Every industry has conferences and manufacturers have trade shows. Although there will be more than one conference to be attended, one conference seems to stand above the other. If you think about consumer electronics it is the trade show in Las Vegas held in January. If you are in the airplane manufacturing business for civilian aircraft the trade show is the Farnborough Airshow. Talks begin weeks in advance but results are announced at the show.

In an article by Tim Hepher and David Shepardson of Reuters, Boeing and Airbus will announce dels with airliners across the globe. Boeing announced deals with Delta Air Lines and Lufthansa worth over $15 billion for 737 Max 10 and 777 X jets.

Easyjet announced 56 Airbus A320neos.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, in every industry there are conferences and at some companies announce purchases. For the companies you own stock, it is good to know when the important conferences are to be held and watch for news from the event. If news is good, then you can hold, if news is not good then you might be looking for alternatives.

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

In every city there is a demand for warehouse space and manufacturing space, often times due to the size required by the company they are looking for inexpensive real estate relative to office space which is more expensive. The companies in the area tend to similar work and clusters of warehousing space bring employment to the area. Inside the warehouses, much of the movement of material and goods was done by hand or using power jacks, but times are changing and the pandemic of COVID met times changed faster than normal.

Technology is improving every year and one of the improvements is the world of robots. Given many of the jobs are repetitious. companies are eager to find a method to use a robot for the most repetition work and they are investing and finding robots to help the business.

In an article by Patrick Sisson of the New York Times News Service, robots are changing the workplace as companies spend billions of dollars on robotics. In the next 5 years, according to the Material Handling Institute adoption of robotics in warehouses is expected to grow 50%. The idea is the robots steered by software and AI can move boxes and products in a seamless environment.

The biggest company in the robotics industry is Amazon which accounted for 38% of the robotics investment in the industry in 2021. The company acquired the robotics company Kiva Systems and has deployed more than 500,000 units. In addition, it set up the Industrial Innovation Fund to invest in firms such as Agility Robotics.

Walmart recently announced a deal with Symbotic to bring its system of belts, pickers and autonomous vehicles to all of the retailer’s 42 main storing facilties.

Kroger has opened 5 of its 20 planned warehouses outfitted with the Ocado automated system for packing and shipping fresh groceries.

For investors in real estate warehouses, the challenge is old buildings will need 2 or 3 times the power generation of previous generations including the latest wireless and 5G networks or many will need upgrades to suit the demands of robots. At the moment, a human and a robot tend to have similar space requirements, but only one needs a lunch room.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, as robots become common in the workplace they will tend to have a brand name and the brand name will mean recurring revenues for the company. The capital cost for the robot and the operating cost to ensure the warehouse and factory remain operational. With every change there are opportunities, sometimes it is hard to see them but seeing where companies spend their money is a good way to start.

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

Every year a blockbuster movie is released in the hope it will be a blockbuster movie or a movie that makes a lot of money for the film company. One of the blockbusters of the past was a movie called Gladiator staring Russell Crowe directed by Ridley Scott. Having seen the movie more than once, the movie is a good movie.

You Tube has many videos on it and one of them is the opening from the movie. In the movie, Rome which is the center of the universe and ruled by Cesar. There were many good things about Rome for hundreds of years including its building of infrastructure – both to move water and roads or people. The procedures of the Roman Legion was a reason why the Empire was successful.

In the opening of the movie, there is the final battle between the Roman Legions whose General is Russell Crowe and the people of Germania which Rome decided to rule over. Both sides had equally determined people and the leaders of both sides were interesting people. What was the difference? Technology. Rome had more weapons for use in order to preserve the men before they came into contact with one another.

The Romans had catapults which could be used to throw rocks but in this case were used to throw pots of tar set on fire – the idea was to hit a tree and the fire would result to the environment and on people.

The Romans had the use of the long bow arrows, while the Germania army used short arrows. The difference is how far the arrow can travel. The long bow gives an advantage, for the arrows are fired first then people move from their positions.

The Romans had the advantage of a hill, their people would be going down the hill, while their opponents had to strike their swords higher than normal or would be exhausted sooner than the Romans.

The Romans had a cavalry or people on horses, the horses had plating on them and in the movie the General was able to go behind the Germania army to strike them from the rear.

The Romans had other aspects to their battle, but those are the ones that can easily be seen.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, often times these companies have more weapons they can use including regulatory ones in the office buildings. When you invest in profitable company, you expect they have more than one revenue source, for example J&J has 20 billion dollar brands, some of them should be able to perform well if they others have a okay year. There are many examples of profitable companies sources of revenues, once you understand the companies you invest in you will be able to enjoy the summer, watch blockbuster movies and earn dividends along the way.

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

If you go grocery shopping or shopping in many stores, near the cashier is chocolate of one source or another. Few people have chocolate on their lists of things they need at the grocery store, but wants often outweigh needs. For the past few months, high inflation is on the minds of consumers, what are they thinking and actually doing?

In an article by Maytaal Angel and Jessica Dinapoli of Reuters, consumers are cutting back on chocolate due to the cost of living, according to executives at the world’s largest chocolate companies.

In the US, chocolate sales are down 2% to 3% according to Hershey’s VP of Investor Relations Melissa Poole. During the pandemic, chocolate sales increased.

Hershey in certain cases slims down package sizes and keeps the prices similar, known as shrinkflation to retain customers. However it not a tool that is used as often as you think it is because of the time and planning involved.

Daniel Sandler, a principal at IRI showed sales volumes of US store branded or private label chocolate a minor part of the overall market that is cheaper than name-branded chocolate grew by 8% in the past 6 months. Consumers should understand cheaper chocolate has a lower cocoa content.

At the start of the year, chocolate makers were expecting a 2.5% growth, but now are forecasting a 1% growth rate or flat or people will still buy chocolate.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, in many mature industries companies are not expecting growth but a continual movement of the deck chairs or they need to do all the good things to fight to maintain their existing market share. If they do, they stay profitable and do it all next year. Understanding growth rates in your investment companies is a good thing to know.

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

For the past 20 plus years, China has been the manufacturing capital of the world, if you go in Walmart which is the world’s largest retailer, most of the stuff is made in China. To do that billions of dollars have been spent to ensure the cost to manufacture, transport and ship to a store remains less than doing somewhere in the US. The transportation is by containers and the shipyards pick up the container, place in on a ship, transport across the seas and shipyards take it off to be placed on a railbed to go to a truck to go to the local distribution area and sent to a store. (if you enjoy watching logistical videos, there are many on the shipyards of China). It seems logical to keep an eye on volume of containers shipped from China.

In an article by Ellen Zhang and Ryan Woo of Reuters, according to official customs data, outbound shipments rose 17.9% in June, compared with a 16% rise in May, but analysts were only expecting 12%.

According to Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior China economist at Capital Economics, although total container throughput at Chinese ports was little changed, the recent weakness in domestic shipping demand has allowed more port capacity for foreign trade.

Daily container throughput in ports in Shanghai are recovered to 95% of year earlier levels according to official data. Exports of computers, steel products and autos contributed to the robust growth.

At the ports, commodity imports have declined, because Chinese officials have locked down areas of the country because of COVID under a zero COVID strategy.

China posted a trade surplus of $97.94 billion in June, surpassing analysts expectation of $75.70 billion.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, it is hard to find a company in the world which does not do some aspect of business with China. For decades China and the development of the country has been a stabilizing force in the world of commerce. Most of us depend on some aspect of Chinese economy and that can be very good. All countries have official statistics and economists to interpret them. Keeping an eye on them can be a good thing for your investments.

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

If you watch TV, every half hour show was designed to for 24 minutes of content and 6 minutes of advertising in between the show. Companies paid advertising companies to place their ads when the most viewers would see them and hopefully some would be buyers of the product. If you did not like the commercials, the movies seeing another revenue source embedded the products in the movie. What drink does the main character drink? did the company pay to have them drink that product? and the list can and does go on and on. Hopefully, the character and the product placements made sense and you did not really pay attention to it.

As technology evolves people want choice and along came streaming sources which allows the consumer to watch whatever programs they want to, when they want to. The idea of binge watching an entire season of shows is available. People loved streaming companies until the growth of new subscribers slowed and the companies wanted more growth, what to do? The solution offer streaming subscriptions at a lower price, but with advertisements within the shows.

In an article from Reuters, Netflix has picked Microsoft as a partner to run its placement of ads. Why Microsoft, Chief Operating Officer Greg Peters of Netflix said Microsoft has good privacy protection as well as Microsoft has the ability to be innovative.

Recently Microsoft completed acquisition of Xandr Inc which is an online advertising platform formerly owned by AT&T. Xandr allows advertisers to buy ad space across thousands of websites and target audiences. Microsoft sold $10 billion in ads last year across its Bing search engine and LinkedIn social network.

Netflix joins other companies offering ads and no ads streaming services including Hulu, Peacock, HBO Max and Disney+.

In related Netflix news, the company reported it lost 1 million subscribers, the stock went up because the expectations were the company was going to lose 2 million subscribers. Netflix beat expectations.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, when you examine the underlying abilities of the company to make money, in this case you see entertainment driving advertising revenues. You may love the entertainment which is great, but in reality it is an advertising vehicle. Understanding the premise allows to understand how and if the company is making profits. How is the company doing in bringing advertising? do advertisers pay premium prices? and the list of questions can go on. The answers allows you as an investor to decide to hold or seek alternatives.

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

We are in the middle of summer, when the temperature rises people turn to drinking more liquids or refreshing themselves. Often the liquids include pop and 2 companies dominate the cola markets Coca-Cola and Pepsi. People enjoy the beverages and in a book by John Scully about his time at Pepis the big 2 liter bottles were brought in as something different than the glass bottles of Coke. Consumers loved the bottles and for z time, Pepsi outsold Coke

In an article from Reuters, Pepsi recently posted its 2nd quarter net revenue rising by 5.2% to $ 20.23 billion, beating the expected $19.51 billion.

Outside of having to write down $1.4 billion due to the Russia Ukraine war, Pepsi expects its core revenues to rise 10%.

Hugh Johnston, chief financial officer at PepsiCo said there has been no slowdown in demand even though price hikes were implemented.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, one aspect you should be looking for is the ability to maintain margins as prices rise. If the company can do that, as an investor you like it. Every company should know when the price is too high or consumers seek alternatives, but if consumers keep demand high as prices rise that is good.

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

Most of us know Amazon and if you are interested in owning the stock, think AWS or cloud storage. In an interview with Jim Cramer the President of AWS says only 10% of the data is on the cloud, AWS has 30% market share and within 5 years it could easily be the most profitable division of Amazon. The division already worth $74 billion.

Most people know Amazon for its delivery service, it works. If you are a regular user, paying for Prime which includes free shipping is worth it. Prime is a cash cow for Amazon and over the years the service has risen from $99 to 119 and now is $139.

In an article by Haleluya Hadero of the Associated Press, research firm suggests sakes on Prime Day could be worth $7.76 billion. This would be 16.8% higher than last year because the day is mid July rather than mid June. The possibility of more back to school shopping is captured.

During the pandemic, Amazon was one of the fastest growing companies as it dominated warehouse expansion and increased its workforce to 1.6 million people with over $10 billion in costs. For the money, Amazon had leased or owned 387.1 million sq ft for its warehouses and data centers. This number is double from 2019.

Amazon has a problem, the consumer is spending less on line which means Amazon has too much space and too many people. According to Brian Olsavsky, the company’s chief financial officer, Amazon is in the consolidation phase rather than growth. Amazon has space which means it is changing rules for merchants which include giving them the same benefits of Prime subscription.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, all these companies has assets that can be used more efficiently, most of the time they do not have to. When changes come in the marketplace they can adapt and have the resources to adapt, which is why you want to own them.

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

Companies buy and sell other companies on a regular basis and there are law firms and divisions of every securities company called mergers and acquisitions. Given the number that are done, they fall into normal patterns and one of the normal aspects is what happens if the deal falls apart? Similar to many aspects at The Board level, money is very important or companies agree if the deal does not go through a dollar amount is paid. When the deal is expected the companies tend to agree on a higher figure to show they are serious. If the deal does not go through, legal talent exchange views in court how the number should be lower.

Elon Musk wants to but Twitter, as one of the wealthiest people on the planet, he can. Elon Musk has demonstrated he was one of the more interesting people, but he seems to believe the rules do not apply to him. The Board of Twitter wants the $ 1 billion, Elon said he would pay if the deal did not go through. Elon says Twitter has more problems than I thought it had. We will see what happens in court.

The Board is also exploring making Elon go through with the purchase and then Elon would appoint whom he wishes to the Board, likely the Board will ensure they receive appropriate compensation packages.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, most of the time these companies will be doing the mergers to enhance a division to ensure changes in the marketplace help them; to buy new talent; or reasons that benefit the company. If there is a fight similar to Twitter, it is time to find alternatives because the Board will be focused on the fight for the next 2 quarters.

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