Dividend Income

Please Watch My New YouTube Video: Quick Pick CVS

Please Watch My New YouTube Video: Quick Pick CVS

Today’s Quick Pick is CVS Health (CVS). CVS owns a unique combination of healthcare delivery channels. Drugstores, yes–9,000 of them. But the company also owns health insurance company, Aetna, and Caremark, the largest pharmacy benefit manager. And recently it moved into the primary care marketplace through its acquisition of Oak Street. The company reported earnings on Wednesday, February 7, and the stock was up about 3.25% after that. While the earnings were good, (they beat by $0.13) the guidance is what is important here. The company projected higher costs for 2024 and cut guidance for GAAP earnings ($7.06) and adjusted earnings ($8.30). The reason the stock went up despite these cuts is that everyone was expecting DEEPER cuts to guidance. CVS has been signaling for weeks that rising costs in 2024 could be painful for the healthcare sector as a whole, and the relatively minor cuts in guidance led to a rally in the stock. Morningstar calculates a fair value for CVS Health of $103 a share. The stock closed at $76.32 on February 9. The stock also pays a 2.36% dividend. The stock is a member of my Dividend Portfolio. That position is up 31.25% since October 28, 2020.

Please Watch My New YouTube Video: Pick of the Week HAS

Please Watch My New YouTube Video: Pick of the Week HAS

Today’s Quick Pick is Hasbro (HAS). This stock isn’t terribly exciting or groundbreaking. There’s no big new tech connected to this pick. Hasbro makes toys and traditional toys are considered a declining industry. The stock is indeed ,60% off of its 2019 high. This is not a growth stock, but it is a reliable, high yield, dividend stock. Cash flow from toy sales is consistent enough to keep the 5.5-6% coming Sales may be flat this year but licensing with brands like My Little Pony and Transformers keep the company’s toys top of mind with kids and in the media. Hasbro is one of three major toy brands that make up 40% of the traditional U.S. toy market and 30% of the global market. The industry may not be exciting, but the high dividend yield makes this worth a look. I’ll be adding this to my Jubak Picks Dividend Portfolio next  week.

Step #8 in my Special Report: Sell DE, CAT and BHP tomorrow

Step #8 in my Special Report: Sell DE, CAT and BHP tomorrow

Today I posted Step #8 in my Special Report: 8 Steps to Protect Your Portfolio from the Global Debt Bomb. I recommended selling Deere (DE), Caterpillar (CAT), and BHP Group (BHP) out of portfolios ahead of rising yields i the bond market. (In the case of Deere, I said I would keep my position in my long-term portfolio but sell the position in my 12-18 month portfolio.) Here’s what I posted in my Special Report

Saturday Night Quarterback (Part 2) says, For the week ahead expect…

Saturday Night Quarterback (Part 2) says, For the week ahead expect…

Investors see a ton of third-quarter earnings reports this coming week with news from Microsoft, Amazon, Meta Platforms, and Alphabet quite capable of moving the entire market. We’ll also get more consumer company (Coca-Cola and Kimberly-Clark for example) reports to show whether last week’s higher revenue but lower volume pattern continues. And Wall Street is expecting negative new from oil companies ExxonMobil (XOM) and Chevron (CVX) when they both report on Friday.

We’re looking at a global debt bomb

We’re looking at a global debt bomb

“Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!” Monty Python observed back in 1970 before attempting to torture a coal-miner’s wife with a dish rack. There’s an important investing version of this core truth: The financial market usually worries about the wrong problem. So that when the “Spanish Inquisition” (in financial terms) finally arrives, everybody is surprised. Well, we investors and traders have done it to ourselves again. We’ve spent much of 2022 and a good part of 2023 worrying about whether Federal Reserve interest rate increases would send the economy into a recession. There are still a few recession die hards worrying about that possibility, but by and large the worry has shifted to whether or not the Fed will delay its rate cuts in 2024–and thus delay the arrival of the “rate-cut-bounce.” While MANY–but certainly not all–investors, traders, and market analysts have been looking OVER THERE, however, the credit markets have built up a huge debt overhead and the global debt bomb looks ever closer to exploding. A crisis with the dire effects of the Global Financial Crisis of mid-2007 to 2009 is a possibility. I’d “guess” that most portfolios aren’t ready. The time to get ready is now. This increasingly looks like a debt market crisis of the type known as a Minsky Moment. To get ready first understand the source of the problem. I’m putting together a new Special Report for next week on what to do to get ready. Today’s post is a kind of set up, a get ready for the post on getting ready, if you will.

Exxon Mobil in talks to acquire Pioneer Natural Resources for $60 billion–I’m selling my position on Monday

Exxon Mobil in talks to acquire Pioneer Natural Resources for $60 billion–I’m selling my position on Monday

The Wall Street Journal has reported that Exxon Mobil (XOM) is in advanced talks to buy Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD) in a deal valued at $60 billion. Pioneer currently has a market cap of $55 billion. Through in th debt that Exxon would be buying and there’s not a lot of extra upside here, in my opinion. Today’s 10.45% jump in pioneer shares to care of a lot of any potential deal premium. (I’m assuming that the report is accurate. Today’s news story follows on earlier speculation that the two companies were talking.) Unless you think another bidder will emerge–difficult but not impossible at this deal size, I’d sell my shares here. I like Pioneer as an independent big dividend paye

Will it work? People’s Bank tries to boost growth without tanking the yuan

Will it work? People’s Bank tries to boost growth without tanking the yuan

The People’s Bank of China cut the amount of cash banks must hold in reserve for the second time this year. The move is an effort to boost flagging economic growth in China. The bank could have cut its benchmark interest rate in pursuit of the same goal. But that would have led to more selling against the yuan and the People’s Bank has been busy in the trenches in recent weeks trying to prop up the yuan agains the dollar. The question, of course, is whether the cut in reserve requirements will be enough, without a reduction in interest rates, to revive growth in China’s economy.

Please Watch  My New YouTube Video: Quick Pick Verizon

Please Watch My New YouTube Video: Quick Pick Verizon

Today’s Quick Pick is Verizon ( VZ). Verizon’s stock is up after recently reporting earnings. Verizon reported adjusted earnings of $1.21, up only 4 cents from the expected $1.17. The modest surprise was not what boosted the stock, however. Revenue was down year over year to $32.6 billion from $33.79 billion and the earnings were lower than last year’s $1.31 during this quarter. So why was there a bump in the stock? Verizon was expected to report a loss of 9,000 subscribers as competitors, like T-Mobile, chipped away at its customer base, but the company actually gained 8,000 postpaid subscribers. The stock has a great dividend of 7.68%, but the worry was, if Verizon continued to bleed subscribers, it would no longer be able to support the dividend. With the number of subscribers going up, that dividend looks to be safe and the stock will remain in my dividend portfolio on JubakPicks and JubakAM.