Often times perception is just as important as reality, but reality is the facts. Most of us know something about everything, but if it does not relate to our jobs, it is based on perception. That is fine, if we knew about everything what would you do?

An example of perception was an article by Vladimir Soldatkin of Reuters about Russia’s internal fuel concerns. In the big picture, Russia’s economy depends on the oil and gas exports, prior to the war with Ukraine, the oil and gas was going to Europe and China. Since the war, the exports to Europe have been drastically cut back. Russia has strong ties to China, but their economy is using less.

On the domestic side, Russia has faced shortages of fuel in the agricultural areas of the south and the situation is expected to get worse in the coming months.

The fuel shortages are due to a number of factors including: regular maintenance at oil refineries, infrastructure bottlenecks at railroads (Russia similar to the US uses railways and pipelines to move oil), and a system which incentives the oil and gas companies to export the fuel to secure foreign dollars to help the Russian ruble.

Given the expenses of the war, the Russian government cut some subsidies including to refineries. This has led to a shortage of AI-92 gasoline and diesel fuel, said traders.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexande Novak, said there were no fuel shortages.

Similar to the US, Russia has been dealing with inflation and one of the things the government did was to cap oil and gas price increases to the official inflation index.

The train company said the reason for delays, if there were any, was the high congestion of traffic due to the tourism season. However, all requests for the transportation on domestic routes are given priority and most are delivered 100% of the time.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, in the above case, your perception is Russia as one of the largest oil and gas exporters in the world should have no internal problems of supplying the domestic needs of the country. The reality is Russia needs foreign currency to ensure the economy is coming to generate surpluses given the expenses of the war in Ukraine. Government official comments are hopefully optimistic so it is important to follow up with the reality of what is happening on the ground as seen by everyday citizens. In some countries one expects optimistic statements, which is why as an investor you want perception to meet reality.

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