that they erected to serve AI are different than earlier facilities. The new warehouses are larger, employ fewer worker and can consume far more water and electricity, stroking local fears about their economic and environmental impact.

The tech industry’s lobby group is called the Data Center Coalition.

Over the past 2 years, roughly 30 states have considered legislation related to data center energy use, including special tariffs on the largest electricity users, according to the University of Virgina tracker.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, if you have an index portfolio there will be tech stocks in them, the larger companies also pay some dividends and you can own them directly. If you own the companies, you are expecting the possibility that tech companies continue to dominate the economy, and the second possibility of what happens to people will be left to governments. Governments are the same as John Dillinger, who once said I rob the banks because that is where the money is. Governments will increasingly look to tech companies and their owners, because that is where the money is. In the meantime, enjoy the ride but increasingly the relationship will change a bit.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

In North America, we are car orientated and many expect to own a vehicle (or at least have payments) and driving is considered as a rite of passage. In the rest of the world, cars are important, but the bulk of people think about motorcycles as a transportation source. There is a change going on in that market.

In an article of Chico Harlan and Zia Ur-Rehman of the New York Times News Service, 3 years ago, there was hardly any electric motorcycles in Pakistan, today there are some 84 companies making electric motorcycles.

Sales rose 173% during the first half of the year, according to MotorCycles Data, a market-intelligence firm. Hamza Asad, director of sales for Evee, the country’s largest sell, said that 90,000 electric 2-wheelers were sold between April and June, compared with 112,000 for the whole year in 2025.

About 1.9 million motorbikes, gasoline and electric are purchased in Pakistan in a typical year. In Pakistan, it is cheaper to charge a battery than fill up a fuel tank.

Muhammad Salman, managing director of Yadea Pakistan said Trump is the biggest salesman, Salesman of the Year.

The companies in Pakistan are a mixing of shoestring operations, venture-capital backed startups and pre-existing companies that see the potential and are jumping in, for example tractor maker of Massey Ferguson plans to launch an electric motorcycle line.

A handful of Pakistani companies use chassis and tires manufactured domestically while relying on batteries and motors from China. But other companies depend on China almost entirely. They import bikes in ready to assemble packages.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, at some point there will be a market leader and a need to consolidate the industry, and to brand one or more companies so people will do similar to Honda motorcycles, know which brand to buy. For now, it is interesting to watch and see which companies will lead the pack to brand awareness.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.