In every election, politicians talk about all kinds of things and some of them could effect businesses or investments. In an ideal world, politicians will make business and investment reasonably easy, but politics can get in the way. Then senior management needs to make contingency plans just in case the politician is elected. How detailed are the plans will be is based on polling data or if the politician has the ability to win and potentially implement some of the talk. Senior management’s tasks with politicians is they have to work with whoever is elected, although some are easier to work with than others.

In an article by Eric Reguly of the Globe and Mail, he interviewed Charles van der Steen, the President of North America division of Maersk. The company AP Moller-Maersk is the world’s 2nd largest container-ship company with over 700 ships moving around the globe.

The good news is Maersk’s expectation is business to expand roughly in line with the rise in global GDP this year. The reason while exports to the US from China is down 20% to $427 billion in 2023, those from other countries such as Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and India are rising.

Many of the companies based in China that was supplying the US have operations in Southeast Asia to build supply chain diversification. This means for Maersk whatever China gives up, Southeast Asia and India will give.

Maersk was founded in 1904 in Denmark, evolved into a container business in the 1970’s and 80’s and has a market value of $23 billion. Its competitors include China’s COSCO and Switzerland’s Mediterranean Shipping.

Among the issues of tariffs, Maersk has to deal with natural disasters and wars. The war on the Red Sea which meant less use of the Suez Canal meant Maersk boosted capacity by 6 to 7% (or used more ships) for the 9 or 10 extra days needed to go around Africa.

Maersk has also invested in more logistics including trucks, planes, trains, warehouses as well as ocean terminals. The company has the ability to pivot quickly or be agile for its customers.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, in the world of politics sometimes political parties are naturally good for a business, sometimes it is a challenge, the important thing is the flexibility of the company to deal with whoever is in power. It is the reason all large companies have lobbyists from both sides of the aisle in over to have stability to do their business plan. How agile are the companies you invest in?

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

Every company once they have achieved a certain size will aim to mechanize some of their processes because they take a lot of manpower. If a robot can do the job, so much the better. The early robots helped stack pallets – the goods come down the production line and then need to put on a pallet to be put on a truck to go to the stores. Before the robots. someone had to stack the pallets but it led to back injuries, etc and a robot works 24 hours a day, every day. Every year, robots will and continue to evolve.

In an article by Waylon Cunningham of Reuters reported Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc has moved an automated bowl-and-salad maker and an avocado-processing robot out of its test kitchen and into a couple of stores in California.

Chiptole said that it is testing the technology to find efficiencies and help our restaurant employees continue providing great hospitality for our guests.

Employees who work with the automated bowl-and-salad maker will continue to make burritos and tacos, add side items and monitor the machine’s quality. Chiptole said 65% of all digital orders are bowls and salads.

Chiptole’s autocado technology, which cuts, cores and peels avocados before an employee mashes them into guacamole. The machine processes an avocado in 26 seconds. Chipotle which had revenues of $9.9 billion says it goes through 5 million cases of avocados a year.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, when a company starts out there is an assembly line of people to get the job done. But overtime people ask what can be done more efficient or are there different processes to allow the work to be done with less people. The answer is overtime and the use of technology which results in fewer people are needed or some transition to something else, not a bad thing just reality. If the company you invest in, what efficiencies have they achieved lately?

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

In the world of investing, as in many other areas people see similar facts, but come to different conclusions. For investing this makes a healthy buy and sell marketplace, for one person’s reason to see the glass half full, is another person’s reason to see the glass half empty. In what direction will the market go? Those decisions are magnified in the venture capital industry because you know many of the investments will not go anywhere, but a couple could be 10 x plus. Why did one go and the other not do as well. There are many variables as it should be.

In an article by Sarah Parvini and Matt O’Brien of the Associated Press, there are many venture capitalists and looking at the 2 candidates for President some are in favor of one, and some are in favor of another. The important element is to vote. The second element is successful venture capitalists can write cheques with a number of zeros on them, which is why the article.

Mr. Trump received the backing of Elon Musk and Peter Thiel and started a pro Thump superPAC called America PAC. For example, according to US Federal Election Commission records, Shaun Maguire a partner at Sequoia donated $500,000. Doug Leone also of Sequoia donated $1 million.

Stephen DeBerry who runs the Bronze Venture Fund set up a PAC to donate to Kamala Harris. He also organized a group called VCs for Kamala.

David Cowan of Bessemer Venture Partners supports Kamala because of the long term view, while acknowledging short term – Trump could drive up corporate profits and stock market values and receive a good tax cut. Longer term what will the country look like?

Linking to dividend paying stocks, the article says people of a similar view of the world often have different politics and that is a good thing. There are benefits and disadvantages to both candidates and parties, some you will like, some are not so good, it is up to you to weigh them and vote for your interests. In investing, the safest investment is buying stock in profitable companies which can pay dividends, but you have to do your homework to ensure they stay profitable in a competitive environment. Doing your homework on your investments and who you vote for is a good thing.

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

We all need income to survive and prosper and most people get it from working for someone else. Working for someone else includes all salary ranges and for the majority of people it can be a very good life. There are always a few who hate working for someone else and start their own business to be the boss. However, it is important to note many small businesses fail for a wide range of reasons which is why it is easier to say I want to be the boss than work for someone else. Given the majority work for someone else, as long as there are opportunities in the workplace it is okay.

In an article by Ben Casselman of The New York Times News Service, he takes a look at layoffs. What is going on with them, how do you look at layoffs and is there any other perspective to take. Layoffs are much easier to look at when you have income or are working.

Historically, the large layoffs seen in the press come only once an economic downturn was well under way. The Great Recession officially began in 2007, after the housing bubble burst, and unemployment began to rise but it was not until late 2008 and the onset of a global financial crisis that employers began to cut jobs in earnest.

The reason economists say is a straight forward reason – layoffs are disruptive, expensive and bad for morale. So companies wait until they have very limited options or no choice to save costs.

Parker Ross, global chief economist at Arch Capital, says it is costly to lay someone off. Both in terms of the layoffs and the rehiring. Many companies may prefer to retain workers rather than risk being short staffed again if sales rebound.

What really distinguishes a recession is not job losses, but a slowdown in hiring.

Robert Shimer, a University of Chicago economist, noted in a 2012 paper, when a hiring manager decides not to fill a position, that does not tend to make headlines. But those decisions multiplied across the country can lead to rising joblessness. Mr. Shimer found roughly 3/4’s of the fluctuation in the unemployment rate results from shifts in the hiring rate.

In 2022, after the pandemic lifted employers were hiring back people and about 500,000 people found jobs. The number in 2023 was 116,000 jobs.

Economists caution that the slowdown in hiring does not mean that a recession has begun or is inevitable. There are signs it is harder to jobs.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, for both companies and individuals when there are slowdowns in the economy having very little debt is a good thing. Having savings and investments is even better, because in each slowdown there are opportunities. On the stock market, prices can fall and having the patience to find very good value is the key when the economy picks up again or goes through its normal cycle. In the article, the author suggests you see the employment rate differently as long as you are okay, you likely can. Sometimes by seeing something in a different lens than the general public, you see more opportunity.

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

Most of us live close to water and see the water as recreation. In reality on the seas is a great deal of economy particularly the boats that move around. The closest most of us will get on a ship is either taking a ferry or going on a cruise ship and that is fine. However, if are by the sea, you will likely see ocean tankers moving goods particularly commodities around the world. Shipping is an inexpensive method to move goods from one country to another. The stronger the economy between the two countries, the greater the economies the supply chain relies on to lower costs will happen. Within the shipping world, accidents do happen, or ships are lost and most of the time most of us never know. However, there are industries that have developed which handle those concerns. The shipping world and how it handled an accident is the subject of a book called Dead in the Water published by Mathew Campbelll and Kit Chellel, published by Portfolio/Penguin, 2022, London UK.

The relationship between London’s insurance markets and the Greek shipping community is complicated. Greece is undeniably the most successful shipping nation on earth, and a vital source for the specialists at Lloyd’s.

The Greek commercial fleet is the world’s largest and mostly operated by small, family-owned firms. The city of Piraeus is the center of Greek’s shipping industry and roughly 18% of the worldwide fleet is Greek owned, next largest is Japan at 11% with the US at 3%.

After WW II, the Greek shipping industry was devasted with more than 70% of the commercial fleet sunk. The Greeks acquired the Liberty ships from the Allied war effort and established a strong position in tramp shipping. Running vessels with no fixed schedules, willing to transport whatever cargo they could find.

After WW II, the world loved owning and driving cars and 60% of the growth in maritime trade was based on liquid cargo. Moving larger quantities of oil over longer distances required an increase in tanker capacity or the rise of supertanker. Two Greek families were at the forefront of the expansion – Stavros Niarchos and Aristotle Onassis.

As their wealth grew so did their political influence and they devised the idea when transporting oil, it is better to put their ships and their money beyond the reach of the countries where they lived and did business. Thus, the rise and of tax havens such as Bermuda, Liberia and others. By 1959, over half the Liberian merchant fleet was owned by Greeks. Advantage – all the profits, little of the accountability.

One of the great institutions of London is their court houses where judges settle some of the biggest big-money disputes. The London court houses are where information about the disputes becomes public because the judges have credibility and experience dealing with these types of cases.

In the book, the ship happens to be owned by Greeks, because a British citizen was killed, the British police were involved and through many years of court proceedings the case showed the fire was deliberate and the insurance companies did not pay out the claims, but lawyers fees were up.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, all industries have books written about them, most are in written in connection with another subject because the readers must sell books. Industries evolve and become a certain way because they were allowed to go that way. It is expected in the shipping industry to use tax havens and every country with ships do it. Perhaps the global supply system benefits more than it would cost for ship owners to pay higher income taxes. When you invest in a company, your are often investing in the system which exists and that can benefit you as an investor.

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

Most of us live close to water and see the water as recreation. In reality on the seas is a great deal of economic activity particularly the boats that move around. The closest most of us will get on a ship is either taking a ferry or a cruise ship and that is fine. However, if are by the sea, you will likely see ocean tankers moving goods particularly commodities around the world. Shipping is an inexpensive method to move goods from one country to another. The stronger the economy between the two countries, the greater the economies the supply chain relies on to lower costs happen. Within the shipping world, accidents do happen, or ships are lost and most of the time most of us never know. However, there are industries that have developed which handle those concerns. The shipping world and how it handled an accident is the subject of a book called Dead in the Water published by Mathew Campbell and Kit Chellel, published by Portfolio/Penguin, 2022, London UK.

In the Victorian age, the British navy was the most powerful navy in the world and one of the reasons Britain had many colonies around the world. To keep the colonies, the British army and navy were sent to defend the interests of British companies which had set up to export raw materials to Britain and sell British goods to the public. If you are in London, you might notice a very distinction office building where Lloyd’s of London is headquartered. At the center of insurance for ships is Lloyd’s, this has been the reason they came into being and one of the world’s oldest continually running periodicals is called Lloyd’s List – the coming and goings of ships.

Lloyd’s specializes in what no one else will insure: the biggest, the most unusual, the hardest to analyze. The system works is a broker is appointed for a project, who then shops it around to Lloyd’s members who come together in one or more syndicates to insure it. Each member of a syndicate takes on a piece of the liability. After the financial exposure has been successfully divvied up, the company who wishes to do something goes to the bank and the bank approves the loan knowing the insurance companies will pay the bank if something goes bad. If nothing goes bad, the syndicate makes profits.

For cargo ships there tends to be more than one insurance coverage, one for the hull or the ship itself and one for the cargo.

In the Lloyd’s headquarters building is the Underwriting Room where brokers bring deals to other brokers for them to join the partnership. At this level, there is a great deal of trust because the Latin motto of the floor is Uberrima Fides or utmost good faith. The trust extends to the ultimate users of the market, the customers, who can be confident that Lloyd’s members will pay claims quickly and efficiently, no matter how large they are. Every year, Lloyd’s collects $49 billion in premiums.

In the book, the story is about one vessel, a rusting hulk of an oil tanker called the Brillante Virtuoso. It was delivering oil worth $100 million from Ukraine to China. Along the way, in Yemen it was scuttled, or a fire broke out and the ship was considered damage to be out of service. While privates are active in the Yemen area, was this ship’s fire caused by privates or pretend privates who the owners wanted insurance money to be paid out?

Fraud happens but there were reasons why Lloyd’s has been historically slow to tackle maritime fraud. One there has no real financial incentive to do so. Most individuals know if they are involved in an accident with their vehicle, next year premiums increase. The same thing happens with ships, premium rates increase and as long as the insurance company is profitable, it is a price to pay.

The second reason is enforcement. Most frauds occur in international waters and whose owners are registered in Liberia, Panama and so on and when it does come before London courts, there is a high bar for rejecting claims. It addition, often times the insurance company has to claim its own client was at fault.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, when things go smoothly it is entirely possible to make profits on a regular basis and pay dividends. It is when the unexpected costs increases and prices cannot be raised is when companies are pinched. If the companies you invested in can raise their prices and still be profitable, then as an investor that is a good thing.

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

All companies have a history, an entrepreneur started a business, came up with a better idea, did something to generate sales. If the company is successful, the entrepreneur has a choice to grow or stay focused on what the business is. If it grows, first it stays within the same sort of businesses or vertically integrated then it diversifies or horizontally integrated. At some point, management will change and then they will consider the name, does it reflect reality of what they do? The change can take years because the name is considered an icon and who wants to change an icon?

In an article by Jessica Dinapoli and Anja Bharbat Mistry of Reuters, Campbell Soup is dropping its name to become The Campbell Company.

CEO Mark Clouse said the company is much more than soup and has 16 very strong brands including Soup, Goldfish snacks, V8 beverages, Prego sauces, Pepperidge Farm.

Campbell expects its Goldfish snacks brand to be its largest brand by 2027.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, name changes are normal in the world of business and when it happens, there is a marketing cost to it, but the values of the company continue. It takes people a little while to adjust, but very shortly the changes will be accepted. It is surprising how quickly that happens. Hopefully, the change will continue to allow the company to grow and meet its demands of producing a profit to pay dividends.

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

Every company has sales and that is broken down to products and which products or services sell the most. As you do your homework of the company, you can determine which products is more important to the sales picture than others. Along with the sales, every year is the new features or updates which is used to encourage people to continue to buy the product. Most of this happens behind the scenes and for most people as long as they like the product that is it. For investors that is the start, you will ask what are the trends? do people actually like the updates? sometimes being cynical helps, but you are allowed to fall in love with the product once again.

In the world of smartphones, Apple unveiled its iPhone 16. In an article by Max Cherney and Kenrick Cai of Reuters, the iPhone 16 is artificial intelligence boosted. The iPhone also accounted for more than half of Apple’s $383 billion in sales in 2023. Will people upgrade?

Apple Intelligence, the company’s AI software, will be used to improve its personal assistant Siri. Other features are understanding and identifying objects captured by the phone camera. Craig Fedeighi, Apple’s software engineering chief, said Siri will be more natural, more personal to you.

Nabila Popal, an analyst with International Data Corp, said the target market for upgrades is people who owned a iPhone for 3 to 4 years. This will future proof their phones for AI upgrades.

Apple also unveiled Watches and AirPods with health-related focused features.

In China, Apple was the dominate phone but not the top 5 list are all vendors in China. A number of years ago, the Central government encouraged government employees to move away from Apple and in China what the central government wants, it will gain acceptance.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, for the companies you invest in do you have a reasonable idea of who are the ones with the biggest product sales. If you do, then at key points of the calendar you can see how they are doing with the biggest customers. If the sales are diversified, that is a good thing for you as an investor. As an investor, you want to know how the company is doing, and if you see they are doing well, then you can do nothing as profits continue to roll in and you collect dividends.

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

If you invest the goal is to have more and the easiest and hardest way is to buy low, hold on to your investments for a period of time, sell some of it when it is high and buy more when it is low. That is a cycle. The way a cycle works is when you look backwards, it is easy to see. When you look forward it is very hard to know what and when the top or bottom is. One person who has tried to use cycles as an investment philosophy is Howard Marks, the founder of Oaktree Capital Management. Mr. Marks has written a number of books and every once in a while, he publishes his thoughts on Oaktree Capital Management website. Mr. Marks has made money buying low and selling high and wrote a book called Mastering the Market Cycle, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co, NY, 2018.

The reasons why you study the cycles is to:

Cycle positioning – the process of deciding on the risk posture of your portfolio in response to your judgements regarding the principal cycles

Asset selection – the process of deciding which markets, market niches and specific securities or assets to overweight or underweight

Aggressiveness – the assumption of increased risk; risking more of your capital; holding lower quality assets; making investments that are more reliant on favorable macro outcomes; and/or employing financial leverage

Defensiveness – the reduction of risk: investing less capital and holding cash instead; emphasizing safer assets; buying thing that can do relative well in the absence of prosperity; and/or slamming leverage

Skill – the ability to make these decisions correctly on balance through a repeatable intellectual process and the basis for reasonable assumptions regarding the future.

Luck – what happens on the many occasions when skill and reasonable assumptions prove to be of no avail

A market will do what it will do.

At Oaktree we strongly reject the idea of waiting for the bottom to start buying:

1st, there is absolutely no way to know when the bottom has been reached. The bottom can only be recognized only after it has passed.

2nd, it is usually during market slides that you can buy the largest quantities of the thing you want, from sellers who are throwing in the towel and while the non-knife catchers are hugging the sidelines. Soon the selling dries up and would-be buyers face growing competition.

What you need to do is continually do your homework and consider what are good values for stocks and bonds which you are interested in. If you are correct, values will rise and you will be wealthier.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, when you bought your stocks you bought them for a reason. When markets decline, the stocks you own you likely know best and what values are good because you are a long-term holder. If you can buy more that is a good thing, because you can use the dividend to reinvest in the stock for you or average down. In the meantime, if the dividend is safe along with profits, there is always opportunity no matter what the cycle is.

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