Money and Investing Thoughts

Atlas Pipeline Partners | Investor Relations : News Release

Atlas Pipeline Partners (APL: 37.07 -0.31 -0.83%) declared a $.93 quarterly dividend for 2007 Q4 to be paid in February. This is an 8% increase over 2006 Q4.

The inter-related companies all declared dividends so make sure you get the right one. I gave a review of this company earlier this month. I believe the stocks selected here for their income possibilities will provide a growing income and stock price over time.

The NEX, New Energy Index which is tracked by the ETF PowerShares Global Clean Energy Trust (PBD: 9.73 +0.259 +2.73%), one of this site’s 20 Stock Portfolio components, finished last week up 6.1%. As you can see from the chart further below the index is down quite a bit from recent highs, so it is nice to see a strong weekly performance.

The numbers below show the biggest gainers and losers for the index. With volatility like that I believe it is too hard to pick winners in the renewable energy space at this time, so I believe PBD is the best place to get exposure there.

NEX top gainers since 22/01/08
Solon AG fuer Solartechnik + 36.2%
Cree CREE + 25.0%
Zhejiang Yankon Group Co. Ltd. + 21.7%
Roth & Rau R8R + 18.5%
Hansen Transmissions HSN + 18.4%

NEX top losers since 22/01/08
Arima Optoelectronics - 21.0%
Yingli Green Energy Holding YGE - 15.0%
Comverge COMV - 14.8%
Novozymes A/S Series B NZYM’B - 14.3%
Anhui BBCA Biochemical Co. Ltd. A – 13.1%

Source: Newenergyfinance.com

Note: I currently do not have a position in PBD.

Inergy, L.P. Declares 25th Consecutive Increase in Quarterly Cash Distribution: Financial News – Yahoo! Finance

Nice to see some good news after three days away from the computer and financial news. Inergy L.P. (NRGY: 18.50 +0.805 +4.55%) is a component of this site’s 20 Stock Portfolio and it is now yielding around 8.5%.

Earnings and dividend declarations will be coming out over the next few weeks. I am looking for some good news (relative to market pessimism) to help stock prices rebound. I am always looking for individual stocks that I believe can grow their business and earnings.

Note: I have a long position in NRGY.

I am going to be away up country for a few days and leaving the laptop behind. Probably good time to take a few days off. I find it interesting that the page views on this site go up and down at about the same rate and time the market does. When the market is going up, many more seem to want to read about investments, on the way down fewer want to read about stocks.

I am pretty much fully invested in stocks (with the money in the accounts for that purpose) at this time. I made a couple of purchase as prices of interesting stocks fell, but no where near the current lows. I am not a good predictor of when the market will go down, and also not when it will rebound. My process is to look for good companies with stocks that will appreciate or pay an excellent income over time. From this point they are more attractive than they were 10% or 15% higher.

A new news cycle for earnings is about to hit, so I am looking forward to see how the companies of the stocks I discuss here have fared in there pursuit of profits. Fear currently rules the market, but some good earnings news can turn that around.

I hope the market rebounds significantly in the next few days, but the emotional swings of the overall market are not something I can predict.

On Jan. 10 in Leipsic, Ohio, POET hosted a grand opening ceremony for their 22nd ethanol production facility and the first in the state of Ohio.

POET is a private company that is a leading ethanol producer. The link above discusses their latest plant. I noted some of the facts and figures that points out how the ethanol production industry is still increasing efficiencies. Here are some of the figures I note:

• I calculated the production efficiency at 2.95 gallons of ethanol per bushel of corn. A nice improvement from the current accepted standard of 2.8 gallons per bushel.
• New low heat process uses 10% less energy to produce the ethanol.
• The plant will be outfitted with a regenerative thermal oxidizer that eliminates up to 99.9 percent of air emissions.
• The facility will have 45 employees with a $2 million annual payroll.

As I have recently written, I think the naysayers have written of corn ethanol production too soon. The need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil plus the ingenuity of U.S. companies to improve their process bode well for the future of this business in the U.S.