Whenever a disaster whether manmade or from the weather, there is always an economic element to it. In offices around the world, there are consultancy groups and others who daily monitor countries for their economic activity. When the disaster happens, it will be reported in the press and we all have an idea of what the basic economic outcomes of the disaster is and we can determine if the government of our country is making the correct decisions.

In an article by Stanley Reed of the New York Times News Service, Israel and Iran are having a conflict. Iran’s biggest export in oil and gas, what does that mean to the world’s economy?

Iran’s oil ministry blamed Israeli drones for attacking part of the South Pars natural gas field, one of the world’s largest, and a refinery in the area.

Other Iranian installations are at risk. Homayoun Falakshahi, senior analyst for crude at Kpler, a research firm, said the most important Iranian asset is Kharg Island. This Island located in the northern part of the Persian Gulf is where nearly all of Iran’s oil exports is loaded onto oil tankers to go around the world.

Every organization likes to have a backup and Iran is building a facility outside the Strait of Hormuz on the Gulf of Oman, but its capacity seems to be limited.

Kpler has estimated that 21% of the world’s LNG or liquified natural gas, most of it from Qatar flowed through the Strait of Hormuz. In addition, 14 million barrels of crude oil a day goes through the Strait.

Oil production in Iran is about 3.4 million barrels a day which translates to $78 billion in 2024. Nearly all of Iran’s oil production goes to China, because of sanctions.

Qatar, has rich gas fields which were developed with partnerships from Exxon and Shell which allows the natural gas to be exported to Europe and Asia.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, when a conflict happens there is going to be some economic fallout and often prices rise which helps the companies deal with the disaster. In terms of world leaders, nothing ever is in tight borders, there is always other competing interests. The President was in Qatar to sign deals, but Qatar is dependent on the Strait of Hormuz being open for business. The President’s decision became complicated to what is the end game?

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

When President Trump placed tariffs on almost every country in the world, it up ended the global supply chains. It may have the effect which the President wants, although the reality is if manufacturing does come back, most of it will be automated. New automated warehouses which used to hire thousands of high school graduates, will do most of the work with a hundred or less. The other jobs will be in robotics and maintenance of the robotic systems. Often times we think as President Trump doing something different, in reality every country has some sort of list, it is just not across every industry.

In an article from Reuters, Taiwan added China’s Huawei Technologies and SMIC (Semi-conductor Manufacturing International Corp) to its export control lists. SMIC is China’s largest chip maker.

In Taiwan the list is made by the Economy Ministry and to export to companies on the list will need government approval.

Taiwan is home to TSMC which is the world’s largest contract chipmaker and major supplier to market leader Nvidia. Both Huawei and SMIC are working hard to catch up to Nvidia’s lead in the chip-technology race.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, every country has some form of regulation to protect and not directly help who they consider to be the “enemy” of the country. The more advanced the knowledge and/or technology the more the regulations come forth. In most industries there are backdoors for the right price, but the long-term process is through government regulations. For the investments you own, the company wants to have clear regulations and good relationships with the government. If they do not, those regulations will come out of the rule book and be applied to the company.

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

The President’s Press Secretary likes to say President Trump relies on common sense. That is good but then everyone else can look at the situation and determine if the President’s sense is good or bad.

In an article by David Pierson and Berry Wang of the New York Times News Service, it seems the China strategy is to exploit President Trump’s greatest weaknesses to exert maximal pressure and use the time gained to strengthen China’s position.

President Trump imposed 145% tariffs on China, rather than yielding, China used its control over critical minerals (90% of the world’s critical minerals are owned by Chinese companies and processed in China). while steering the focus to protracted talks instead of concrete results.

Meetings such as the ones in London, England and Geneva, Switzerland keep the US mired in negotiations over vague procedural steps, such as setting a framework for future steps. This means while Washington says China subsidizes industries unfairly, dumps goods overseas and limited foreign companies’ ability to do business in China, those issues are not addressed in the meetings.

Jonathan Czin, a fellow at the Brookings Institute believes China is very comfortable with this cycle of economic skirmishing with the US followed by episodes of diplomacy that merely returns to the status quo.

Kristen Asdal of the Asdal Advisory which focuses on China, believes we can see the increasing measures China has been taking behind the scenes to get a firm central hold on strategic minerals. That way, China can tighten or loosen with great precision and responsiveness to political conditions. That is a sign it can leverage for a long time to come.

President Trump meanwhile has overstated his position in terms of results expected in 90 days which fall on July 9. If he has no deal with China, then what?

It is important to note China’s economy is not as strong as it was exports which is China’s chief economic engine, has slowed due to tariffs. The country’s property market is still digging its way out of a crisis and electric vehicles have been hit by overcapacity and a price war. It addition, there is great amount of debt in China.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, we all have some common sense, but it has to balance with what is really happening with the data. In government, there are often competing interests, and the government is supposed to try to balance those interests, if not the old Aesop’s tale about the Emperor’s new clothes ring true.

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

In every industry, you will have bulls and bears, and somewhere in the middle is generally the market answer, but it fluctuates. For the commodities the price is the key. The higher the price, the more innovation, the less desirable spots suddenly come more desirable so it is possible.

In an article by Emma Graney of Reuters, the head of OPEC or Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Haitham al-Ghais, believes there is no oil demand pea on the horizon. OPEC is projecting global oil demand will surpass 120 million barrels by 2050.

The projection expects oil to be 30% of the total energy mix in 2050.

At the same time, OPEC recognizes the importance of investing in technologies such as carbon capture and storage to battle greenhouse gas emissions. There is no one size fits all solution to addressing the climate matters.

On the other side of the coin is an estimate by the US Energy Information Administration that says oil demand growth and crude oil prices will fall by the end of the year.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, the oil industry has been producing profits for generations as the Rockefellers will attest to. All large oil companies believe paying dividends and buying back stock is a very good thing to do, which means an investment is a good thing to do. With every investment, you look to the future that the company can continue to make profits and you hope and expect they will. Forecasts of the future help with the desire to keep the investments.

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

In every administration, investors want some form of consistency and stability in order to invest in a theme and let the companies do the work necessary to set in the business plans are followed and the results make money for shareholders. It is a simple request, but politicians have minds of their own and often times use the road least travelled than the easiest method to do anything or it seems that way. For the Trump administration, the President has caused reaction to his ideas and while he talks about a weave, it is a little hard to follow what the results he wants are.

In the past quarter, we saw the stock market fall and then come back to where it was and climb on the basis it was not as bad as it seemed to be. Many families have different meals a week and one of them is TACO Tuesday or whatever day. The families are actually eating food.

On Wall Street, where everyone has an opinion, President Trump’s emphasis on immigration has played out to TACO trade or the expectation that Trump always chickens out or TACO. It maybe true, has been true, but will it be true in the future?

In an article by John Rapley of Reuters, the sentiment that President Trump is all talk, no action. The reason is while people may agree with the end result, how you get there is up for discussion. If billions were spent on the existing global trade system, what will be the result in 90 days? how much of a change will happen or even could happen? if you think about construction of a new home in a suburb – it will need sewer and roads or infrastructure, it will be a framework then the electrical and plumbing to be put in, and eventually the house will ready for someone to buy it and move in to become a home. There is a process, can it be speeded up? a little bit but it still takes time.

The problem with the TACO trade is it reinforces the notion the administration has got itself into a dangerous place.

In a normal administration, the last 2 years are essentially a lame duck president, because the President cannot run again and other people begin the process of running for the top job and they have to have a slightly different approach than the current holder.

President Trump has imposed July 9 as the day for all the tariffs to be signed and sealed. Will the President either offer an extension or stick to his guns and reimpose tariffs? The last time, the bond market did not like the results of liberation day.

The second deadline is the US will hit the debt ceiling by the end of July. With the debt ceiling be increased? will the Trump signature bill which increases debt be passed? what will the bond market do? President Trump want lower interest rates and has been fighting with the Federal Reserve chief over it, but will the bond market force higher interest rates?

Linking to dividend paying stocks, in all industries, there are some acronyms that work for a time and have truth in them, but they are meant to be guidelines. One can easily say Buy and Hold. If the company is profitable and can reinvest and also pay dividends, the acronym makes wonderful sense, but if it is not profitable, you might be holding for a long time before you breakeven. Use the acronyms as guidelines, not absolutes.

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

When most of hear about energy investments are bias is to first think about oil and gas industry and to be certain there continue to be investments in that sector. However, if you think about the world in general, other kinds of energy investments will be made.

In an article by Emma Graney of the Globe and Mail, the 2025 World Energy Investment report was released by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Faith Birol, the executive director of the IEA said clean energy (wind and solar) will amount to 2/3’s of the investment because the cost of clean energy continues to fall.

The report says oil and gas production will be $570 billion and that is about what the sector spent last year. LNG or liquefied natural gas is experiencing its largest capacity growth between 2026 and 2028, with projects coming on stream in the US, Qatar, Canada and elsewhere.

On the electricity front, never has there been such a massive growth in global demand. Between now and 2030, demand will increase as much as the current consumption in the US and China combined.

The cost of utility scaled batteries has fallen by 2/3’s over the past decade and global battery investment is approaching the level of gas-fired power generation investment.

The investments in electricity grids is $400 billion a year, but that needs to increase to meet the demands.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, the report is good news for companies such as pipelines, investor owned utilities and companies that supply the infrastructure to ensure when the light switched is turned on, the power works. If you start at the macro level of what is going on and expected to go on in the industry, then you can determine which companies best work for you. For an industry that is expected to grow, there are fewer bad choices, just what is best for you.

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

When you are investing there are rules and the number one is try not to lose money. The second rule is remember rule one. However, that rule is often broken for a variety of reasons because we all want more. Sometimes we want more, but did not do our homework, but we still want more.

In a book called The Signs Were There by Tim Steer, published by Profile Books, London, UK, 2019, the author is a Chartered Accountant who became an investment analyst and is presently a fund manager for Artemis. Mr. Steer is based in the UK, but accounting rules apply to all western countries including the US.

Most people invest in the biggest companies and for the most part they are going to do okay by rule number one. As a fund manager, Mr. Steer is exposed to a great many companies because he has money to invest and needs to constantly do research and analysis to try not to lose money.

Mr. Steer offers the following signs from the annual report of companies. If you see these signs while doing your homework, look for alternatives.

a deteriorating current asset quality, where there is an increase in the subjectivity in valuing them. Amounts recoverable on contracts which may take ages to collect are lower quality current assets, when compared to cash and invoiced receivables that should be easily to collect.

large and increasing accruals of revenue where chosen accounting policies allow for the recognition of revenue ahead of the cash actually being collected. (when is a sale revenue?) when the contract is signed, when money comes in, some companies stretched the limit)

large and seemingly unsubstantiated goodwill amounts in the balance sheet

relying on acquisitions to keep profits moving ahead. (one company had 37 acquisitions in 6 years, do you really believe they found cost savings and synergies?)

disclosed related party transactions. Run away from any company that does business with related parties. (related parties tend to do real estate deals and the price always goes up).

reported worrying trends in its performance. A deteriorating set of numbers over time showing rising stock levels, poor cash flow, falling margins or big increases in working capital can be a trend that is your friend, telling you to avoid the shares. (an example was a pet food company, the big margins were made changing habits from wet (10%) to dry (50%) pet food, which the private equity folks did. when the company became public where were the fat margins?)

growing levels of stock or makes odd adjustments to its stock valuation. (companies can issue stock at what valuation?)

capitalized large costs that under normal circumstances would be expected to pass through the income statement.

being too optimistic as to the recoverability of its debts and failed to provide adequately for bad ones. (it is easy to lend money, it is harder to collect it)

Linking to dividend paying stocks, if you invest in companies that make profits, and you understand how they make profits that can pay dividends the odds are you will not lose money. However, since you are human you will likely have some investments that you were intending to have short term holdings, but they became long-term holdings because the price went down. For the money not in dividend paying stocks, they take longer to do your homework because making profits consistently is a hard task to do. For those companies you have to watch out for the warning signs.

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

The biggest story for the next few years how artificial intelligence will affect the lives of everyone on the planet. We are aware that AI is coming as the chips to run the data crunching are getting better every year and there is heavy demand for the chips. This means that there are numerous ways to invest in the AI trade.

In an article by Avi Salzman, Mackenzie Tatananni and Joe Woelfel of Barron’s, Meta signed a deal with Constellation Energy to buy all the electricity produced by its Clinton, Illinois plant to power a data center. Clinton is located in the southwest part of the state and the deal is for 20 years of power.

As AI continues to make inroads into the world, there are a number of ways to invest and every month new AI ETFs will arise. Think of construction of a house, there are many different companies that are involved and it is the same with AI. There are hardware companies, software companies, energy companies, companies that produce the parts for the AI data centers, to make it safe – cybersecurity companies and the list goes on. Companies such as Vertiv Holdings, Emerson Electric, Eaton Corporation and the list goes on. Some of these companies have announced they have backlogs to do the work till 2027 and beyond. As an investor that is good news.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, in all areas of the stock market there are the higher profile companies than make the news more often. Then there are the steady performers who benefit from the high-profile companies because they work behind the scenes. As you do your homework, sometimes the ones behind the scenes are less volatile when markets go up and down.

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

In politics, the people love to have slogans because almost everyone can read into the slogan whatever they wish to. In this fashion, people buy into the slogan and the world can move on with some emphasis to the slogan. In the case of President Trump, one of his slogans is more manufacturing in the US. It is hard to find someone who disagrees with the slogan. How you go about it, there is much disagreement.

In an article by John Turley-Ewart an opinion writer with the Globe and Mail, he explains what conditions are present in the China and why in 90 days or whatever short time period President Trump has, very little manufacturing is likely to come back to the US.

Mr. Turley-Ewart uses information from a book called Apple in China by Patrick McGee. For the past 25 years, Apple and China have a relationship. Apple provided billions of dollars of know-how, China ensured stability of government which invested in education to provide an expanding managerial and engineering class atop of a scalable, just-in-time, low wage, low-skilled, low-rights 300 million plus floating work force that moves as needed from factory to factory. (If you think of migrant workers harvesting crops, moving to the next field to harvest, then you have an idea of the workforce in China’s manufacturing sector).

In 1999, Apple did not produce its products in China. A decade later it was making almost everything there. Since 2008, Apple has trained 28 million people in China’s factories.

Apple has invested about $55 billion annually by 2015. This supplied the capital and expertise needed to train managers and engineers to establish and run factories and complex tooling companies which encouraging raw material extraction and refining essential to feeding the just-in-time high-tech supply chain Apple products rely on to generate $90 billion in annual profits.

Apple is now moving some of its manufacturing to India which has similar conditions as China in regards to people in the country moving to the cities for regular higher paying jobs than the subsistence in the countryside.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, often times these are the ones that benefited from the global supply systems that have been set up. Each part has evolved for a particular reason and it would be very hard to duplicate in the home country, not with standing the slogans of the politicians.

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