There are several different teaser pitches going around these days that profess not only to know how the election will turn out, but which specific investments will be immediately profitable as a result.
Which is a pretty hefty dose of tea leaf reading, if you ask me — we’ve got a dead heat election, a ridiculous Congress, a “fiscal cliff,” and a global economy that most people seem to think is rolling back over into recession … which means I have no flippin’ idea what’s going to happen.
But Mark Skousen, for one, says he’s got your plan — with the salient part of that plan being his “six investments you need to make before the election.”
Which will, he says, roll to Romney. Because, well, he gives a bunch of reasons but it comes down to “I have a hunch.” Here’s how he puts it:
“I believe there are huge numbers of loyal Obama fans who love and admire the guy, who say they will vote for him, but won’t when they get in the booth!
“I mean, who wouldn’t want our first black president to succeed? Especially one so charismatic, with such an idyllic family, one so earnest in his hopes for a better America? It’s tough to admit disappointment and disillusionment when you just plain like someone.
“But I am now convinced there’s a huge upset in the making.
“Obama fans are quietly, perhaps secretly, coming to grips with the fact that while they still admire and like Mr. Obama, he just hasn’t gotten it done.
“And there’s so much pain, and so much unemployment, that these tens of thousands of adoring Obama supporters are surreptitiously planning to either sit out the election, or to vote for Romney!
“And that is why I’m predicting…
“A Romney Upset in November!”
I’m sure all of you can bicker back and forth in the comments section about whether you think Skousen is right — feel free, but that’s not my bag and for the next two weeks we’re all just guessing.
So what I’ll try to do is sniff out the investments Skousen’s recommending as plays on this “Romney upset” and what he thinks will be a repeat of the “Reagan-era boom” … let’s get right to the spiel:
“A Romney victory is going to make Wall Street traders euphoric! The market is gonna go absolutely bananas!
“You could see the Dow explode by 500 points on November 7th. By year’s end I expect we’ll see the Dow closing in on 15,000!
“Regardless of whether or not a President Romney can produce the kind of miracle turn-around needed to ‘pull the economic fat from the fire’ short term, you’re going to see Wall Street take a huge sigh of relief as billions in side-lined money comes gushing back into the market….
“When the Romney victory blows the lid off of Wall Street, certain stocks are going to double… Triple… Even quadruple the performance of the surging S&P, Nasdaq, and Dow!”
He starts off with two picks in the energy space that he thinks would immediately benefit from Romney, a pipeline company and a driller. Here are the clues for the first:
“BUY #1 — The Dividend Pipeline!
“This Houston-based, NYSE company is in the pipeline business, and it’s been pumping out the dividends…it’s the largest publicly traded master limited partnership (MLP) in the U.S., and operates a diversified business portfolio that encompasses natural gas pipelines, offshore production platforms, tank barges, and oil pipelines.
“In May, the company reported first-quarter 2012 earnings of $656 million and earnings per share (EPS) of 73 cents, compared to earnings of $435 million and EPS of 49 cents for the first quarter of 2011.”
And this one is apparently quite levered to natural gas liquids (NGLs), as we’ve heard teased about several midstream companies in the past:
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“Roughly half the MLP’s gross operating margin stems from pipelines and services related to natural gas liquids (NGL) such as propane, ethane, and butane. This business segment includes 25 natural gas processing plants, 21 NGL fractionators, NGL pipelines and storage tanks, and NGL shipping terminals on the Gulf Coast. This segment is the company’s most vital source of cash flow — and its greatest engine of potential growth.
“One of the company’s key organic expansion projects involves the construction of NGL infrastructure in the eagle ford shale, including 300 miles of natural gas pipelines, a processing plant with a capacity of 600 million cubic feet of natural gas per day, two major NGL pipelines, a new crude oil terminal in Houston, and a fractionation facility in Mont Belvieu, Texas, a key hub for NGLs.”
Well, we’ll give them a pass on the fact that they plagiarized most of that from a piece by John Persinos that got distributed in a few places (Persinos works for Investing Daily, a competing publisher), since maybe they asked permission, but this is clearly Enterprise Products Partners (EPD). That Persinos note is here, just FYI.
And yes, they are big in natural gas and NGLs, they’re huge, and they pay a nice dividend (though since they’re among the larger and more stable MLPs, the dividend is on the low side … just under 5%). They also, since they’re so gigantic (market cap near $50 billion now), need a lot of action to move the needle, so their exposure to the Eagle Ford Shale, for example, is not going to quickly double their cash flow even if production grows quicker than expected in that area, but a little stability isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I’ll be quite surprised if it makes any real difference who wins the election when it comes to MLPs or specifically to EPD, but they are certainly investor favorites these days and EPD has been a better-than-average MLP over the past year. Often when the largest company is also one of the best performers, it’s a bit silly to stretch to find smaller companies that might carry more risk — I don’t know whether EPD will continue to do better than the average MLP going forward (as represented by the Alerian MLP ETF, ticker AMLP), but it probably won’t do much worse.
Next pick?
“BUY #2 – Drill Baby, Drill!
“Another change I think we can count on will be an end to the Obama ban on offshore drilling.
“And the company that I believe will benefit the most is a Bermuda-based company active in the oil and gas industry. The company operates a fleet of 60 units comprised of drill-ships, jack-up rigs, semi-submersible rigs, and tender rigs for operations in shallow to ultra-deep water areas. The company’s customers are national, international, and independent oil companies.
“Even if Obama should win, this offshore oil drilling outfit is a buy because it just paid out a whopping 97-cent quarterly dividend. Looking back over the past four dividends, the annual dividend yield now is 7.3%. It could be substantially higher if it pays out more than 97 cents per quarter into 2013.”
Well, this particular little hint wasn’t lifted directly from anyone … but this is a company we know well in these parts, so I can tell you that here he’s teasing leading deepwater driller Seadrill (SDRL), which is indeed a high-yielding juggernaut. The teaser ad is probably a bit on the aged side, though, because their 97 cent per share dividend was way back in May and included a special dividend — their normal distribution rate is currently 84 cents per share per quarter and is likely, since they’re very dividend focused, to grow.
I’ve written a lot about Seadrill over the years — it’s been a relatively risky deepwater driller, because they borrow a lot of money to build their rigs, order rigs on spec with the expectation that rates will remain high or rise, use various financial engineering techniques like sale/leasebacks, spinoffs to increase cash flow, and pay out a massive amount of their cash flow as dividends. The current yield is about 8%, and though the stock will very likely drop a bit when oil has bad days I still like it quite a bit and it’s one of my larger holdings. They take more risks than the more cautious US drillers like Diamond Offshore, but that has let them grow far more quickly and build a far more modern fleet that generates huge amounts of cash. If you think, as I do, that deepwater drilling will continue to be a growth industry, then Seadrill ought to do extremely well.
They recently (really recently, on Friday) spun off shares of some of their rigs to a new MLP, Seadrill Partners (SDLP), in a deal that seems great for the parent — the MLP actually yields less than Seadrill and has far less upside, and it gives them a captive entity to which they can sell their rigs that are under long term contracts, thereby generating yet more cash, and they retain control. Which looks to me like yet another example of John Fredriksen, their founder and major shareholder, taking advantage of all angles possible to maximize the value of his company’s assets in the public markets. It will probably be a bumpy ride, but I’m holding on.
Next idea from Skousen?
“BUY #3 — The Return of the Entrepreneur.
“One of the criticisms of the Obama administration’s era of big government and over-regulation has been its stifling effect on venture capital and new-business start-ups.
“A business-friendly Romney administration should act as a booster rocket for this fast-growing, Houston-based venture capital fund. This pick is a principal investment firm that provides long-term debt and equity capital to lower-middle market companies and debt capital to middle market companies. Its portfolio investments are typically made to support management buyouts, recapitalizations, growth financings, re-financings, and acquisitions of companies that operate in diverse industry sectors.
“The company reported first quarter income at $20.6 million, a 54% increase, and announced it would pay a 14-cent dividend in May.”
Well, I can’t say that I know this company at all — but the Thinkolator tells us that it is Main Street Capital (MAIN), which h as actually raised the dividend a bit since may and now pays 15 cents per share … this is one of the rare US companies that pays monthly dividends, so that’s an annual payout of $1.80 for a yield of a bit over 6%. They are a Business Development Company (BDC), another popular yield-oriented pass-through investment somewhat similar to REITs or MLPs — like most BDCs, they lend to small and medium sized businesses and don’t pay federal taxes, passing through the lion’s share of their income to shareholders in the form of dividends (which are taxed as regular income for you). The stock has done very well this year, and they’re pretty diversified, but that’s about all I know about them.
Like most BDCs, they would generally be expected to be quite economically sensitive: Typically the borrowers for these kinds of BDCs are mid-sized service and industrial companies that tend to be economically sensitive, so when crises hit (like 2008) a lot of them have trouble paying back their loans, though after the BDCs lived through portfolio disasters in 2009 I suspect they’re probably all being a big tighter with the lending standards or otherwise more cautious now. If you know MAIN or their prospects, feel free to shout out your opinion with a comment below.
OK, so the first few of his picks are all decidedly income-focused, with yields running from 5-8% — which has definitely been the kind of investment that I know many folks have flocked to this year. I have to cut it off there for at least a few hours — sorry to promise you six ideas in the headline and only deliver three, but I will get to the other three as soon as possible. Or if you want to discuss them amongst yourselves, feel free, the ad is here.
I threw money away for a year or two by buying Skousen’s newsletter. Unfortuntely, his track record was mixed at most, mainly because his investment advice is so clearly clouded (how’s that for an oxymoron?) by his extreme right wing ideology. As Barry Ritholtz (my financial advisor) and others have written, letting one’s political preferences undermine one’s objectivity when evaluating a stock is, well, both natural and stupid. Using policies of the likely winner as one variable is understandable and reasonable. Allowing that single variable, however, to be weighted beyond reason is not. That’s why I would never advise anyone to buy anything Skousen is selling. I would say exactly the same thing if I had bought a newsletter from a person who hit from the other side of the plate.
So called expert on local news last night said oil may drop to $65 a barrel, at those prices Transocean and sea drill are not nearly as profitable. Knew this market drop was coming where it stops is the question.
I subscribed to Skousen’s newsletter for a year or two and got burned badly. Skousen is an Austrian Economist noted for his books, not his investment advice.
Last time I looked, he was still following the “Dogs of the Dow” strategy for crying out loud, which was discredited by stock market action right after it was published!
This guy may be a brilliant economist, but he’s one crummy investment picker.
I first subscribed to Skousen’s newsletter in early 2009. He made some marvelous recommendations, of course the market was so far down at that time. I purchased some EPD at that time which was at 18% dividend and have kept it and wish I would have kept more of his recommendations. I tried his service again in 2011 and found that he just repeated the same recommendations every month. He probably was saving his new recommendations for his more expensive newsletters (like they all do nowdays).
I’ll save Choom supporters some time. Skousen is a racist! Everything is Boooosh’s fault. The BP oil spill was a negative. The evil rethuglicans have blocked many of urkel’s proposals. Those same reps won’t compromise (read: cave to duh won, who did win, afterall. The Good Mormon Harry Reid blocks most votes in Senate because House GOP won’t give Obama what he wants. Governing and attending meetings takes time away from more important gulf and hobnobbing with rap stars and talk show hostesses and hosts. I’m sure we can fault the Jooos in here somewhere too. How dare they think Jerusalem is the Israeli capitol and continue to persecute the poor innocent widdle Palis.
Anyway rant all you want. If Romney does win and businesses small and large know what they are dealing with, perhaps they’ll get off that mountain of $ they’re sitting on. If not, the EPA can let loose with things now on hold so as not to harm O’s election, such as 37,000 farms and ranches being assessed a cow tax on cow gaseous emissions (flatulence), averaging $23k per farm/ranch.
Look..squirrel! Romnesia! Bindergate! Big Bird! little barry
I’ve owned Main since Aug. 2010,it’s one of my best performing stocks (up 51% since I bought it) & the monthly dividend is nice.
I subscribed to Mark Skousen back in the early 90s and I was a newby to investing. He
predicted the rise of the USD in 1994 and encouraged repatration of CHF investments which I had acquired when Clinton was elected. I did and made significant returns on his recommendations. As far as I was concerned I got my money’s worth and learned a lot about the market and investing. Although we parted company in 2000 Mark provided a service at reasonable cost and I learned some valuable lessons.
As a Professional Engineer I can be stripped of my license for incendiary and callous remarks about others. I wish our youth could be subject to the same actions.
EPD what a choice it would have been if Obama was not making the largest fuel user in the world the US NAVY to have tax payers pay a premium for fuel from Dynamic Fuels who is owned by TYSON FOODS, SYNTROLEUM AND MANSFIELD and he fails to mention that our Navy runs on Chicken green fuel even when he was in OKLAHOMA just down the road from one of there plants, and blames the EPA for the greatest stall and open’s the door for China and Canada. We can not blame Canada they have to sell there product and if the Keystone was put into play not just the jobs but when it hits the Gulf Coast EPD was the biggest bread winner and they still will benefit but not even close to what should have been. Nobody says how much a gallon costs for this chicken fuel and the contract with hundreds of thousands of gallons that we pay for. EPD will still shine but the light would have been a lot better if there was a President who knew what a budget was and that is over 1000 days+ and he just prints with Ben B and our neighbor Canada is thrown under the bus when the chickens should have tried to cross the road.
Townhall.com had an article out this summer that states chicken fat, etc. green fuel for Navy use is 622% higher priced or $26 a gallon. And how come we are still lagging behind the Euroweenies in what we pay for gasoline? It seems price of gas has risen because economy is booming? You know plants making electricity for cars to run on have zero pollution. Actually I once read that Hummers pollute less than a Prius when you figure in the huge amount of pollution China makes mining the nickel used in those fancy ultra-expensive batteries. But if it feels and sounds good, give more money to your cronies so they are covered when the companies go bankrupt.
I had heard it was 5 or 6 times a gallon more and thank you for the bad news that Obama fails to tell us on his green piece of your money, I had actually Syntroleum (SYNM) I think that was the ticker but when I found out the whole story and Obama was going to OK. I sold it on a break even deal, but I sold it because I thought Obama was going to bring up the name and Solyndra and green cash wasted sounded like a real reminder of his commercials last election before they did the side money deal, and he still fails to mention it I only wish Romney would have asked Obama the price per gallon so I would see who he would blame it on and do that two step on the river by the White House while his mother in law watched from her third floor and now Oprah is news like she was before, so what kind of fuel is next, maybe Rat Troleum. Thanks for the info and the site. Iwant clean air etc. but not at that price getting shoved down our throat’s!
For Goodness sake ,take your medication.
Ditto! I’m having trouble following!
That is a candidate for the best example of a run-on sentence. The thinking that produces such writing should not be used to invest money.
Travis,
You said that a BDC’s distributions are treated as regular income instead of a dividend. What would be the effect of holding MAIN in a Roth account?
Thanks,
J F P
who ever wins will inherit the biggest debt in history and one that can never be repaid
it will just get bigger
so Romney will provide some temp relief but when the fat lady sings its back down to earth and printing money, hence the commercial banks buying huge amounts of gold
IMO buy your shares for a quick gain and then go for gold stocks ie gold mines as theres so much counterfeit gold out there now.
Wow…just the mention of anything political is enough to bring out the crazies.
Gee, if we have a “Reagan era boom”, does that mean we get the record
deficits and Government spending that went with it?
Those horrific records were smashed years ago, I’m afraid — but yes, he helped create a new baseline where a majority of voters were trained to believe that “deficits don’t matter” … you can argue that it was worthwhile to spend the Soviets into the ground to win the Cold War and that the end justified the means, but it is a shame that the federal government never acted as most state governments have to in setting aside “rainy day funds” when we were in boom times.
Much as I hate to bring this up, Trav, It was Donna Shalala who went on record to spea for Bill Clinton’s administration by saying “Reducing the national deficit is not our priority.” But the thinking that presidents –Reagan-Clinton-Bush-Obama–make deficits misses the point. Through all of these, it is Congress that makes and approves budgets. It was Congress that caused the 2008 crash by refusing to regulate banks and banking. It is Congress that ratified the “free trade” agreements that moved jobs overseas.
Really, none of this is Congress or the President, whoever they’ve been — it’s all of us, for demanding benefits without sacrifice or payment and voting only for those candidates who promise such absurdity.
Politics regarding investments can not be disregarded. Move carefully. Remember, risk should be limited as much as is possible. Yet, great gain follows much risk if your gut feeling proves correct. Study hard, do your due diligence, and roll the dice. Perhaps you can join the 1 % in due time?
Please let’s keep this site free of political content.
Agreed.
For those who can’t see beyond the next quarter (as well as blinded by disgruntle political views and deniers of sciences), yes too much is spent for biofuel by the Navy. Fortunately, the Navy plans long term and recognize that early support of the industry will pay off. Think about investment into the early space program and the industrial payoff that continues. Alternative fuel is not optional, it is a necessity (unless the warheads go off)! There is a finite amount of fossil fuel, plus the damage extracting and burning this fuel does to atmosphere and planet. The long term projections shows the economic costs due to burning fossil fuels exceed our current deficit.