If you were going to buy a new vehicle what kind would you buy or lease? There are a variety of options to choose from and most of us still need not just want a vehicle. Do you buy an internal combustion vehicle, an electric vehicle, a hybrid, besides the make and color of the vehicle.

In an article by Aishwarya Nair of Reuters, the US automakers reported the quarterly sales in early April and they were good. (auto dealers seem to be enjoying themselves at a Las Vegas convention). The sales were lower than a year ago but sales of electric and hybrid were up.

GM reported 1st quarter sales of cars and light trucks would fall to 14.1 million annually from 16.8 million a year ago. In terms of trucks and SUVs, sales were up as compared to last year.

In France, sales of electric and hybrid vehicles took 40% of the market, which is the first time they were higher than conventional gasoline models.

Toyota, which in 2021 over took GM as the top selling automaker in the US, continued its position with increased sales of Lexus hybrid and electric models. Jack Hollis, senior VP of automotive operations at Toyota North America does not expect America to shift from 3/4’s of the market is trucks and SUVS.

GM is seeing high demand but because of the strong job market and the supply system including computer chips is getting better. GM expectations is an ordinary a good jobs market should translate into light vehicle sales in the 17 million range.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, for your investment is good to know what the normal expected range of sales is. If the company delivers for the sales as expected, you can be contented and ask different questions about why and how. For auto makers we know the market will change in the future to more electric and hybrid, how fast the consumer changes is a different story which the automakers have to adjust to meet reality.

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

Every company at some point has a philosophy of whether its workers should unionize or not. In the financial sector, the answer is no, in the electrical utilities the answer is yes. Each of those sectors generate incomes to be profitable to be able to be able to be long term owner of shares with little reason to be concerned. In general the major banks are too big to fail, and the utility regulator tends to increase prices to consumers so a respectable profit is made each year by the utility.

In the retail sector, the biggest anti union companies have been Walmart and Amazon, it also happens those 2 companies are the biggest private sector workers in America. In the case of Walmart, if a store votes to unionize, in the past Walmart has closed the store due to market conditions changing. Both Amazon and Walmart use consulting companies to counteract any union organizing and they are willing to pay the price of the consultants (Amazon spend $4.3 million on anti-union consultants) because they do not want unions.

In an article Karen Weise and Noam Scheiber of The New York Times News Service, Amazon lost a union vote in Staten Island warehouse (Staten Island is part of New York City). In the world of Amazon, they pick locations where union activity is low and the threat of a union is kept low. However there were 8,300 people working at the Amazon warehouse, and 2,654 votes were cast for a union and 2,131 were cast against and the National Labor Relations Board has certified the vote.

Over the past 2 years, Amazon has hired people and now has 1.6 million working for it globally. As opposed to the 2nd Headquarters where cities had bidding wars for the office jobs, the people at the warehouse are essentially timed every second they are in the building and expected to be sorting packages. The workers had concerns, although Amazon does start at $15 a hour minimum wage. In the course of trying to do the work needed to form a union, a number of the organizers were fired and very securely watched. Most of the effort by the organizers was to go to the workers home and talk about the company. In this case the small guy won, then the hard work will begin for expectations of what the union can and can not do for the concerns of the workers.

In the world of unions, all the unions were waiting for the first Amazon facility to be unionized and then they are hoping more will go down that path and the unions have a war chest for that action.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, when you invest in a company your interest is how well the company performs to make a profit and pay dividends. Your interest is secondary on how it does what it does. As you own the shares for a while, you will be more interested in the how but if the company does not deliver to what you think your return should be, there are alternatives.

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

As an investor, one of the most important things to learn is the word no. There is always somebody pointing to the next great thing and once in a while it is but most of the time is not. Learning to say no to what you invest in, hopefully comes with age or experience. Having said that, as an investor is important to know a little about the trends and you can either watch from a far or having a very small portion of your portfolio be allocated to stocks you take a flyer on. Many will soon be underwater but you will know what to stay away from, which is experience talking to you.

In an article by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed of Reuters, retail investors have continued to buy meme-stocks such as GameStop and AMC Entertainment.

Retail traders’ net purchases of stocks and ETFs totalled $5 billion compared to the one year weekly average of $3.4 billion, JPMorgan strategist Peng Cheng wrote.

Dan Pipen, chief executive of TradeZero noted retail is seeing if speculative trading still works and is trying to catch the high-flyers of the day.

AMC stock went up, however it is important to remember GameStop and AMC are down 52% and 59% from their closing highs from last year. Bitcoin is down 30% and ARK etf is down 56%.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, watching or listening about stocks rallying is a wonderful thing, but if you are a buyer of speculative stocks and they are down 50% that means if you sold you lost half of your money. The number one rule in investing is try not to lose money. One really good way to do that is buy profitable stocks which pay a dividend. The rallies may not be that exciting but if the stocks are up money, your gain last year was a healthy 20% with very low risk. One can not expect to that all the time, but it is better than losing money.

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

Many people around the world that a new technology or new processes eventually will enable companies and the world to do better. In the auto sector, the belief is very strong, with each new manufacturing plant being able to produce autos better at a lower price for the company. How that translates to the consumer is a different story, but to the company margins are preserved.

In an article by Victoria Waldersee, Jan Scwartz and Nadine Schimroskiz of Reuters the biggest German auto company and the pride of German engineering VW or Volkswagen is building a new plant in German to compete against Tesla. VW is the world’s second largest car maker behind Toyota with a stable of brands including Skoda, Seat, VW, Audi, Porsche and Bentley. In the European market it has a 25% share of the EV market ahead of Tesla of 13%.

Tesla recently opened a Giga factory outside of Berlin and it can produce a model Y every 10 hours, it takes VW 3 times as long to produce the ID.3. VW is building a new plant called Trinity EV which should be up and running in 2026. The plant will use large die casting and cutting the number of components in its cars by several hundred. VW brand production chief Christian Vollmer said the goal is to set the standard in the world and be at 10 hours matching Tesla.

Tesla’s Giga plant can produce 17 components in under 6 minutes. It uses 2 giant casting presses or giga-presses applying 6,000 tonnes of pressure to make the rear of the car. The company will be installing 6 more giga-presses to make the front end of the car.

JPMorgan Chase predicts Telsa’s factory will produce about 54,000 cars in 2022, 280,000 in 2023 and 500,000 in 2025.

VW can produce the Tiguan or Polo in 18 and 14 hours in Germany and Spain respectively but its electric ID.3 made in a factory juggling 6 models from 3 VW brands takes about 30 hours.

VW hopes to build 40 million vehicles worldwide on the new platform called the Scalable Systems Platform with half of the vehicles electric by 2030.

Tesla which produced 936,000 vehicles hopes to produce 20 million vehicles by 2030.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, when you examine the expectations of the above those are large numbers of production and sales and many things have to go right if they are to succeed. The capital costs will be large, but if the auto companies do it, the margins can be very good. We consumers often point to things companies can do, but for companies when they commit to change there are many costs. As investors, we expect the companies to bring the best technology to the making of the vehicle and be rewarded with good margins.

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

Every company in the world tries to brand itself to consumers to they often use a short form because it seems simpler. The company’s make a decision and then use the symbol on social media where symbols work very well. All is good until something in the world changes.

In an article in Reuters the insurance giant Zurich Insurance of Switzerland spent time and effort to brand itself with a white Z on a blue background. The traditionally conservative folks in Switzerland were very happy and the logo was used around the world. All was good.

Then Russia invaded Ukraine and a white Z became a symbol of Russian support. The letter Z has been used as a marking on Russian military vehicles taking part in the conflict and adopted by Russians supporting the war where it has been prominent on flags and at pro-Kremlin rallies.

Zurich Insurance has removed the Z symbol and replaced with the name Zurich.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, no one can control which symbol is used by people for causes both which the company supports and does not support. It is important to the public relations people to monitor rallies to see what symbols are used. If the symbols are used, which the company uses then it has to make a choice.

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

The one constant that everyone in the world will in counter is what to do with money? Some will have plenty, some will have not enough and all will have something to do with money. In an ideal world, there is enough to satisfy your basic needs and have investments. If you think about America, one of the richest countries in the world and hear 40% of Americans do not have an extra $400 in an emergency account, because they are living paycheck to paycheck, you can either question the system or look for guidelines to ensure you are never in that situation.

The writer belongs to Toastmasters club and one of the speakers recently heard from was a financial planner with over 30 years in the business. He caters to people in the $5 million in assets plus group, but he had his start working with average folks. His name is Tomas Ohannessian and his email is tomasglobal@yahoo.com. His 5 steps to building a strong foundation are:

1. Mind Blueprint – Tomas studied architecture as a student but moved to financial services as a profession. As an architecture you need to start with a strong foundation and then build the walls and roof to last your lifetime. The foundation includes you, spouse and family and support systems.
2. Living within your Means – there is a book called the millionaire next door, many people are young enough that a million dollars meant living in the best part of town and having money in the bank. However, the reality is where you live often dictates the typical of lifestyle you live. If you live in an area where your neighbors go away for vacations twice a year, send their kids to private school and drive the latest vehicles, you will tend to do some or part of the same thing. If you live in a different area, you might go on vacations once a year, send your kids to public school and drive an older vehicle because you like it. One area will be more expensive than the other because we are human and there is an element of “keeping up with the Jones” or doing what your friends do in your life. Try to live within the income you receive.
3. Understand Credit – after you start working the banks will offer your credit in mortgages, credit cards and car loans. Depending on what you do, you may be offered other types of credit – lines of credit, investment loans, etc. Some of the credit is wonderful, some of it is expensive. You need to know the difference and learn how credit works for you. You need to understand compound interest.
4. Invest in Yourself – everyone needs savings and money in the bank to do something, what you wish to do is up to you. One of the best methods is at your financial institution start putting money in a fund whether you start at $10, $50, $100 a month or paycheck, you need to start. The compound interest will work for you. It feels easier as the fund becomes larger. The number can be 1% up to 30% of your after tax income as the nike ads say Just Do It.
5. Autopilot – ensure the payments are regular they automatically go out of your account or you do not have that to live your everyday life with. The money is for piece of mind, the future, to allow compound interest work for you. At some point when you need it, it is there.

If you do the above you will be in the 60% group which has savings and more financial choices. It will seem hard at first, but learning about compound interest will allow you to many choices and eventually from a financial perspective that is what life is about.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, one of the reasons to invest in dividend paying stocks is dividends are paid to you and then you have choices of what to do with the money. Do you buy more of the same? invest in something else? use the money for other things? the important issue is having the choice.

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

Likely you will have heard or remember 9/11 as it relates to the World Trade Center building in New York. One of the things you may or may not know is for a long time, the buildings at the World Trade Center were relatively inexpensive office space so a number of companies including the New York Stock Exchange had their servers in the building (they also had back up in New Jersey or across the river from New York City). When the tower came down, the Stock Exchange was down but it was up and running 2 days afterwards on a reduce workday. It took about a week to become normal.

In the Russian war against the Ukraine, the western world imposed financial sanctions on Russia and one of the many elements was the Russian Stock Exchange was closed. There are a number of Russian stocks which trade on the London Stock Exchange that have not traded since the sanctions and maybe there are good speculative reasons why you might wish to buy when the sanctions are off.

In an article from Reuters, energy and metal firms led a jump in Russian stocks on the Russia Stock Exchange. According to Boris Blokhin, head of Moscow’s Exchange stock department said they were trying to do everything possible to open all segments of the stock market soon.

When the war started, because of Russia’s supply of oil and metals coming to a halt or slow downs, the commodity price of oil and metals have increased.

The government says its National Wealth Fund would buy up to $13 billion or one trillion rubles to buy stocks or support the market.

The Moscow Exchange said 567,000 private investors had accounted for 58.2% of the volume, with 121 professional participants conducting the remainder.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, every country which has a stock market the government put great faith and resources to ensure the market functions as well as possible. In signs of trouble, governments ensure stock markets are open and trading to reflect the future. From a value perspective when the sanctions are lifted (meaning Russia has lost) the economy will become open again and the large companies will be profitable once again. It may take time, but there may be value in Russian stocks when the London Exchange trades them again.

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

In the world of commodities, rules have been established over the years, first the dominate currency was the English pound, then it moved to the American dollar. In another century it might move to another currency, but the world accepts the traditions. Every commodity producing country would prefer the other countries pay for their goods in their currency, but we are not there yet.

In an article by Nina Chestney of Reuters invaded or stared a war with the Ukraine, one of the measures of the western world is to limit the financial system in Russia. No or very limited outside movement of money into or out of Russia. Countries would pay into an account which Russia would have access to once the war is over and sanctions are lifted.

Russia President said countries which are abiding by the sanctions would have to pay rubles for the gas which Russia sends into their countries (for example Germany in 30% user of Russian gas and Italy has been receiving 40% of their gas from Russia). In total Russia accounts for 40% of Europe’s consumption of natural gas or roughly $800 million of gas a day. The President reassured Europe he is not turning off the supply, the changes only affect the currency of payment.

The President order the government and central bank to come up with a solution within a week and Gazprom would be ordered to make the changes to clarify how they might pay for the gas. According to Gazprom, 58% of sales of natural gas was settled in euros, 39% in US dollars and 3% in British sterling.

Leon Izbicki an associate at Energy Aspects, said it was unclear how easy it would be for European clients to switch their payments to rubles given the scale or size of the purchases, however there is nothing in the sanctions in place that would prevent it.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, when countries sell outside their borders they have currency issues. In an ideal world the currency of the country outside the border does not fluctuate too much as it is a stable well run government. In reality elections happen, different governments do something which they think will benefit them and often times affects how currency traders see their currency. Companies pick a currency which allows them to hedge to keep stability in the exchange rates, when the amount becomes large it can affect profitability. As long as the company is making money on the sales and on the exchange, it can do business, if not then it has to ask are the sales worthwhile?

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