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Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
  • The bottom are likely in
    truth. i'm down -12 percent in TUHYX. 9.41% SEC Yield right now, though.
  • Canadian banks news: RY and BNS and National Bank of Canada
    Banking in Canada isn't as fragmented as in the US. The Top 100 global bank list has several Canadian banks. Chinese banks dominate. The US banks are there but don't dominate the list.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_banks
  • The bottom are likely in
    If one buy and hold treasuries until maturity, they will get decent yields. Treasury funds and ETFs are different story and they are down ranging from 3 to 22%! YTD total bond index is also down 10%. So much for flight to quality and counteracting the equity risk.
    The two T. Rowe Price HY bond funds are down by 8 - 10%, while the bank loan fund (still junk bonds) is somewhat better at -0.9%. I believe David Giroux invests in this BL fund for his bond allocation. This year there are few bond funds that remain positive in this rising interest rate environment.
  • OIL
    Energy may have redefined volatility (besides cryptos, of course). XLE was very strong, crashed in June/July, and rebounded now with fury. ALL of its components are again above 200-dMA. If oil remains $90+ (new OPEC-put price?) and crack-spread remain strong, refiners would be swimming in profits and cashflows. This may sound very strange with the talk of recession but then 2022 has been a very unusual year.
    Chart from Twitter Link.
    image
  • Whoa. Germany. Hydrogen.
    Excerpts from article above:
    Billed as a “zero emission” mode of transport, the trains mix hydrogen on board with oxygen present in the ambient air, thanks to a fuel cell installed in the roof. This produces the electricity needed to pull the train.
    Hydrogen-based polymer exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells have been around since the early days of space program. Apollo 13 had an accident that nearly ended the mission. https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/ap13acc.html
    PEM fuel cells produced an electrical current when hydrogen reacts with oxygen and water is produced as the only by-product (no CO2). However, there is few infrastructure existed for hydrogen gas in contrast to gasoline and propane stations. Also safety storage of hydrogen is challenging than those liquified natural gas - metal embrittlement.
    It’s good that Germany is making it happens on their fleet trains since they have few choices. Canada has some fleet bus lines powered by PEM fuel cells. It is the lack of infrastructure that limits a wider adoption. Also the high cost of fuel cell cars poses another barrier in the private car industry.
    Electrical vehicles are facing similar challenge on the charging stations across the country, especially along the interstate freeways. So the egg and the chicken question still persists.
  • AAII Sentiment Survey, 8/24/22
    For the week ending on 8/24/22, Bearish remained the top sentiment (42.4%; high) & bullish became the bottom sentiment (27.7%; low); neutral became the middle sentiment (29.9%; below average); Bull-Bear Spread was -14.7% (low). Investor concerns: Recession/slowdown; inflation (more fiscal stimulus); supply-chain disruptions; the Fed Conf at Jackson Hole; market volatility (VIX, VXN, MOVE); Russia-Ukraine war (26+ weeks); geopolitical. For the Survey week (Thursday-Wednesday), stocks were down sharply, bonds down, oil up sharply (OPEC put?), gold down, dollar up sharply. #AAII #Sentiment #Markets
    https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/thread/141/aaii-sentiment-survey-weekly?page=7&scrollTo=751
  • The bottom are likely in
    Not sure I agree with the article posted above. How can bonds rally when the Fed is raising rates until inflation is contained? This can continue until 2023. Powell does not care if the rate height and QT will trigger a recession. Don’t know if the summer rally continues or if that is a bear market rally.
    I think they're saying there will be a flight into quality--- Treasuries---- thus raising the price but reducing the yield. As for me, I'm sticking with my stake of 11% of portfolio in Junk. Juicy yield, just now. Reinvesting it all.
  • GQHPX
    @Observant1 and @yogibearbull, I must have misread it.
    Thank you, @Crash and @BenWP.
    I am seeing on M* that GQHIX 's Alpha is negative, which is odd.
  • LNG news thing. 23rd Aug, '22
    24 august '22:
    HOUSTON, Aug 24 (Reuters) - U.S. pipeline operator Energy Transfer LP on Wednesday said it agreed to supply 2.1 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) per year to Shell Plc for 20 years.
    The deal for supplies from its proposed Lake Charles, Louisiana, facility comes as demand and prices for LNG are soaring over Russia's February invasion of Ukraine. LNG prices at the Dutch hub in Europe this week hit $83 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), more than twice that of early March.
    Shell was an original backer of the facility, which received U.S. permits in 2015 to produce 16.4 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of the superchilled fuel. But the British oil giant quit the project two years ago as energy markets tumbled during the coronavirus pandemic.
    Energy Transfer more recently has signed a string of agreements with potential buyers to supply about 8 MPTA. The Shell agreement anticipates first LNG deliveries under the contract as early as 2026. U.S. permits for the project were issued in 2015, but Energy Transfer has not yet reached a financial greenlight. (Reporting by Rithika Krishna in Bengaluru; Editing by Aditya Soni and Richard Pullin)
  • M* screwing everything up again
    With respect to anything "Google", just remember that everything that you say or do will be available forever to anyone that Google can make money from.
    +1, @Old_Joe. I'm still happy with DuckDuckGo as a search engine, which I learned about from you right here on MFO. Nice to have now that we know Google's real mission statement is "Do Be Evil."
  • rare earth metals: GREENLAND.
    Following are edited excerpts from the NY Times article:
    One of the world’s last processors of rare earth metals outside China is buying mining rights in Greenland to reduce dependence on Russian ore and stabilize prices, in the latest move by Western companies to diversify supply chains following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
    Rare earth metals are essential for the manufacture of a broad range of modern products, including electric car motors, offshore wind turbines and smart bombs. Demand has soared as automakers switch more of their production to electric vehicles.
    Dozens of mostly small companies mine rare earth ore around the world, but only two commercial-scale factories outside China perform the difficult task of chemically separating semi-processed ore into usable material for magnets in electric car motors and other applications. Toronto-based Neo Performance Materials buys semi-processed ore from Russia, the United States and Australia and does the chemical processes at factories in Estonia and China. Another company, Lynas, mines rare earth metals ore in Australia and does the chemical processes in Malaysia.
    Neo said on Monday that it was acquiring rare earth mining rights in Greenland from Hudson Resources, a tiny mining company based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The acquisition is the first move into rare earth mining by Neo, whose chief executive said his company planned to start mining and processing ore in Greenland in two to three years, with full production in about five years. The semi-processed ore will be shipped to Neo’s chemical separation factory in Estonia, a former Soviet republic on the Baltic Sea in Eastern Europe. The factory in Estonia currently buys three-fifths of its rare earth ore from Russia and the rest from Utah. The West has imposed many sanctions and other restrictions on companies and exports from Russia, but not yet on rare earth metals.
    Neo’s goal is to free itself of the need to buy ore at world prices. These prices fluctuate more widely than most commodities, surging up to 10-fold during periods of geopolitical tensions before crashing once tensions ease. Neo is also preparing to start building a factory in Estonia that will turn processed rare earths into magnets for electric car motors. With European automakers shifting production quickly toward electric cars, the European Union is offering financial assistance for the creation of a mines-to-magnets supply chain within Europe for rare earths.
    Although Greenland is geographically part of North America, it is an autonomous district of Denmark, a member of the European Union. Neo is not the first company to try to mine rare earths in Greenland. A consortium including a Chinese state-owned enterprise tried to open a mine at the southern tip of Greenland several years ago, at a rare earths deposit that also holds considerable uranium. That project was blocked by local opponents and regulators worried about the risk of radioactive contamination of the environment. A Canadian geologist who has advised Hudson Resources in Greenland and will now become a consultant to Neo, said the deposit in Sarfartoq being acquired by Neo had 97 percent less radioactive material per ton than the deposit at the southern tip of Greenland.
    The Sarfartoq deposit, on Greenland’s western coast, is also considerably smaller than the one at the southern tip of Greenland. Neo said the Sarfartoq deposit still had enough rare earths to meet Neo’s entire worldwide processing needs for at least 30 years, and possibly for a century if further drilling at the edge of the deposit confirms further rare earth ore.
    Rare earths, a group of 17 elements near the bottom of the periodic table, are not radioactive, but radioactive contaminants like uranium and thorium occur naturally in rare earth deposits. Controversies over how to dispose of those contaminants have led to the shuttering of rare earth separation factories over the past 40 years in Japan, Australia, France and the United States. Almost all of the American ore is mined in California and goes to China for processing, although a little is produced in Florida and processed in Utah. President Biden and Gov. Gavin Newsom of California announced plans in February to subsidize the restarting of chemical separation in California.
    Rare earths are essential but mostly used in trace amounts, so the actual value of the industry is small. Industry analysts put the worldwide value of rare earth ore sales at about $2 billion, and the value of completely processed magnetic powders and other rare earth materials at nearly $8 billion.
  • NightShares 100 ETF in registration
    NightShares debuted NSPY and NIWM about two months ago (last week of June) and they have since trailed SPY and IWM by, 12 and 15% (not annualized), respectively.
    Any thoughts from forum members in trying to explain this big underperformance would be great.
  • .....And....... fizzle. Again. 24 Aug. '22.
    Yes sir
    ....now or 12 months later sp500 may reach that stage
    Although most analysts from big-whales institutions are now singing sp500 finish near average 4400 -4500 by yr end
    [boa ML Subramanian most bearish 3600s -Jp Morgan Lakosstate 4900 bullish]
  • Is Berkshire more like a Mutual Fund than a stock?
    BRK is really a post-Buffett (91) play - can really go either way.
    It was also in the news recently that the potential CEO Greg Abel (60) is very light in BRK stock. He had a choice to convert his large stake in the Energy unit into BRK stock (tax free) OR cash and he chose the latter (and pay tax!). Unclear if BRK succession plan has changed but the immediate alternative Ajit Jain (71), who runs insurance operations, isn't very interested. The only thing certain is that son Howard Buffett will be the new Chairman after WB.
    https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/06/berkshire-ceo-designate-abel-sells-stake-in-energy-company-he-led-for-870-million.html
    I could not locate this transaction in the list of latest filings at EDGAR. Do you by any chance have access to the filing for this transaction?
  • LNG news thing. 23rd Aug, '22
    The above article makes frequent use of the term "MTPA", but doesn't bother to define that term. Here is an excerpt from "Enerdynamics":
    LNG is typically measured in volumetric units. When in liquid form, LNG is commonly measured in metric tonnes. But you will sometimes see it measured in the amount of gas that it will provide when converted back to gaseous form. In this case, common units are billions of cubic meters (bcm) or billions of cubic feet (Bcf).
    Annual capacities of flow rates of facilities are often described in million tonnes per annum or millions of tonnes per year (these are the same thing). Various abbreviations are used including MMtpa, MTPA, MMty/y, or million mt/yr.
    Additionally, 1 MMBtu = 1,000,000 Btu