If your portfolio contains mining companies of various sizes, you will be well aware that resources are spread across the Globe and when they are spread across the globe it means countries have many different political systems governing them. Some you likely you could live in, some countries you may want to visit, and others are way down on the list to visit, but they have mineral resources. As an investor, you leave it to the company to determine how it works with the government.

In an article by Geoffery York of the Globe and Mail, President Trump has declared the US needs to have US ownership of critical minerals in order for the county to be and continue to be a world leader. This is when it becomes tricky.

The Democratic Republic of Congo or the Congo is a major producer of cobalt and copper. China controls an estimated 70 – 80% of the copper and cobalt production in the Congo. There is a war which has killed thousands and forced millions to flee the Congo. In early February, President Trump and the President of Congo President Felix Tshisekedi signed an agreement for the US to do more in the Congo.

One of the largest global miners is Glencoe, it decided to sell 40% of its Congolese copper and cobalt assets to Orion Critical Mineral Consortium, in which the US government is a partner. The deal is for about $9 billion.

Orion CMC was formed to secure long-life, high-quality production of critical minerals while supporting resilient supply chains for the US and its allies, noted Oskar Lewnonski, CEO of Orion Resource Partners.

The Orion consortium is backed by 2 state-owned investment funds the US International Development Finance Corp and ADQ, s sovereign wealth fund in the UAE or United Arab Emirates.

Similar to stockpiles in oil the US has in the US, President Trump launched Project Vault, a $12 billion domestic stockpile of critical minerals.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, in the world of Wall Street, where money talks there is limited morality about what happens within countries as long as the interests of the company are protected. As an investor you can decide which companies you invest in or do not invest in, there are many companies that meet and surpass whatever value you have, which is why choice of Wall Street is a terrific thing. When the government invests in projects, issues of allocation of scarce taxpayer dollars come forth and is it the best thing to do in a capitalist society?

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

When you think about the phone and China, until smart phones were invented only a few select people had assess to phones. When smart phones were released, millions of people had access to phones. As the technology evolved, there was an app for a product, service, information. It became and continues to be part of the marketing of every product. This implies there are many apps to choose from.

In an article from Reuters, KFC’s parent company in China reported aggressive growth in its digital loyalty programs, exceeding 590 million members, or more than 40% of the population. Think about that 40% of Chinese smartphones have the KFC app to order KFC or Pizza Hut. 55% of sales come from the app.

In China there are about 13,000 locations for KFC, which Yum Brands says is the largest restaurant chain in the country.

Yum China CEO Joey Wat said 80 -90% of KPRO’s sales come from KFC loyalty members. In addition, the new AI ordering assistant rolled out is complete and has been used by 2 million members concentrated ordering breakfast and coffee.

Yum China said 265 million users are active, meaning they have been used in the last year.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, the more and more people have smartphones, the more and more people use them and the issue is if you invest in a company which appeals to a broad base of people, do they have your app? is it a good one? This is one more piece of homework you can do before you make your decision, because if you can have similar numbers as Yum Brand, 40% of the population downloaded the app and 75% are active users, you should be able to project a consistent income for the company.

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

If you ever heard about the wealth gap, it exists and often it is stated as the difference in public companies the difference between the base salary of the CEO and the base salary of an average employee wage. Over the past few decades, it has become larger as opposed to the 1950’s. Whether that is good or bad, it is what exists.

In an article from the Associated Press, the notion of a K shaped economy where the priorities for each stroke of the K are being different. The upper stroke of the K is the higher-income Americans, who typically have a college degree, has ramped up spending more quickly than other consumers. The lower-income and more rural households faced higher inflation than the higher-income households. The study from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, focus on goods, excluding autos, and does not capture likely-spending by higher-income households on travel, restaurants and entertainment.

The K shaped economy is the upper-income Americans are fueling a disproportionate share of consumption that is the primary driver of the economy, while lower-income households see fewer gains. Poorer households in general often experience higher inflation, with a greater share of their spending being set aside for goods such as housing, groceries, and utilities.

The New York Fed’s data show households with incomes above $125,000 have boosted their spending 2.3% middle-income households between $40,000 and $125,000 have increased their spending by 1.6% and those under $40,000 increased their spending by 0.9%.

The New York Fed works with the analytics firm Numerator which tracks about 200,000 consumers on a monthly basis.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, as an investor you want to know who does your companies appeal to. Are they middle and upper or the broad base? Then you need to know the middle is always squeezed, how much room do they have? What will they spend on? As you go through your investments, you can see how a K shaped economy affects your companies.

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

When you buy more dividend stocks, you are thinking long term and the magic of compound interest. Dividends and stock buybacks invariable help push up the P/E ratio which implies a high stock price. In the long run, the stocks will rise in value and dividends paid which increases the total returns.

In an article by Kevin Foley, there is a reason why foundations, family offices and long-term institutional investors continue to anchor their portfolios to returns in the 6.5% to 7.5% range. Do they lack ambition, given the stock market was up 12% plus? Target returns are not annual promises. They are long-run averages across full market cycles.

When long-term money managers set their returns, the first issue is what downside can we tolerate? how much liquidity do we need? what volatility can our spending policy survive?

Why ask those questions? The real enemy of long-term compounding is not a few years of underperformance. It is a deep drawdown that permanently impair capital and takes years to recover from. A portfolio that loses 40% does not need a good year to recover, it needs a 67% recovery just to get back to even. That is why the more capital you accumulate, the more you should worry about downside protection than upside participation.

In good times, it is easy to revise expectations upwards, add imprudent leverage, reach for complexity, tolerate illiquidity because it feels like nothing ever goes wrong. Then economic cycles happen – markets go up and down.

The solution is to continually design your investment program not to be impressed in any calendar year. You try to design the portfolio to be functional across very different regimes. You care less about the headlines and more about the probability of staying solvent, liquid and operational through it.

Good portfolios are not built by ranking strategies by last year’s returns. They are built by assigning different roles to different exposure and allowing each of those roles to its job across full market cycles.

It is very difficult not to chase whatever just worked. The discipline is to preserve the architecture that makes the long-run math work.

The most important number in your portfolio is not what it makes this year. It is what can reliably compound over the next 10, 20 years. And that number is always lower and far more meaningful than anyone wants to admit when markets feel easy.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, we all put money into the stock market expecting for more but there are multiple strategies to ensure wealth compounds over the years and allowing your money to make money, but trying not to lose money is the number one rule. Investing in dividends helps you do this, for it gives you a metric, if the dividend is not paid the market will have sent signals that a cut is coming and you can seek alternatives.

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

For those who work at large companies, on one hand it should provide many opportunities within the company to grow your career. On the other hand, it is a large company and every once in a while, the company right sizes itself with large layoffs. If you work in economic development, having a large company relocate to your city is wonderful, however the downside is the company will right size itself every once in while. Everyone hopes it is the other person affected, because they add value, but it is a numbers situation.

In an article written by Karen Weise of The New York Times News Service, one of the largest private sector employers is Amazon. Recently Amazon announced they delivered 13 billion packages arriving the same or next day globally which was the good news. Corporately they also announced 16,000 employees around the world are being let go to trim bureaucracy and free up money for plans to spend on artificial intelligence.

The announcement of the cuts was expected as Amazon cut 14,000 jobs in October and relay plans to cut more in the first quarter of 2026 or after the holiday season of 2025.

Beth Galetti, Amazon’s senior VP of people experience and technology noted every team will continue to evaluate the ownership, speed and capacity to invent for customers, and to make adjustments as appropriate.

Amazon was expected to announce sales were over $211 billion and profits over $21 billion.

Amazon had 1,578,000 employees in the third quarter. Most of those were hourly workers in its warehouses and operations. At the warehouse level, Amazon has ambitious plans to replace more than half of million jobs with robots.

Amazon was on the path to spend $125 billion on data centers and other capital expenditures.

Amazon also announced the Amazon GO cashierless stores will be shut down, some will be replaced by Whole Foods Market locations. Amazon is expecting to open 100 new Whole Foods stores in the next few years.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, as an investor you want to see some layoffs in a large organization. At times there will be growth, but layoffs imply cost cutting and right sizing the business and the expectations to continue to earn profits. For investors, announcing layoffs can be a good thing as long as the expectation of management is it is an adjustment rather than cutting profit centers. If the company cuts profit centers, find alternatives.

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

The number one company which helps the US selling products to the world or export sales is Boeing. Their planes fly in every country in the world and for every country, have an airline or more than one is very important for the country. As the world continues to fly, Boeing is there to sell planes.

In an article from Reuters, Boeing made a 4th quarter profit driven by the sale of its digital aviation services, as well as rising jet output and stronger deliveries.

The company continued to increase the output of its two most popular jetliners – the 737 Max and 787, which helped it to produce a positive free cash flow.

Boeing made 42 planes a month of its 737 Max and want to increase that number to 47 a month. Boeing produces 8 787 a month.

Boeing earned $8.22 billion or $10.23 a share for the quarter, compared with a loss of $3.86 billion or $5.46 a share last year.

Boeing’s revenues for the 4th quarter rose 57% to $23.95 billion

Linking to dividend paying stocks, a few years ago, a door fell off of the 737 Max flight and Boeing had to ground its fleet and check all the doors. The stock price went down; it has taken a few years to regain its profitability and that is a lesson for everyone. For a good company, when the stock falls, put it on your watchlist and follow developments. Think about the sales after the season is down, stores need new inventory. There will be a time delay be

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

If you had the pleasure of listening to President Trump speak at one of his rallies, you will hear that he loves tariffs. The rest of the world is not so sure because unlike President Trump, companies and consumers pay the tariffs. Tariffs are paid by the importer of the good to the Treasury, the importer then either/or has to eat the tariff cutting down on their margins or the company using the good has to increase prices to offset the tariff in order to receive a healthy margin. Generally, the largest companies can do this the best.

In an article by Eric Atkins of Reuters, GM expects tariffs could cost it up to $4 billion this after paying $3.1 billion last year.

GM’s CFO Paul Jacobson, said the 2025 tariff total was less than predicted and 40% of the amount was offset by actions that including cost reductions and moving production to avoid the import taxes.

GM has reduced shifts in Ontario and boosted production in Fort Wayne, Indiana for truck assembly. It has retooled a plant in Orion, Michigan to make more pickup trucks. The production of the Buick Envision SUV has moved from China to the US and the Chevrolet Equinox and Blazer are being moved from Mexico to Spring Hill, Tennessee.

For 2026, GM believes the 2025 tariff number will fall.

Government policies concerning electric vehicles meant a $6 billion. Part of the total is $1.8 billion for closing a plant to build BrightDrop electric vans. Contract cancellations and supplier settlements account for the rest of the charge.

For the 4th quarter, GM beat analysts’ estimates with pretax earnings was $2.8 billion compared with $2.51 billion a year ago. Earnings per share was $2.51 versus $2.22 a year earlier.

GM is expecting an annual adjusted core profit of between $13 billion and $15 billion in 2026 which will likely be higher than analysts’ expectations of $13.4 billion.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, one of the reasons to buy the buy companies is their ability to adjust for government policies. Often government policies are more favorable to companies, but governments can throw in surprises. The can is what rattles the markets, but if the street sees companies adapting, then the companies can still make profits.

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

The President states his policies and the departments try to fulfill his policy wishes, for some policies you will like, some you will not and some will go overboard. The President wanted to stop immigration and has done that on the southern border, then turned to everyone who is not a citizen. Typically for everyone who is not a citizen, there are policies to try have hearings and present evidence why the person should be allowed to stay. The President increased the enforcement process, but not necessarily increasing the number of judges who can hear cases. It was not surprising that departments went overboard.

In an article from the New York Times News Service, the President decided to send extra people to Minnesota. Tensions escalated amid the aggressive crackdown by federal immigration agents. (why border patrol has not escalated in Florida and Texas where there are more immigrates is a different issue). In late January a second person was killed.

The response of the business community including some of the biggest companies in the US and headquarter in Minnesota was to issue a public letter to ask for de-escalation of tensions. The CEOs of Target, Best Buy, General Mills, Cargill, Land O’ Lakes, Hormel, US Bancorp, Mayo Clinic, 3M and the professional sports teams of Minnesota Vikings, Minnesota Timberwolves and Minnesota Wild.

The letter is notable because many CEOs have sought to avoid weighing on any politically charged issues during the second Trump administration.

In addition, hundreds of smaller businesses in the Minneapolis area shut their doors to back protests. Then came a snow storm which shut every down.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, many large companies donate money for large community concerns including the United Way and other charitable organizations in their area. They have an obligation and duty to the hometowns, which helps them be good citizens. The letter is a continuation of that public obligation.

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

One way to think about the world is 6 degrees of separation which means we are all closer or inter-related than you first thought. In the economy, the reality is less than 6 degrees and an example is Cuba.

In an article by Diego Ore of Reuters, Cuba is the island about 90 miles from Florida. The history of the island is it was settled for tobacco and sugar cane production and had all the issues concerning slavery. Once slavery was abolished, companies continued producing tobacco and sugar cane. If you are a cigar smoker, the finest tobacco comes from Cuba. Over the decades large distilleries were set up in Cuba as well as pre Las Vegas, the biggest gambling places were in Cuba. Then came along Fidel Castro and the Communist Party, all the lands were seized by the government, the distilleries moved countries, people fled to the US particularly in the Miami area. Cuba was close to the US but the US imposed sanctions on it and they were forced to reply on the USSR. After the USSR broke apart, Cuba had to look elsewhere for support.

In terms of oil, first it came from Russia. When Venezuela elected a Communist government, the oil came from that country. In the recent months, the US placed a blockage on Venezuelan oil tankers which leads to Cuba needing someone else to buy oil from. It should be noted; Cuba has traditionally been a poorer country and suffers from energy shortages and mass blackouts. The tourist areas tend not be affected by the same concerns.

One of the suppliers to Cuba for oil is Mexico. President Trump posted in Truth Social there will no more oil or money going to Cuba. Zero.

What does that mean for Mexico? Publicly, the Mexican President Ms. Sheinbaum has said oil shipments will continue as they are on long-term contracts and considered international aid. Privately, the policy is under review.

2026 is the year the USMCA deal is up for negotiations. The USMCA is the free trade agreement between the US, Mexico and Canada. In addition, President Trump has said he will use the military to go against Mexican drug cartels.

Between January and September last year, Mexico shipped 17,200 barrels a day and 2,000 barrels of refined products worth $400 million, according to information from the Mexican state oil company Pemex to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

If Mexico stops sending oil, with Cubans begin a mass migration and try to go to Mexico?

Linking to dividend paying stocks, there are always relationships to what is happening in the world, some are direct and some are indirect but could easily before an input into the decision-making process. This is why for the overwhelming majority of companies; they value stability in the government.

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