General Electric is a large corporation and similar to other large corporations they look around from acquisitions and an opportunity to leave other divisions. The company moved away from financial services and decided to buy the oil services company Baker Hughes. There are good reasons to buy into the oil services field as the US continues to drill for oil and gas and more wells are successful. Thanks to technology, the success rate is up; in addition the cost to drill is up. Baker Hughes is headquarter in Texas and the image of Texas is they go by the gut. GE is headquartered in New York, they go by the numbers which means on the surface there is going to be a culture clash. The new President was quoted by David Wethe and Richard Clough of Bloomberg News that he is counting on more predictable income such as equipment maintenance contracts to help compensate for the up and downs of the US drilling outlook. It provides continuity and stability in the earnings and less volatility.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, those words are pleasing to the ear of a dividend stock buyer for as much as you want the ups and successes; you have to live with a cycle in every industry. Continuity and stability of earnings allows for scaling upwards and the discipline to cut back when the cycle goes down.

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