5 Ways to Invest in Oil (Ranked From Worst to First)

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5 Ways to Invest in Oil (Ranked From Worst to First)

When oil spikes, like it has in recent months, many folks get tempted, wondering if there’s a way to time their way into—and out of—crude for maximum profits and dividends.

Unfortunately, timing markets is tough—especially the oil market, which is global and highly complex. Heck, the experts have trouble doing it! Consider this chart:

Bloomberg analysts looked at how the price of energy commodities trended over the last 20 years and how an index of energy-related investments performed over the same period. They found that professional investors whose job is to turn changes in commodity prices into cash profits had a hard time doing so.… Read more

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Why I’d Sell This 8% Dividend After 46% Gains

Many people spot a closed-end fund (CEF) with a high dividend, a double-digit discount and a big recent price gain and automatically hit the buy button, thinking they’ve got a clear winner on their hands.

But you need to go deeper to make sure your pick is a solid one, as one CEF, the Clearbridge MLP and Midstream Fund (CEM), clearly demonstrates.

CEM holds shares of “midstream” master limited partnerships (MLPs)—or companies that operate pipelines and storage facilities for oil and gas. The fund sports a 12% discount to net asset value (NAV, or the value of the MLPs in its portfolio) today, as well as a 7.9% dividend.… Read more

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These Funds Yield Up to 10% (But They’re Primed to Fall 33%+)

Many people are desperate for any decent yield these days, which is making oil and gas funds (with payouts that can stretch into the double digits) look attractive.

But the trouble with buying these funds now is that you’re putting yourself at risk of price drops far bigger than any yield you might collect. That’s a worst-case scenario for anyone in retirement or hoping to clock out in the next few years.

Another thing to consider is that the argument for investing in energy funds is based on the recent improvement in oil prices, which appears to be accelerating.

Recent Oil-Price Moves Mislead …

I’ve seen a few pundits point to a “boom” in oil prices, selectively choosing time periods like the one above, to argue in favor of jumping into energy stocks and funds.… Read more

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These 11% Dividends Have Crashed 43% (They’re Just Getting Started)

You may not know it, but big pension funds are pulling billions of dollars out of one sector, leaving behind a group of stocks these big players will never buy again.

That’s a clear signal that we need to avoid these stocks, too.

I’m talking about oil companies. In New Jersey, for example, legislators are trying to ban the state pension fund from fossil fuels. The state’s Fossil Fuel Divestment Bill has bipartisan support, mainly because oil has been a clear loser for investors. We can clearly see this when we look at the chart of the biggest oil major of them all:

Exxon’s Long Decline

Exxon-Mobil (XOM) peaked at a $500-billion market cap in 2007 and has been in a downward spiral since, pushed lower by the 2014 and 2020 drops in oil prices.… Read more

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These “Yield Traps” Have Cratered 58% (they’ll never bounce back)

Right now, thousands of Americans are making a mistake that threatens to lock in the losses they’ve suffered in this downturn.

Worse, these folks will be stuck on the sidelines in the rebound, watching helplessly as other stocks soar and their holdings stagnate, or even drop further.

I’m talking about people who hold master limited partnerships (MLPs) and buy into the myth that these companies—owners of oil and gas pipelines and storage facilities—are simply “toll bridges,” making them a relatively safe play on energy.

Worse, many of these folks think MLPs can benefit from the huge glut of oil and gas building up around the globe.… Read more

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5 Safe Oil Yields Up to 8.5% (With Stocks That May Spike, Too)

Energy stocks are en fuego again after a drone strike on a Saudi oil facility. We’re going to (as usual) skip the geopolitical talk and discuss oil dividends that will benefit from this disruption.

While “buy and hope” investors ponder basic ways to play the spike, you and I know that about half of energy returns come from payouts. Check out the orange line below, the total return of a popular energy index with dividends. It’s nearly double what the stock prices themselves returned:

The Real Key to Oil Riches? Dividends.

No dividend is guaranteed forever. But broadly speaking, income has been a far more reliable source of energy-sector returns than price performance, making up nearly half of energy’s total returns since late 1998.… Read more

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27 “Marked Down” Energy CEFs With Yields Up to 11%

Energy is one sector where the experts just can’t seem to get it right.

That’s a trend my colleague Brett Owens has been watching for a long time. In a March article, he warned that too many investors were bullish on oil, and the hedge fund “experts” betting on an imminent price breakthrough were wrong.

Since then, oil prices, oil stocks and energy funds have fallen sharply, leading energy to post year-to-date losses while every other asset class is up:

Energy Takes a Dive

It doesn’t matter how you played energy; the Alerian MLP ETF (AMLP) was the best performer, but even that was negative, while the more oil-exposed Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLE) …
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