Like millions of families across America, on Thanksgiving we gave thanks for being with friends and family, along with “…sunny days and that we’re all together.” I added a silent appreciation that left-wing climate extremists were resoundingly defeated on November 5th. The market’s realization that the election had ushered in sensible, pro-American energy policies took […]

The word of the week is re-rating. Both Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley have suggested that, notwithstanding this year’s 50%+ return in midstream energy infrastructure, further upside is possible. They posit that a re-rating of the sector would not be unreasonable given the strong fundamentals. Enterprise Value/EBITDA (EV/EBITDA) is a widely used valuation metric, although […]

Market strategists often point out that valuations aren’t a good timing tool, but it’s still worth staying on top of whether the market is cheap or not. Stocks were having a good year leading into the election, and the Republican sweep took the market another leg higher. Residents of Naples, FL, our winter home, are […]

Sitting next to me at Newark airport on Monday while I waited to board an airplane was an FT reporter. I know this because he made a phone call to discuss the Trump appointments “on background” with a source who, based on one side of the conversation, had recently been in Mar-a-Lago. Chris Wright, Trump’s […]

When investors ask what return they should expect from an investment in midstream, we typically suggest dividends plus growth plus buybacks. Dividend yields are around 5%. Wells Fargo is forecasting 4% dividend growth next year, and buybacks of around 2% of market cap. 5% + 4% + 2% suggests an 11% total return, assuming no […]

As the market absorbed last week’s election results, energy was the clear winner. On the week, midstream infrastructure returned +8.4% while the S&P500 was +4.7%. The main driver of outperformance is the expectation of a regulatory regime not beholden to climate extremists. The pause on LNG export permits will be lifted. Although many expected this […]

Donald Trump’s political comeback looks a lot like the recovery in the energy sector. In March 2020 during the pandemic pipeline stocks slumped as crude oil prices briefly turned negative. Within a year Trump was out of office, faced numerous civil and criminal charges and was widely believed to be a one-term president. By then […]

Performance in the pipeline sector remains strong – closing in on its fourth straight year beating the S&P500 and ahead overall for the past five. But for the past six months the Alerian MLP Infrastructure ETF (AMLP) has increasingly lagged the sector, as defined by the American Energy Independence Index. AMLP is more or less […]

An axiom of capitalism is that a business must earn a Return On Invested Capital (ROIC) in excess of its Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC). It’s just as true for a lemonade stand as for a conglomerate. I should note here that fifteen years ago our younger daughter (then about nine years old) set […]

The pause in issuing new Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) permits is among the least defensible energy policies of this Administration. It has been widely criticized. Jamie Dimon called it naive, and the International Energy Agency worries that it will impede the supply of natural gas on global markets. The US Department of Energy (DOE), which […]