Provident Energy: No Longer an Income Trust, Still a High Yield Dividend Play

Provident Energy Ltd. was formerly a Canadian oil/gas income trust, until January 1 of this year. Originally, Provident engaged in production of both oil, and NG, and had a smallish mid-market operation that processed NG for the liquids available from "wet" gas. Along with Canadian assets, PVX had some US assets as well. Leading up to the conversion to a corporation from an income trust, Provident sold and spun off various producing assets to BreitBurn Energy (BBEP), and in June, 2010, combined remaining producing assets with Midnight Oil Exploration, Ltd., to form Pace Oil & Gas, whose shares were spun off to PVX's shareholders. What remains is a pure midstream play, consisting of interests in pipelines/transport, storage facilities, and fractionation facilities, primarily located... more

Oil-Borne Dividends Face-Off: Chevron vs. ConocoPhillips

Chevron (CVX) and ConocoPhillips (COP) are among the oldest U.S.-based energy titans. Chevron is based on San Ramon, California, ConocoPhillips is based in Houston, Texas. Both companies engage in petroleum operations, chemicals operations, mining operations, power generation, and energy services. Their operations consist of exploring for, developing and producing crude oil and natural gas; transporting crude oil by international oil export pipelines; transporting, storage and marketing of natural gas, and a gas-to-liquids project. Chevron's market cap of $208.80 billion is two times higher than that of ConocoPhillips' [$102.76 billion]. Here, is a brief analysis of Chevron and ConocoPhillips (data from Finviz): Chevron Corporation , through its subsidiaries,... more

AFLAC: Dividend Pick for the Next 5 Years

Columbus-based American Family Life Assurance Company (AFL), incorporated in 1973, provides insurance and management services, and operates in Japan and the United States. It sells several types of health insurance like cancer plans, general medical expense plans and care plans. The Company insures about 60 million people throughout the world. Here, is a brief analysis of the fundamentals: INCOME STATEMENT ($ million) SALES NET INCOME EPS DIVIDENDS 2001 $9,598.00 $687.00 $1.28 $0.19 2002 $10,257.00 $821.00 $1.55 $0.23 2003 $11,447.00 $768.00 $1.47 $0.23 2004 $13,281.00 $1,266.00 $2.45 $0.38 2005 $14,363.00 ... more

Sparkling Dividends Face-Off: Coca-Cola vs. Pepsi

The battle between PepsiCo (PEP) and Coca-Cola (KO) is world famous. Both companies are among the world's largest beverage suppliers. Their products, distribution locations, customers, even advertising campaigns are very similar. In fundamental economics we exemplify Coke and Pepsi as perfect substitutes to each other. They are both producer and retailer of carbonated and non-carbonated beverages. Surprisingly, both companies have market caps right above $110 billion. However, their past performance, current fundamental ratios, and future estimations are slightly different. Here is a brief analysis of Pepsi and Coca-Cola (data from Finviz): PepsiCo manufactures foods, snacks, carbonated and non-carbonated beverages worldwide. The company operates in four divisions: PepsiCo... more

Community Trust Bank: Dividend Stock Analysis

Linked here is a detailed quantitative analysis of Community Trust Bank Corp. (CTBI). Below are some highlights from the above linked analysis:Company Description: Community Trust Bank Corp. owns and operates Community Trust Bank, Inc. of Pikeville, KY, which provides commercial banking services in Kentucky and West Virginia; and a trust company.Fair Value: In calculating fair value, I consider the NPV MMA Differential Fair Value along with these four calculations of fair value, see page 2 of the linked PDF for a detailed description: 1. Avg. High Yield Price 2. 20-Year DCF Price 3. Avg. P/E Price 4. Graham Number CTBI is trading at a discount to only 3.) above. The stock is trading at a 5.4% premium to its calculated fair value of $25.55. CTBI did not earn any Stars in this... more

Northrop Grumman: A Dividend Pick for the Next 5 Years

Northrop Grumman Corporation (NOC) is a security system corporation. The company primarily operates in four divisions: Aerospace Systems, Electronic Systems, Information Systems and Technical Services. In 2009, Northrop Grumman acquired Sonoma Photonics. At the same time, NOC purchased assets from Swift Engineering's Killer Bee Unmanned Air Systems product line. Northrop Grumman is an international company that operates worldwide. The company markets and sells products and services to customers in 25 nations. Here is a brief analysis of the fundamentals: Income Statement - 10 Year Summary (in Millions) Sales Total Net Income EPS Dividend 2001 $13.012,00 $459,00 2.59 0.8 2002 $17.406,00 $455,00 ... more

GMX Resources Preferred Stock: Compellingly High Yield

Over the last two days, GMXR 9.25% Cum. Pfd. stock GMXR, or GMXR-P has dropped 7.7%. from $24.75 to $22.85. This presents a compelling opportunity to earn a 10% yield with the additional possibility of an almost 10% capital gain. It appears that the decline over the past two days is driven by a lack of liquidity in the pfd stock rather than a fundamental change in the prospects of the company. The pfd normally trades around 20K shares per day. Tuesday, 900K shares traded, with another 150K changing hands Wednesday. The common stock GMXR is up over 4% in the same period, rising from $4.75 to $4.95. Additionally, the 11.375% notes due in 2019 are unchanged. The notes yield 11.9%, actually a better value than the preferred. But the notes are extremely thinly traded, so significantly less... more

Hunting for Reliable Yield? Two Stocks to Consider

The euro crisis is back. (In fact, it never went away.) And investors are doing the unthinkable… In search of safety, they’re selling stocks and flocking to U.S. Treasury bonds. And the rush of buying on Monday pushed the yield on 10-year Treasuries down to a paltry 3.08%. Now, I get that people are scared. But I don’t care how bad the situation gets in the eurozone. The last thing I’d be buying is U.S. Treasuries. Instead, I’d be scooping up shares of companies in the consumer staples sector. Here’s why… Don’t Put a Premium on a Government Guarantee The main selling point for Treasuries is that they’re backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. In other words, they’re supposed to be safe. But we can say the same about consumer staples stocks.... more

Dividend Stock Analysis: Archer Daniels Midland

In the past few weeks, we did an analysis of 3 dividend stocks from the oil sector and of JM Smucker (SJM) which turned out to be a great dividend play. All of those companies had made our select group of companies poised for big things in terms of dividend growth. Today we are taking a deeper look at great potential dividend plays based in Canada. Today, we take a deeper look into Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), a conglomerate which transforms cereal grains and oil seeds into food, beverage and all kinds of industrial products. It’s a very big company even though you might have never heard about it. In fact, the company recorded revenues of over $60 billion in 2010. In theory, this kind of business could be very promising as it is not very cyclical, and generally can bring steady cash... more

Seaspan: Strong Cash Flows, High Growth, Rapidly Rising Dividends

Background I have previously written about Seaspan (SSW) and its business model and risk (here) so I will not go over that as it hasn't changed. Recent Developments SSW has been in the news lately for three reasons. Its decision to enter into a partnership with Carlyle and some of its normal partners being Dennis Washington and Graham Porter. The idea is to place large orders with Asian ship building yards, thereby obtaining favorable terms and ship designs. There is a rather complicated mechanism behind who gets to take over the ships with charters and financing from the new entity, but SSW has a right of first refusal to a large part of them. It at this time is unclear to me what the other partners would do with a container ship but the opportunities are of course many. Following... more