With gold prices touching $1,260 last week and hitting a new all-time high, the difficult question is whether this is some type of short term top in the gold bull market or whether something has fundamentally changed in the currency markets that is going to send gold much higher from here.
For once with gold the charts do show a financial asset not in danger of a big breakdown. That is what you can see in most other major asset classes right now, including silver.
Longer-term
But thinking in terms of the next few weeks or months is more difficult. If financial markets sell down sharply into this summer and autumn then logically the gold price ought to weaken, and silver very much more so as an industrial commodity.
Of course, conversely a continuation of the modest upturn in stocks could take gold up to $1,300. But stock markets have been rising on weaker and weaker volumes. They need to be climbing on higher and higher volumes to make this a sustainable trend.
That would tend to suggest that gold has been riding this upwave and will follow the rest of the markets down. But gold is being bought both as a diversification play and currency now, and that should act as a powerful support in falling markets, even if it is not enough to keep the precious metal rising in value.
Gold has recently outperformed silver, and the gold:silver price ratio is now 66 compared with its long term average of 15. But the silver market is smaller and less liquid than gold so it has room to catch up with the percentage advance in the gold price if gold continues to go up.
Silver outlook
Investors can be encouraged by silver’s Friday close of $19.24 an ounce, and there is room for an advance to $21-22 unless global financial markets take an immediate turn for the worse.
In a big correction silver will then become the best asset to buy for a recovery, or bounce off the bottom, when financial markets become oversold. Less than two years ago silver sold at under $9 an ounce so the scope for trading this volatility is considerable.
That said it does not make silver the more attractive precious metal to own going into a downturn, and that remains gold. Given the uncertainties of global currency markets – and who knows what the Chinese mean about a ‘more flexible’ yuan – holding gold as a part of a currency basket makes more and more sense.
Disclosure I am long GLD and SLV Shares.
A blog talking about investing in a basket of dividend paying etfs. To generate a long term flow of passive income. Follow me as I grow to learn the world of Dividends and Investing.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Investing Insights Still Sticking With Dividends, But BP, BAC, C, GE Cost Dividend Investors $38 Billions
The speed of the Financial sector dividend decline, from 30% of the S&P 500 in 2007 to 9% now, appears slow compared to BP. The BP suspension (the largest decrease that I can find) has unnerved dividend investors who now need to more closely examine potential liability issues (call in the lawyers). In addition to environmental issues, medical and consumer products, plant and working conditions, as well as services need to be added to the list.
But dividends are having a great first half of the year, with 10 issues initiating a cash dividend. I am still looking for 5.6% 2010 payment increase over 2009, with another surge (dependant upon the economy) in announcements near year-end.
As for companies not being able to pay or increase dividends, Q1 has set a new record for S&P 500 Industrial cash and equivalent levels at US $837, a 25.9% increase over the US $665 billion of Q1 2009. It is the sixth consecutive quarter of increasing cash, and speaks to not just the improvement in cash-flow, but the unwillingness of companies to commit large amounts of capital for projects. The value is sufficient to fund corporate growth, buybacks, dividends and M&A, if companies choose to spend it.
But dividends are having a great first half of the year, with 10 issues initiating a cash dividend. I am still looking for 5.6% 2010 payment increase over 2009, with another surge (dependant upon the economy) in announcements near year-end.
As for companies not being able to pay or increase dividends, Q1 has set a new record for S&P 500 Industrial cash and equivalent levels at US $837, a 25.9% increase over the US $665 billion of Q1 2009. It is the sixth consecutive quarter of increasing cash, and speaks to not just the improvement in cash-flow, but the unwillingness of companies to commit large amounts of capital for projects. The value is sufficient to fund corporate growth, buybacks, dividends and M&A, if companies choose to spend it.
Dividends Like BP’s Look Safe, Until They’re Not
If you own BP shares and rely on the dividends for your retirement income, you now matter less than shrimp boat owners and tourism workers in the Gulf of Mexico, Ron Lieber writes in The New York Times.
That’s the net result of the announcement on Wednesday that BP will suspend its dividend and set aside money for cleanup costs and the compensation of workers who have lost income because of the oil spill.
Whether the federal government was right to pressure BP to make this move (and whether BP should have buckled) is a question for the ages. But if you’re an investor in BP and rely on dividend income to pay your daily expenses, this should serve as another reminder that relying on one stock or even a handful of stocks is incredibly risky.
We’ve seen this movie before. Wachovia disappeared, hobbling many investors who counted on its dividends. Other big banks reduced their payouts drastically in the depths of the financial crisis. General Electric slashed its dividend as well.
This should have been a warning for anyone making big retirement bets on a single stock or a handful of stocks. Things that seem stable can wobble and collapse before our very eyes. And now it’s happening again.
It’s not supposed to work this way, at least in the minds of the many investors of the old school. To them, a stock that pays a dividend is a stock that is safe. “It told them that a company was still around and operating, it was in good health,” said Milo M. Benningfield, a San Francisco financial planner.
Just because a company pays a dividend now is no guarantee that it will forever, or that the company will even continue to exist. Nor is it any guarantee that the underlying stock is stable. Steven Podnos, a financial planner in Merritt Island, Fla., notes that the iShares Dow Jones Select Dividend Index exchange-traded fund, which contains stocks that offer high annual yields through dividends, underperformed the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index over the last five years.
Still, plenty of people strap on the blinders and maintain their faith in the stocks they think they know well. A frightening article in the trade newspaper Pensions & Investments on Monday estimated that BP employees and others in the company’s 401(k) plan had lost more than $1 billion from the stock’s decline in the wake of the spill.
How can the loss be so high? Well, 29 percent of the plan’s assets were invested in BP stock as of last September. This, sadly, is yet another violation of the too-many-eggs-in-one-basket rule that company plan sponsors should have had inscribed in stone for employees — even before the Enron collapse and the resulting devastation in employee retirement accounts there.
Employees or retired employees are not alone. Devotees of white-hot companies (Apple comes to mind) simply refuse to believe that anything bad could befall the stock. Retirees reliant on dividend income may be averse to change if a stock has paid out regularly for decades. Others may have inherited a big slug of stock and may simply not know any better. Then there are those who are so tax-averse that they won’t diversify their holdings because they don’t want to give up some of their winnings to capital gains taxes.
If you know people who might fall into these categories, please do them a favor and send them to a financial planner post-haste if you can’t talk some sense into them yourself.
Or you could simply try to scare them. Very few people saw a spill of this magnitude coming, just as only a small number could have predicted a few years back that financial stocks would go from contributing 29 percent of the dividend payments of S.& P. 500 payments in 2007 to just 9 percent in 2009.
Today, consumer staples stocks contribute more than any other sector, according to Howard Silverblatt of S.& P. How might that sector or parts of it deteriorate? A prolonged terrorist campaign against large American retailers could begin, or a blight could emerge that wipes out a large percentage of the nation’s crops.
These things are unlikely but entirely possible, and they wouldn’t be a total surprise. Tempted by utilities? Mr. Benningfield suggested contemplating the remote possibility of solar flares frying the power grid.
As of Wednesday, there is now political risk to consider, too. Now that there is a recent precedent, legislators could again try to bully a company into suspending its dividends.
And if that weren’t worry enough for dividend fans, we must also rely on those same legislators to sort out our tax policy. Currently, no one pays more than a 15 percent federal tax on dividend income. If Congress does not act before the end of the year, however, investors will start paying much higher ordinary income tax rates on dividends come 2011. “Where it will wind up, no one knows,” said Kenneth L. Powell, a tax partner at the accounting firm Berdon L.L.P. in New York. Wealthier investors, meanwhile, may pay even more once a 3.8 percent Medicare tax on unearned income begins in 2013.
Everyone needs income in retirement, and dividends aren’t a bad way to get it as long as they don’t come from a single company. Again and again, we’ve seen out-of-nowhere scandals and crises and accidents bring big companies to their knees. Why, given the overwhelming evidence that these things do happen once in a while, would you not extract your dividend income from a low-cost, broadly diversified mutual fund that specializes in dividends?
The moral of the story, as always, is to diversify within each asset class you own, whether it’s dividend-paying stocks or municipal bonds or the emerging-market countries where you’re rolling the dice for big gains. Then, diversify your retirement income, too. The more sources the better, whether it’s dividend income, interest income, annuity income, rental income or periodic (and tax-savvy) outright sales of stocks or other assets.
Even this sort of diversification might not have protected you from the pain in 2008. But it can shield you from the ruin of betting too heavily on a single security like BP.
Disclosure I am long BP shares.
That’s the net result of the announcement on Wednesday that BP will suspend its dividend and set aside money for cleanup costs and the compensation of workers who have lost income because of the oil spill.
Whether the federal government was right to pressure BP to make this move (and whether BP should have buckled) is a question for the ages. But if you’re an investor in BP and rely on dividend income to pay your daily expenses, this should serve as another reminder that relying on one stock or even a handful of stocks is incredibly risky.
We’ve seen this movie before. Wachovia disappeared, hobbling many investors who counted on its dividends. Other big banks reduced their payouts drastically in the depths of the financial crisis. General Electric slashed its dividend as well.
This should have been a warning for anyone making big retirement bets on a single stock or a handful of stocks. Things that seem stable can wobble and collapse before our very eyes. And now it’s happening again.
It’s not supposed to work this way, at least in the minds of the many investors of the old school. To them, a stock that pays a dividend is a stock that is safe. “It told them that a company was still around and operating, it was in good health,” said Milo M. Benningfield, a San Francisco financial planner.
Just because a company pays a dividend now is no guarantee that it will forever, or that the company will even continue to exist. Nor is it any guarantee that the underlying stock is stable. Steven Podnos, a financial planner in Merritt Island, Fla., notes that the iShares Dow Jones Select Dividend Index exchange-traded fund, which contains stocks that offer high annual yields through dividends, underperformed the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index over the last five years.
Still, plenty of people strap on the blinders and maintain their faith in the stocks they think they know well. A frightening article in the trade newspaper Pensions & Investments on Monday estimated that BP employees and others in the company’s 401(k) plan had lost more than $1 billion from the stock’s decline in the wake of the spill.
How can the loss be so high? Well, 29 percent of the plan’s assets were invested in BP stock as of last September. This, sadly, is yet another violation of the too-many-eggs-in-one-basket rule that company plan sponsors should have had inscribed in stone for employees — even before the Enron collapse and the resulting devastation in employee retirement accounts there.
Employees or retired employees are not alone. Devotees of white-hot companies (Apple comes to mind) simply refuse to believe that anything bad could befall the stock. Retirees reliant on dividend income may be averse to change if a stock has paid out regularly for decades. Others may have inherited a big slug of stock and may simply not know any better. Then there are those who are so tax-averse that they won’t diversify their holdings because they don’t want to give up some of their winnings to capital gains taxes.
If you know people who might fall into these categories, please do them a favor and send them to a financial planner post-haste if you can’t talk some sense into them yourself.
Or you could simply try to scare them. Very few people saw a spill of this magnitude coming, just as only a small number could have predicted a few years back that financial stocks would go from contributing 29 percent of the dividend payments of S.& P. 500 payments in 2007 to just 9 percent in 2009.
Today, consumer staples stocks contribute more than any other sector, according to Howard Silverblatt of S.& P. How might that sector or parts of it deteriorate? A prolonged terrorist campaign against large American retailers could begin, or a blight could emerge that wipes out a large percentage of the nation’s crops.
These things are unlikely but entirely possible, and they wouldn’t be a total surprise. Tempted by utilities? Mr. Benningfield suggested contemplating the remote possibility of solar flares frying the power grid.
As of Wednesday, there is now political risk to consider, too. Now that there is a recent precedent, legislators could again try to bully a company into suspending its dividends.
And if that weren’t worry enough for dividend fans, we must also rely on those same legislators to sort out our tax policy. Currently, no one pays more than a 15 percent federal tax on dividend income. If Congress does not act before the end of the year, however, investors will start paying much higher ordinary income tax rates on dividends come 2011. “Where it will wind up, no one knows,” said Kenneth L. Powell, a tax partner at the accounting firm Berdon L.L.P. in New York. Wealthier investors, meanwhile, may pay even more once a 3.8 percent Medicare tax on unearned income begins in 2013.
Everyone needs income in retirement, and dividends aren’t a bad way to get it as long as they don’t come from a single company. Again and again, we’ve seen out-of-nowhere scandals and crises and accidents bring big companies to their knees. Why, given the overwhelming evidence that these things do happen once in a while, would you not extract your dividend income from a low-cost, broadly diversified mutual fund that specializes in dividends?
The moral of the story, as always, is to diversify within each asset class you own, whether it’s dividend-paying stocks or municipal bonds or the emerging-market countries where you’re rolling the dice for big gains. Then, diversify your retirement income, too. The more sources the better, whether it’s dividend income, interest income, annuity income, rental income or periodic (and tax-savvy) outright sales of stocks or other assets.
Even this sort of diversification might not have protected you from the pain in 2008. But it can shield you from the ruin of betting too heavily on a single security like BP.
Disclosure I am long BP shares.
Fee disclosure is coming to your 401(k)
Investors lost a battle this week, but the war isn't over. Lawmakers in the Senate decided to drop a measure that would have forced the 401(k) industry to disclose fees to participants. But that's OK, because the numbers still favor retirement savers.
There are 50 million 401(k) participants who deserve to know how much they are paying for their retirement account. By contrast, there are just a few dozen lawmakers and few dozen lobbying groups that don't want 401(k) investors to know just how much things cost.Wowzers Were did da time go.............
I stumbled across my password the other day finally can do some updated. The wife had a heart attack I had to sell all that had at folio investing and recover the family. I now have a roth ira through sharebuilder.com Get ya own Account here. I am still using the same investing style as before. I put in 50.00 every payday and invest $5.00 for each day that I work (Kinda like a reward for having to go to work and deal with all the drama everyday that goes with work). With that being said my first deposit was on 4-16-2010. My account today stands at $346.21. I am a subscriber to the plan so I pay a flat $12.00 per month for 12 trades per month. I am long 52 different holdings in what I think is a pretty diversified portfolio. My current Holdings ranked by the amount held in the account 1 being my biggest holding and 52 being my smallest.
My current holdings include the following, AOD, IGD, MRK, WMT, TNH, FRO, DO, GE, XOM, INTC, PHK, EOS, PTY, DPD, IID, PHT, GDX, NLY, BMY, CTL, VNQ, CFP, CAH, KMB, O, PEP, SYY, CAT, PG, TPZ, ESD, LQD, EOI, ABT, PGX, JNK, PFF, VWO, GGN, MMM, IGI, BDX, XLF, BAX, FSC, SPY, PFE, ED, KMP, BPT, IBM, AND BP.Those are all my holdings that i plan to stick with for now and the ones I talk about on my blog. In my challenge to beat the company sponsored 401k.
I try to invest with a huge focus on dividends and reinvesting of the dividends you can not beat having your money working for you. Most of the time if a holding cuts its dividend I will sell it the next chance I get (however different in the case of bp). As this stock i am not sure what to do with so I will just hold it for the time being.
Dividends Paid this month include, INTC, PFE, WMT, DO on 6-1-2010, LQD, PFF on 6-7-2010, JNK on 6-9-2010, IBM on 6-9-2010, XOM, MMM on 6-14-2010, ED, IGD, IID, and O on 6-15-2010 and CTL on 6-21-2010. All dividends are automatically reinvested back into the same stock they come from.
I purchased DO, IGI, FRO, GDX and PHT on the 6-01-2010 value $5.00 each. On 6-8-210 I purchased AOD 2.05 shares for $13.00 and 1.1321 shares of IGD for $12.00. On 6-15-210 I purchased 0.3422 shares of MRK for $12.00 and 0.2525 shares of WMT for $13.00. And next week I plan to purchase on Tuesday $12.00 worth of IBM and $13.00 worth of ED.
It seems like it is taken for ever to get this going all over again, but I know Rome wasn't built in a day. So I be using this blog to share my thoughts and current investments. Feel free to follow along with me as I try to once again build a nest egg of money working for me.
My current holdings include the following, AOD, IGD, MRK, WMT, TNH, FRO, DO, GE, XOM, INTC, PHK, EOS, PTY, DPD, IID, PHT, GDX, NLY, BMY, CTL, VNQ, CFP, CAH, KMB, O, PEP, SYY, CAT, PG, TPZ, ESD, LQD, EOI, ABT, PGX, JNK, PFF, VWO, GGN, MMM, IGI, BDX, XLF, BAX, FSC, SPY, PFE, ED, KMP, BPT, IBM, AND BP.Those are all my holdings that i plan to stick with for now and the ones I talk about on my blog. In my challenge to beat the company sponsored 401k.
I try to invest with a huge focus on dividends and reinvesting of the dividends you can not beat having your money working for you. Most of the time if a holding cuts its dividend I will sell it the next chance I get (however different in the case of bp). As this stock i am not sure what to do with so I will just hold it for the time being.
Dividends Paid this month include, INTC, PFE, WMT, DO on 6-1-2010, LQD, PFF on 6-7-2010, JNK on 6-9-2010, IBM on 6-9-2010, XOM, MMM on 6-14-2010, ED, IGD, IID, and O on 6-15-2010 and CTL on 6-21-2010. All dividends are automatically reinvested back into the same stock they come from.
I purchased DO, IGI, FRO, GDX and PHT on the 6-01-2010 value $5.00 each. On 6-8-210 I purchased AOD 2.05 shares for $13.00 and 1.1321 shares of IGD for $12.00. On 6-15-210 I purchased 0.3422 shares of MRK for $12.00 and 0.2525 shares of WMT for $13.00. And next week I plan to purchase on Tuesday $12.00 worth of IBM and $13.00 worth of ED.
It seems like it is taken for ever to get this going all over again, but I know Rome wasn't built in a day. So I be using this blog to share my thoughts and current investments. Feel free to follow along with me as I try to once again build a nest egg of money working for me.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Fifth Street Finance Raises New Equity
Fifth Street Finance Corp (FSC) announced just after the Tuesday close that it has commenced a public offering of 8,000,000 shares of its common stock. According to the company's press release:
Fifth Street plans to grant the underwriters for the offering an option to purchase up to an additional 1,200,000 shares of common stock to cover over-allotments, if any. All shares will be offered by Fifth Street. Wells Fargo Securities, Morgan Stanley, UBS Investment Bank and RBC Capital Markets will act as joint book-running managers for the offering.
Fifth Street intends to use substantially all of the net proceeds from the offering to make investments in small and mid-sized companies in accordance with its investment objectives and strategies described in the prospectus supplement and accompanying prospectus and for general corporate purposes, including working capital requirements. Fifth Street may also use a portion of the net proceeds from the offering to repay its outstanding borrowings under its three-year credit facility with Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.
We're not surprised that Fifth Street Finance is raising more capital. The watchword in the BDC industry is raise money while/when the going is good. FSC has been having a good run of late, booking myriad new deals, (see our post of May 24, 2010) increasing its Revolver limit and reducing the pricing paid to its lenders (see our post of May 27, 2010).
This is a major offering, with the total stock being sold equal to 20% of the existing shares outstanding. FSC should raise $110mn at today's closing price. That's more than enough to pay off any borrowings under the Wells Fargo line (all of which has occurred since month end). The stock price is at a decent premium to the latest NAV : 13%, which is good for existing shareholders. The most obvious downside might be a delay in further dividend increases (most recently the quarterly distribution was up to 32 cents), but that's not for sure. FSC has been willing in the past to get the distribution up ahead of its Distributable Earnings Per Share and Net Investment Income Per Share.
Certainly, the balance sheet of the company seems recession proof. When we recently about the pro-forma impact of a double dip recession (see post of June 1, 2010) and wrote that half of the BDCs we track had virtually no debt, FSC was already on that blue chip list. This additional fillip of equity will only enhance a balance sheet which has only begun to grow. Total equity should be around $600mn after this equity offering closes, and with debt at less than zero, Fifth Street is sitting pretty from that standpoint.
The BDC Reporter, true to our name, seeks to avoid opining on whether or not a stock is a good value or a Buy or Sell. We leave that to the investment banks. However, we can say that the company's $1.28 annual dividend represents a 10.6% yield on today's closing price, and that the stock is trading just 11% below its 52 week high (using Yahoo Finance), which is also its all-time high. The analysts consensus for next fiscal year's earnings are $1.33 a share, which means FSC is trading a multiple of 9.1x.
Disclousre I am long FSC shares.
Fifth Street plans to grant the underwriters for the offering an option to purchase up to an additional 1,200,000 shares of common stock to cover over-allotments, if any. All shares will be offered by Fifth Street. Wells Fargo Securities, Morgan Stanley, UBS Investment Bank and RBC Capital Markets will act as joint book-running managers for the offering.
Fifth Street intends to use substantially all of the net proceeds from the offering to make investments in small and mid-sized companies in accordance with its investment objectives and strategies described in the prospectus supplement and accompanying prospectus and for general corporate purposes, including working capital requirements. Fifth Street may also use a portion of the net proceeds from the offering to repay its outstanding borrowings under its three-year credit facility with Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.
We're not surprised that Fifth Street Finance is raising more capital. The watchword in the BDC industry is raise money while/when the going is good. FSC has been having a good run of late, booking myriad new deals, (see our post of May 24, 2010) increasing its Revolver limit and reducing the pricing paid to its lenders (see our post of May 27, 2010).
This is a major offering, with the total stock being sold equal to 20% of the existing shares outstanding. FSC should raise $110mn at today's closing price. That's more than enough to pay off any borrowings under the Wells Fargo line (all of which has occurred since month end). The stock price is at a decent premium to the latest NAV : 13%, which is good for existing shareholders. The most obvious downside might be a delay in further dividend increases (most recently the quarterly distribution was up to 32 cents), but that's not for sure. FSC has been willing in the past to get the distribution up ahead of its Distributable Earnings Per Share and Net Investment Income Per Share.
Certainly, the balance sheet of the company seems recession proof. When we recently about the pro-forma impact of a double dip recession (see post of June 1, 2010) and wrote that half of the BDCs we track had virtually no debt, FSC was already on that blue chip list. This additional fillip of equity will only enhance a balance sheet which has only begun to grow. Total equity should be around $600mn after this equity offering closes, and with debt at less than zero, Fifth Street is sitting pretty from that standpoint.
The BDC Reporter, true to our name, seeks to avoid opining on whether or not a stock is a good value or a Buy or Sell. We leave that to the investment banks. However, we can say that the company's $1.28 annual dividend represents a 10.6% yield on today's closing price, and that the stock is trading just 11% below its 52 week high (using Yahoo Finance), which is also its all-time high. The analysts consensus for next fiscal year's earnings are $1.33 a share, which means FSC is trading a multiple of 9.1x.
Disclousre I am long FSC shares.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Why Wal-Mart Is Still a Growth Company
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) has perhaps the largest “army” in the world when it comes down to people in uniform. With 2.1 million employees, 700,000 of which are employed internationally, Wal-Mart no doubt represents a centerpiece of the global economy. However, this giant is still growing and to no surprise, quite successfully.
The discount retail business only allotted Wal-Mart a 3.5% profit margin for the fiscal year ended Jan 31, 2010; however, the company returned 21% to shareowners’ equity. This indicates that Wal-Mart effectively leverages its cost-efficient structure and distribution capability to achieve very high asset and inventory turnovers. In fact, management even measures its performance by Wal-Mart’s cost structure, as the most recent Form 10-K states,
We believe growing operating income at a faster rate than net sales growth is a meaningful measure because it indicates how effectively we manage costs and leverage operating expenses. Our objective is to grow operating expenses at a slower rate than net sales.
From 2001 to 2010, net sales increased an average of approximately 11% annually while operating income grew an average of 15% annually. From this metric alone, it seems that Wal-Mart’s management is meeting its operational goals.
Moreover, the Wal-Mart growth story has yet begun. Currently, Wal-Mart is harnessing growth by expanding its geographic reach through its Asda discount chain subsidiary in the United Kingdom. In addition, Wal-Mart continues to move into grocery retail. The company derives 51% of all net sales from grocery already, while continuing to convert more discount stores to supercenters in order to widen its grocery reach. Wal-Mart’s Neighborhood Market, which began in 1998, also already has 158 stores and only a few closures in the twelve year period.
Wal-Mart is one of the world’s most powerful and largest retailers. However, there is more room to grow as they only operate 434 stores in Brazil and 279 in China. Perhaps India, where Wal-Mart operates just one store, will be the next focus for even more expansive growth.
Disclosure I am long WMT shares.
The discount retail business only allotted Wal-Mart a 3.5% profit margin for the fiscal year ended Jan 31, 2010; however, the company returned 21% to shareowners’ equity. This indicates that Wal-Mart effectively leverages its cost-efficient structure and distribution capability to achieve very high asset and inventory turnovers. In fact, management even measures its performance by Wal-Mart’s cost structure, as the most recent Form 10-K states,
We believe growing operating income at a faster rate than net sales growth is a meaningful measure because it indicates how effectively we manage costs and leverage operating expenses. Our objective is to grow operating expenses at a slower rate than net sales.
From 2001 to 2010, net sales increased an average of approximately 11% annually while operating income grew an average of 15% annually. From this metric alone, it seems that Wal-Mart’s management is meeting its operational goals.
Moreover, the Wal-Mart growth story has yet begun. Currently, Wal-Mart is harnessing growth by expanding its geographic reach through its Asda discount chain subsidiary in the United Kingdom. In addition, Wal-Mart continues to move into grocery retail. The company derives 51% of all net sales from grocery already, while continuing to convert more discount stores to supercenters in order to widen its grocery reach. Wal-Mart’s Neighborhood Market, which began in 1998, also already has 158 stores and only a few closures in the twelve year period.
Wal-Mart is one of the world’s most powerful and largest retailers. However, there is more room to grow as they only operate 434 stores in Brazil and 279 in China. Perhaps India, where Wal-Mart operates just one store, will be the next focus for even more expansive growth.
Disclosure I am long WMT shares.
BP WATCH: BP's US Shares Close Higher On Dividend Cut, $20B Fund
BP PLC's (BP, BP.LN) American depositary shares rose Wednesday after the oil giant said it won't issue further dividends this year and confirmed an agreement to set aside $20 billion to help pay for claims as a result of the Gulf oil disaster.
BP's U.S. shares closed with a gain of 45 cents, or 1.4%, to 31.85. News of the dividend cut and the escrow fund helped bring some clarity to investors who had wondered whether the company would continue paying the dividend and what BP's liabilities might be. The market is seeing the moves as positive indications that BP is working with the Obama administration in a cooperative manner that could help it in the long run, both financially and from a sentiment standpoint.
The dividend cut represents "a gesture of goodwill and a [public relations] positive," said Nick Kalivas, strategist and vice president of financial research at MF Global. "The fact that they cut the dividend, that shores up the idea that they'll be able to service their debt."
Kalivas added, "the fact that they've put $20 billion into escrow, it's kind of helping the market get its hands around what the company and the government seem to think the liability's going to be. It's removing a little bit of the uncertainty that's been hanging over the stock."
Investors "see this as an end to the financial bleeding," with the $20 billion helping investors get a better idea of what BP's total liabilities might be, said Jason Weisberg, senior vice president at Seaport Securities. In addition, he said, "the way Wall Street perceives this is that it's pretty tough to penalize a company when they're going above and beyond what they're legally bound to do."
After the cost of protecting BP's debt soared to its highest level ever, it pared on the news of the dividend cut and escrow fund. BP's bonds also bounced on the news Wednesday afternoon, helped not only by BP's announcements of the dividend cut and escrow fund, but also by a statement on CNBC from Bill Gross, co-investment chief for Pacific Investment Management Co., that his bond-fund firm has recently begun buying one-year bonds issued by BP.
However, options traders said BP's decision to cancel the previously-announced dividend hurts investors who traded May options assuming the dividend would be paid and have already re-invested the 84 cents a share they assumed would arrive.
"When a CEO cancels a dividend after shareholders have approved it and the stock has traded 'ex-dividend' for a month, option investors can only throw their hands up in disbelief," said Justin Golden, strategist at Macro Risk Advisors. "Dividends are an important input to the formula used for pricing options and it is difficult enough to price them accurately when dividend streams are uncertain. Canceling an approved dividend throws traders' profits and losses off because it violates the pricing formula."
Wednesday's announcement from BP came after a meeting with President Barack Obama, who said the $20 billion is not a cap, and that BP will pay the full costs of the cleanup, including environmental damage. Still, he added, "BP is a strong and viable company and it is in all of our interests that it remain so."
Many investors, however, are still wary.
"I think BP is attractively priced, but it's a different type of investment than a blue chip," says Keith Amburgey, a financial planner in Cresskill, N.J., who began selling BP stock in early May, about two weeks after the rig explosion. "It's not something I would recommend for my typical client."
A number of bond investors are voicing similar concern.
"It's an unanalyzable situation," said W. Frank Koster, chief investment officer at Dwight Asset Management, which focuses on fixed-income investments. Koster said he felt fortunate that the firm exited its bond positions in BP and other companies connected with the Deepwater Horizon rig "at the front end of the spill."
Still, Wednesday's news isn't changing the BP holdings of the Florida State Board of Administration, which still has holdings in BP bonds and equities that amounted to about $103 million in BP bonds and equities on June 11. "We're pension managers," said Dennis MacKee, its spokesman. "We're looking at this from the risk and investment return stand point."
Disclosure I am long BP shares.
BP's U.S. shares closed with a gain of 45 cents, or 1.4%, to 31.85. News of the dividend cut and the escrow fund helped bring some clarity to investors who had wondered whether the company would continue paying the dividend and what BP's liabilities might be. The market is seeing the moves as positive indications that BP is working with the Obama administration in a cooperative manner that could help it in the long run, both financially and from a sentiment standpoint.
The dividend cut represents "a gesture of goodwill and a [public relations] positive," said Nick Kalivas, strategist and vice president of financial research at MF Global. "The fact that they cut the dividend, that shores up the idea that they'll be able to service their debt."
Kalivas added, "the fact that they've put $20 billion into escrow, it's kind of helping the market get its hands around what the company and the government seem to think the liability's going to be. It's removing a little bit of the uncertainty that's been hanging over the stock."
Investors "see this as an end to the financial bleeding," with the $20 billion helping investors get a better idea of what BP's total liabilities might be, said Jason Weisberg, senior vice president at Seaport Securities. In addition, he said, "the way Wall Street perceives this is that it's pretty tough to penalize a company when they're going above and beyond what they're legally bound to do."
After the cost of protecting BP's debt soared to its highest level ever, it pared on the news of the dividend cut and escrow fund. BP's bonds also bounced on the news Wednesday afternoon, helped not only by BP's announcements of the dividend cut and escrow fund, but also by a statement on CNBC from Bill Gross, co-investment chief for Pacific Investment Management Co., that his bond-fund firm has recently begun buying one-year bonds issued by BP.
However, options traders said BP's decision to cancel the previously-announced dividend hurts investors who traded May options assuming the dividend would be paid and have already re-invested the 84 cents a share they assumed would arrive.
"When a CEO cancels a dividend after shareholders have approved it and the stock has traded 'ex-dividend' for a month, option investors can only throw their hands up in disbelief," said Justin Golden, strategist at Macro Risk Advisors. "Dividends are an important input to the formula used for pricing options and it is difficult enough to price them accurately when dividend streams are uncertain. Canceling an approved dividend throws traders' profits and losses off because it violates the pricing formula."
Wednesday's announcement from BP came after a meeting with President Barack Obama, who said the $20 billion is not a cap, and that BP will pay the full costs of the cleanup, including environmental damage. Still, he added, "BP is a strong and viable company and it is in all of our interests that it remain so."
Many investors, however, are still wary.
"I think BP is attractively priced, but it's a different type of investment than a blue chip," says Keith Amburgey, a financial planner in Cresskill, N.J., who began selling BP stock in early May, about two weeks after the rig explosion. "It's not something I would recommend for my typical client."
A number of bond investors are voicing similar concern.
"It's an unanalyzable situation," said W. Frank Koster, chief investment officer at Dwight Asset Management, which focuses on fixed-income investments. Koster said he felt fortunate that the firm exited its bond positions in BP and other companies connected with the Deepwater Horizon rig "at the front end of the spill."
Still, Wednesday's news isn't changing the BP holdings of the Florida State Board of Administration, which still has holdings in BP bonds and equities that amounted to about $103 million in BP bonds and equities on June 11. "We're pension managers," said Dennis MacKee, its spokesman. "We're looking at this from the risk and investment return stand point."
Disclosure I am long BP shares.
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