I have pretty much written each Friday’s Dividend Cafe on the Friday morning of the day you receive it every single week for over a year now. If there is an exception to that over the last 12+ months I do not remember it. I used to write the Dividend Cafe in bits and pieces throughout the week and then “pull it all together” on Friday mornings, but a little over a year ago I changed my approach and I have been happy with the results.

Well, this week taking advantage of the Monday holiday and some extra peace and quiet in the very early morning hours of a day that the market was closed, I wrote what would maybe be half of a Dividend Cafe on the subject of capital, liquidity, and interest rates. I loved where it was going and felt it was a good base for a needed Dividend Cafe on a crucial subject at this point in time.

And yet, here I am on a Friday morning, with images of Russian rockets striking all over the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv on my television set, and I am not even opening the draft of that work from Monday morning. Yes, I will be able to use it next week (or at some future date), but this is certainly one of those rare weeks where Dividend Cafe warrants a nod to current events.

Markets have experienced volatility in the build-up to events of this week and in the events themselves, though I would argue it has been much less volatile than I would have expected. The mere presence of market volatility is not the reason to devote a Dividend Cafe to this week’s subject. I don’t much care about market volatility other than the frustration I feel when we don’t get enough of it.

So welcome to a Dividend Cafe devoted to Russia/Ukraine, and may your investor knowledge and appreciation of global affairs grow as a result. To that end we work.

Links mentioned in this episode: