Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Natural gas prices have gotten too low, reflecting the huge amount in storage, thus the major producers aren't drilling more at the moment and you'll probably see some reduce production because it's not profitable. Expect NG prices to rise about 25%-35% by next fall.
US coal production will continue to feed existing coal-fired plants because they're needed for grid manipulation to offset solar's lack of night-time production. Coal plants aren't suited to offset slack wind production due to the lag time in bringing them online; only hydro or gas fired plants can do that in sufficiently quickly.
Any growth for US coal will come from exports and the metallurgical coal. Unfortunately the US is a bit far from most markets to bother with export. That leaves metallurgical coal for domestic production as the real growth market... your chosen coal company better have >30% metallurgical coal production!

Several west coast export terminals are in the permitting process. With the new EPA regulations and low natural gas prices exports are going to be crucial for coal stocks.

Between the jobs report and Mr. Market, I was convinced to take my profits in INTC (+33%) & MSFT (+20%).
When I sell at a profit like this, the profits plus 2 yrs of dividends are kept as stock, so I'm only selling a portion of the original position... provided the company's long term prospects haven't changed.

Put in orders for XME, PG, and more CAT (have enough now). I'm also considering a couple of index funds if the market goes down another 4% from Friday's close.
edit: also added TC and GMCR.

Added 13 shares MCD at 3% yield point. It may pull back some more, but I figured it was a good point to enter a starter position.
Anyone looking at BBL?
Larry

Yesterday I sold (to Close) 14 VIX July Calls (Strike 20) and bought 65 Aug Puts (Strike 20). This is part of a series of monthly speculative trades I have been making this year on the VIX.

I recently purchased 50 shares of INTC and 15 shares of CVX.

Larry, I have definitely considered BBL over the past couple of years and have been a little bit itchy to purchase it. Do you think it will continue to rake in the profits even with commodities falling?
I think that the large size of the company is very encouraging. Market cap is like 175 billion or something like that. Excellent economies of scale. I do believe I might purchase Monday morning.

Joe,
Yeah, commodities are tricky right now. Especially energy (coal, gas, oil). Now, BBL is very diversified, I think they mine about 10 different commodities, but who knows where the general world economy is heading and who's gonna pay for all of these things they are mining? But, if and when things start to turn around BBL should do well because of their massive size and diversification.
I also like the dividend. Every individual stock I buy pays something in the form of a dividend.
I'm looking at BBL. Thinking about adding a starter position (20 shares or so), with my next month's 457 deposit. Then if the price drops more, I could add on weakness.
My portfolio of dividend stocks has become pretty diversified with over 50 holdings or so. I think BBL would be a good fit for the long run.
Larry

Added more TC to spec fund. Added more CAT, SAP, and F to long term fund. Thinking of adding more JPM to long term. KO, DKS , GPS and PNC on my watch list. Moved some 401K money out of stable fund into broad index fund. Still sitting on way too much cash though.
I'm going to a wedding this weekend and I'm sitting with a cousin who's a big shot at Morgan Stanley. I can't wait to ask him about the facebook IPO (after he has a few drinks .

Yesterday I bought:

JNJ - obvious solid dividend, healthcare is growing.

PBI - All their stats are good, except borderline high debt. Their earnings continue to grow (with some noise). I have no idea why everyone is panicking about this stock. Maybe mail service isn't growing, but this company is doing fine. Still a dividend champion paying out 50% of earnings. I wouldn't call it a core holding, but it helps boost my average payout at 12% yield.

INTC - A tech stock with a 3% dividend yield, sign me up.

VOD - Worldwide telecommunications company with a high yield. Just announced today another dividend increase. Undervalued.
Today I bought

GE - I think their dividends are rapidly rising to previous levels, if I'm right that will give me over 6% yield.
I'm considering:

AGNC - this is a stable REIT with a yield over 15%. Consistent history of payouts, but are only 4 years old. From what I understand, high yield will continue until rates rise. It seems too good to be true and that makes me nervous, what am I missing?

@Mirwen--Check George's leveraged income experiment thread. I'm pretty sure he owns (owned?) AGNC. There might be more info in that thread.

VOD just grew their dividend 7%, not too bad. I believe there was a special dividend in there as well.
PBI I think the fear is due to some post offices closing, might equal loss of revenues. I own the stock though.

Quote for today..."On this day in 2000, the S&P opened 7% higher than its current level"
I have an offer to buy into a private issue. I'd have to sell off my spec fund (80% is already in cash) to fund the deal. Seriously considering it even though I'd take a big hit on some things like DNDN.

I hear you Jennypenny, but also worth noting that on this day in 2000, Procter and Gamble were trading with a P/E ratio of around 42 (share price 65ish, EPS of 1.56).

MAT is now high enough in my criteria to warrant more attention. Current yield of 4% vs. the 30-yr bond at 2.8%. Consistently grows the dividend higher than the worst inflation we've seen since 1970 -- something the 30-yr bond will never do!

Are some of you still investing in PRPFX or PERM ???

Today I bought:
800 shares of CSX

250 shares of DPS

60 shares of BBL
Thinking about buying some shares into an REIT soon, but not sure which one to buy. Anyone have any good suggestions?

@tylerrr: Can't say I'm a fan of either... Looking at PERM since my last rebalance on 3/20 it's down .69%... Meanwhile mine is up .12%.

@JohnnyH,
thanks