All of us come into contact with many different types of software and sometimes we think or lead to believe it is from the company we are dealing with, but in reality the company we are dealing with contracts the software from another company. If you consider the home you live in, someone provided the plumbing and electrical features which are usually behind a wall, but if you find out who they are it is possible to find opportunities which you never really considered before.

In an article from Reuters, Intuit known for its small business accounting and do it yourself (DIY) tax filing software (TurboTax) announced it is acquiring Mailchimp for about $12 billion in cash and stock. The company says it will use cash plus new debt of about $5 billion. Last year Intuit bought Credit Karma for $7 billion.

Mailchimp is based in Atlanta and operates a marketing platform for small and mid-sized businesses. Mailchimp has more than 12 million clients globally, with half of its $800 million in revenue coming from outside the US.

Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi believes there is incredible power in combining the customer data and the purchase data and we can put the power of data in our customer’s hands.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, recently the writer had some insights into a political campaign and they used MailChimp’s services. We all use services, but we all do not ask the next questions are the company publicly traded and would they make a good investment? When you look for your investments, examine what services you use (for you have good reasons for using the services) and then start your homework is this something I can and should invest in? Sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes no but if you are a user, then others can be a user to. If it turns out to be a good investment, then you can easily determine how you continually like or do not like the services and generally you are not alone in your thinking.

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

In the infrastructure bill, President Biden wants the solar industry to expand and by 2030 half the vehicles sold to be electric. Those are good ideals and can and will create good outcomes to battle global warming. Along the way, there will be logistical challenges of raw materials.

In an article by Zandi Shabalala of Reuters, one of those logistical challenges with be lithium.

To ensure the increase sales of electric vehicles, they will need rechargeable lithium-ion batteries that give the power to run the cars and trucks. According to Max Deudon, a trader at Transamine in Geneva, Switzerland, the market for lithium is very tight with companies competing for any spot tonnage available.

Electric vehicle batteries can use lithium carbonate or lithium hydroxide, but the industry typically talks of volumes in lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE). This year spot prices is LCE have increased 170% to $27,823 a tonne, the highest since April 2018.

Prices of spodumen, a source of lithium mainly mined in Australia has climbed 144% to $1,254 a tonne.

Demand for lithium is expected to jump 26.1% or about 100,000 tonnes of LCE to a total of 450,000 tonnes. or a deficit of 10,000 tonnes according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

Some of the mining companies which mine Spodumen are Albemarle, Pilbara Minerals, Ganfeng and Tianqi Lithium.

Global sales of electric vehicles were up 150% in the seven months to July to just over 3 million units, compared with the same period in 2021. According to Rho Motion 1.3 million of the total was sold in China.

Linking to dividend paying companies, all companies love to have the government on their side and their government doing everything it can to increase their presence in the marketplace, then reality or logistics happen. Supply chains or logistics determine outcomes and what the consumer has choice on. When examining your investments, do your homework on the supply chain to see how well connected and where the loose links are to be found.

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

Every company around the world charges fees for services and for every company at some point in time executives will examine the fee structure to see if they can fees. Many companies have fees but over the years, the fees are considered low and could be raised, but there can be a backlash among others who think the fees are a competitive advantage. Raise fees can bring more money in.

For Apple, the App’s store has become a large generator of fees and Apple has reported it collects over $53 billion in service fees. Similar to people around the world, someone believes they are paying too much in fees relative to other companies.

In an article by Stephen Nellis of Reuters, Epic Games sued Apple to lower fees and a US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers rule partially in favor of Epic. This sent Apple shares down because the amount of fees expected to be charged by Apple will decline something. Evercore ISI analyst Amit Daryanni wrote to investors that we suspect the eventual management from this ruling will be manageable.

The Judge did not require Apple to let app makers use their own in-app payment systems, one of Epic’s top requests and allowed Apple to continue to charge commissions of up to 30% for its own in-app payment system. The judge did say Apple can no longer bar app developers from providing buttons or links in their apps that direct customers to other ways to pay outside of Apple’s own in-app purchase system.

Epic Games is going to try to get legislatures to rule on monopolistic conditions in the digital world. Given the legislatures are not up to date in digital practices, one can expect there to be a timing delay.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, one of the reasons why an investor wants to buy the stock of Apple because it had a monopoly like position, although it said it did not, but fees were coming to ensure revenues rose and Apple stayed very popular even if iphone sales did not increase every year. Investors like to see diversified earnings that can weather any economic cycle. On the other side is consumers who do not like to pay too much in fees. All companies fact the balancing act and fees need to be examined every year. Years ago, one company the writer was working at gave an employee a bonus for increasing fees. We were charging $10 and other companies were charging $50 for the same service. Fees should be competitive, otherwise new management will and should raise fees. In your investments, are fees competitive or should be raised?

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

If you think about the times before the credit card, there were only two ways to pay for something – installment or cash. Cash has always been about pay cash, receive right away, the other method was to give the shopkeeper money on a weekly basis (your pay day) and when you paid the installment you could pick up the item to enjoy. Then came the introduction of credit cards – first was diner’s club which became American Express and then the two general cards of Mastercard and VISA, took over from chain store credit cards. While you could enjoy many more things using a credit card, the downside was a monthly payment or after 30 days higher interest charges. to avoid the credit card high interest rate charges, people use their line of credits and pay a lower interest rate. During the installment method, there was plenty of bookkeeping to do and for a few clients it was okay to do, but imagine if there were thousands or millions. Technology has come to the installment plans and offers a choice to higher interest charges of credit cards. (if you are an investor – Mastercard and VISA have wonderful returns because there are many people who pay high interest charges).

In an article by Sayantani Ghosh and Tim Kelly of Reuters, PayPal Holdings is buying the Japanese “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) firm Paidy for $2.7 billion.

The deal follows Square buying the Australian firm Afterpay Ltd. for $29 billion which made the founders billions.

Paidy has more than 6 million registed users and allows Japanese consumers to purchase online and then pay for each month at a convience store or by bank transfer.

Paidy’s backers included Soros Capital Management, VISA and Itochu Corp. Founder and Chairman Russell Cummer and CEO Riku Sugie will continue working for Paidy.

PayPal has grown during the COVID pandemic to more than 400 million active accounts as people buy online and continue to do so.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, both VISA and Mastercard pay dividends and both stocks have increased in price over the past couple of years. When business changes as COVID as changed many industries some industries naturally benefit and others do not. The credit card companies benefited from greater on line shopping, however their bread and butter is hospitality and tourism where people tend to use credit cards to a greater extend. Mastercard and VISA owned the wires which money flows so they will benefit from moves to a cashless society, however it does take a little time. Some companies can pivot or change direction to where their revenues can continue to flow and when they do, it seems little has changed as we all changed with the company, if that happens you can continue to hold your shares.

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

Ever since the invention of the internal combustion engine which powers motor cars, the fossil fuel business, successful companies have been reaping dividends for decades. The biggest company was Standard Oil owned by the Rockefellers which made John D the wealthiest person in the world. Since the fossil fuel industry has made many millionaires and paid billions in dividends. The most profitable company in the world is Saudi Aramco and with higher oil and natural gas prices, companies in the oil and gas sector are raising dividends.

In an article from Reuters, the President of Harvard University Lawrence Bacow wrote on the school’s website, the endowment fund has no direct investment in fossil fuel exploration or development companies. The change has taken place since 2018. The reason why the announcement is important is because the Harvard University endowment fund is the largest in the university sector with assets under administration of $42 billion.

The fund provides up to 10% of the school’s budget and not being in the oil and gas funds means they had to find equivalent dividend paying companies. The good new is they exist, it is just easier in the oil and gas sector.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, when investors examine long track records of companies paying dividends, it is easy to find them in the oil and gas sector and these companies have traditionally been some of the largest payers of dividends on the stock market. Microsoft recently overtook ExxonMobil as the largest payer, and in England, BP is the largest dividend payer. As an individual investor, not being in one field or another is relatively easy to do, but as the fund gains in size, it is tougher to do as oil and gas holding are included in many funds including index funds. It is possible.

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

Every country in the world has friends and foes at some point because of strategic value to the country. The more developed countries in terms of economies tend to view other countries for their resources first and then the politics. Ideally the politics means the government treats the rest of the citizens reasonably well, but if the country has mineral wealth so much the better. The view has been around ever since the discovery of gold, if you remember you history there was the California Gold Rush which brought thousands of people to California and parts west and ensured those states would join the US, One can see gold rushes in areas of Alaska and Australia and many other gold producing areas.

In the oil business, the country of Iraq has the 3rd largest reserves in the world after Saudi Arabia and Russia, but its politics are not the same. The US and UK oil companies helped developed the oil fields, installed the Shah until the people of Iraq decided to go another way and the US imposed sanctions on Iraq. The oil is still there to be tapped and there were plenty of customers for the oil including Japan, China and Europe. This meant when the America companies left, other countries oil companies stepped in.

In an article by Samya Kullab of The Associated Press the French company Total signed $27 billion contracts to develop oil fields, natural gas and a water project. Total is a diversified company including an engineering part. the contracts were to develop the Ratawi oil field in southern Iraq, a gas processing hub to capture natural gas from 5 southern oil fields, a project to change salt water to fresh water and inject it into the reservoirs to maintain oil production. Another project was to develop a 1,000 megawatt solar power plant.

For generations ExxonMobil (including the Standard company name) has been in Iraq developing oil fields but has decided to pull out as well as BP is leaving Iraq and in steps Total.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, companies operate from a home base or headquarters and their job is to the shareholders and employees, while the country of their home base often has slightly different considerations. The world of geopolitics sometimes aligns with corporate interests, and sometimes it does not, this is one of the balancing acts the Board must deal with. When you invest in a company, you expect the company to sell its products around the world and often it does not say who can and can not buy. Sometimes the headquarter country is trying to do something else and the company is caught up in the geopolitics of the day. Geopolitics does change, how does your company deal with it?

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

All around the world, there are countries producing agricultural products which most of us do not have a great deal of attention to. Most of buy processed foods at the grocery store and do not think a great deal about the ingredients just do you like the taste of the item, for example cookies. One of the items in the supply system is palm oil.

In an article by Mei Mei Chu and Naveen Thukral of Reuters, the Palm Oil industry comes primarily from Malaysia and Indonesia which produce 90% of the world’s palm oil. Indonesia is the largest producer with 60% market share and Malaysia has about 30% to equal 66.2 million tonnes.

In oil palm plantations in Malaysia they are having problems with workers, there is not enough of them as COVID has reduced the number of people who can come into the country. Normally migrant workers from Indonesia and South Asia, but similar to all farms around the world, if the farms are not maintained more pests including rats, moths and bagworms are allowed to ruin crops.

In Malaysia, the Malaysian Palm Oil Board data shows a drop in average crude palm oil yields to 1.41 tonnes an acre from 1.56 tonnes over the same period from last year.

Indonesia has more people and does not have the same labor shortages and expects output to rise as more acreage was planted with palm trees.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, we often look around in our backyard and in reality no matter the industry we can see similar concerns around the world. Traditionally people in less developed countries have come to more developed countries for higher wages than what they would earn in their own country. COVID has slowed down movement of people and some degree of mechanism is a possible solution, however skilled people are always needed. Hopefully the companies where you invest your money continues to attract and retain good people.

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

If you think about cities, one of the big economic drivers is a convention center with hotels and parking nearby. Every week there is a different convention and somewhere there is a convention for every interest. Convention centers create jobs in the tourism sector and if you consider cities such as Las Vegas and New Orleans they have great infrastructure for conventions and many people go to the cities. During COVID, what people could not do was gather in large groups at conventions and other facilities, but with more people being vaccinated conventions are opening up.

In an article by Victoria Waldersee and Nick Carey of Reuters, the auto show which is one of the premier conventions in cities around the world opened in Germany. The setting was changed from Frankfurt to Munich and the theme was changed to Mobility of the Future. Given the German car companies of BMW, Audi and VW the German auto show is showcasing German vehicles, but it also showcasing bikes, e-scooters.

Hildegard Mueller, president of the industry association VDA said the goal of climate protection is guiding us. In a “normal” year about one million people came through the auto show.

Those organizations who believe the auto companies are not doing enough protested the show and the theme.

Linking to dividend paying companies, while climate protection is a given, changing multi billion dollar companies to become green will take time. Companies particularly in Europe have to show results and conventions help sell what the companies are doing. During COVID there were few conventions and companies saved or did not spend money on conventions and meetings, with the re-openings it is possible to go to the previous ways. How much should they do and is it more effective online are big issues which need to be asked about.

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

At one time, many of the goods produced in the world came from the US and then a shift to China was made, now if you buy something somewhere along the line there is a Chinese influence. This has been very good for China to bring millions of people towards more middle income status. The Chinese government through its many state companies added the infrastructure abilities to ensure goods can be made in China, shipped by road or rail to a Chinese port to be sent around the world. (from a logistical point of view – looking at the You Tube videos of Chinese ports is inspiring). The result of all the actions is the reality as the economy of China goes so does the cost of commodities. For this reason there is a focus to read and learn how the Chinese economy is doing.

In an article by Clyde Russell of Reuters reported 2 of China’s main Purchasing Managers’ Indexes (PMI) fell in August from July. The Caixin/Markit PMI fell to 49.2 from 50.3 in July going below 50 for the first time in 1 and 1/2 years. The Caixin/Markit PMI focuses more on small to medium sized businesses, while the official National Bureau of Statistics PMI is angled more toward state controlled enterprises.

The official PMI has declined for 5 consecutive months and this has meant the global price of metals has decreased. Copper futures in London have dropped 10.4% a tonne from a high in May of $10,460 to $9,335.

China sold from state reserves a total of 420,000 tonnes of copper, aluminum and zinc. The sales appears to have placed a cap on the rallies in those markets, limiting imports and sending a signal to the broader market that Chinese demand can no longer be taken as an ever increasing given.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, most stocks that pay dividends are not tied directly to a commodity because commodities rise and fall in price. As long as price is more profitable to mine than take out of the ground commodity companies make money. However what goes up comes down and what goes down comes up, there are cycles and if you invest in companies related to commodity prices have alternatives when the cycle changes. If you can invest in companies that are not tied to commodity prices, it means you have less alternatives to consider.

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