Taxes
Taxes
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Marcellus Explosion-BP Spill: Both Involved This Faulty $7 Piece of Plastic
Sometimes the very smallest part of a complicated piece of equipment can bring down the entire project. The part at issue here, a thin ring of rubberized plastic, costs about $7. Yet it may be responsible for forcing the U.S. to rethink its entire domestic energy strategy. Here's what happened. Clearfield County is a rural […]
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Marcellus Explosion-BP Spill: Both Involved This Faulty $7 Piece of Plastic
Sometimes the very smallest part of a complicated piece of equipment can bring down the entire project. The part at issue here, a thin ring of rubberized plastic, costs about $7. Yet it may be responsible for forcing the U.S. to rethink its entire domestic energy strategy. Here's what happened. Clearfield County is a rural […]
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Free Report: Prepare for Washington's "Heavy Hand," Thanks to BP
BP (NYSE: BP) has guaranteed that the drilling environment in the U.S. will undergo significant change. There will be government overreaction, but leaving the production of new crude oil to the whims of company bottom lines is no longer an option. Some of what is coming will require intense ongoing negotiations. That the increasingly heavy […]
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Oil Sector Expert Kent Moors Sees Tough Times, Stricter Regs For BP After Oil Spill
Energy expert Dr. Kent Moors is angry. And the main target for that anger is BP PLC (NYSE ADR: BP).
At its core, the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill is a human tragedy: 11 workers were killed, others were injured and now many Gulf Coast residents will end up losing their homes and livelihoods.
But that's not all that has Dr. Moors seeing red: The accident that resulted from BP's incomprehensible risk-taking has killed an energy bill that could have set the U.S. economy on a course for energy freedom, and is going to summon the heavy hand of government in a way that will cost American consumers dearly while also keeping regular U.S. investors from reaping green.
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Two Energy Stocks For a Post-Oil-Spill World
With the failure of the BP PLC (NYSE ADR: BP) "top kill" strategy, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill takes on a more serious hue, both for the Gulf of Mexico environment and for BP itself. If it indeed proves impossible to cap the oil flow before August, public anger against BP and against deep-sea drilling in general may put BP out of business and set deep-sea drilling around the United States back for years.
The business fallout from the oil spill could be widespread. As was true of the Three Mile Island nuclear accident of 1979, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill could end up causing massive damage to companies that were in no way involved with the BP tragedy. Risks of different types of operation will be reassessed, new rules will be enacted, and the energy business will change radically.
Smart investors will anticipate these changes.
To discover two stocks poised to thrive in a post-oil-spill world, please read on...
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BP's Sharp Stock Drop Prompts Takeover Rumors as Gulf Oil Spill Disaster Spirals Out of Control
BP PLC's (NYSE ADR: BP) share price has plunged by more than one-third, as the company has struggled to contain the Gulf oil spill. Now, the company is being rumored as a takeover target as its stock has yet to find a floor.
BP shares have tumbled 36% since the company's leased drilling rig Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20. The company has lost a third of its market value - $75 billion - stirring rumors that there could be acquisition interest. About $17 billion in losses came on Tuesday alone when the stock plunged 15%.
"There is a 10% to 20% chance of BP being taken over," Gudmund Halle Isfeldt, an analyst at DnB NOR ASA, told Bloomberg News. "The only real candidate, in size and with similar operations globally, would be Royal Dutch Shell [PLC (NYSE ADR: RDS.A, RDS.B)]."
BP's drastic market value loss could make it cheap enough to attract buyers, but some analysts say the total cost and implications of the spill are too vague to justify a commitment.
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The Tobin Tax: The Fix-It Plan Wall Street Hates … But Can't Seem to Kill
German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently came out in favor of a "Tobin tax" - a small tax on financial transactions, proportionate to the size of the transaction. The Tobin tax idea also has been proposed by Britain's former prime minister, Gordon Brown, and was proposed in Congress by U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-OR.
Every time a Tobin tax is proposed, it has failed to gain traction - which isn't surprising: Wall Street, with its international affiliates and legion of lobbyists, hates the idea.
Even so, the Tobin tax idea just refuses to die - which is a good thing, since it is probably the best way of curing some of Wall Street's pathologies.
To understand how the Tobin tax can benefit investors, please read on...
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Taipan Daily: BP Risks Facing Criminal Charges For Oil Spill
Fallout from the BP oil spill is spreading. And far from being "cheap" as some pundits suggest, BP's share price could implode if criminal charges are filed.
It's not looking good for British Petroleum... or the Gulf of Mexico. In fact it's looking like an outright disaster, about as bad as we feared.
And BP's stock - which a number of armchair contrarians quickly dubbed as "cheap" in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon spill - is at risk of being massacred.
Don't trust the smart-aleck "buy the dip" viewpoints on this one. Not only would investors be unwise to buy call options on British Petroleum at current levels, they may well be better off buying long-dated put options instead... in anticipation of seeing BP's stock price cut in half. Or worse.
We're talking about $50 billion to $100 billion worth of market cap here... at real risk of being wiped out. (That notion might sound wacky. But a lot of folks thought the concept of a "euro crash" was wacky too, when we started pounding the table for it a number of months ago...)
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Money Morning Mailbag: Investors Should Steer Clear of Australia's Mining "Super Tax"
Money Morning Contributing Editor Martin Hutchinson last week introduced readers to the Australian mining "super tax" that will disrupt the industry's cyclical nature and threaten mining companies' profitability.
Reader questions and comments poured in immediately, especially from our friends in the land down under. Some criticized the government's greed, others saluted the tax, and many wondered what action to take as investors. The result was a passionate, well-informed, and at times combative, reader dialogue.
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has proposed an additional 40% tax on mining company earnings and hopes to use the revenue to snag some hefty cash piles from the profitable natural resources industry. But instead he is putting the economy in danger of future funding shortfalls: If the mining industry's revenue stream starts to run thin, the projects the money is supporting will be strapped and funds will have to be squeezed from elsewhere.
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