Rosneft Chief Executive Igor Sechin said on Saturday that U.S. energy companies were the main beneficiaries of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and that Washington was trying to change the fundamental contours of the global energy markets to suit U.S. interests. Iran blockaded the Strait, the main route for about a fifth of world oil supplies and other vital goods including fertilisers, after t...
Rosneft Chief Executive Igor Sechin said on Saturday that U.S. energy companies were the main beneficiaries of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and that Washington was trying to change the fundamental contours of the global energy markets to suit U.S. interests. Iran blockaded the Strait, the main route for about a fifth of world oil supplies and other vital goods including fertilisers, after the United States and Israel attacked Iran and killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in February. The U.S. has blockaded Iranian ports. The closures of the Strait has rattled global markets, sending oil prices to multi-year highs, stoking global inflation and undermining economic growth world-wide. Speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Sechin, a long-standing ally of President Vladimir Putin, also said that the OPEC+ group of leading oil producers has lost some of its potential with the withdrawal of the United Arab Emirates from the alliance. "The closure of the Strait of Hormuz is an attempt to reshape global energy market regulations to benefit the United States. The measures taken to block the strait were aimed at Iran, but backfired on the entire world. The strategic risks were underestimated," Sechin said. "The main beneficiaries, of course, were American companies, who gained non-competitive advantages and the ability to secure high-cost supplies," he added. He warned that following Strait of Hormuz closure, other major global routes, such as Malacca, Bad El Mandeb and Gibraltar straits could also be under the risk of disruption. Sechin says OPEC+ is losing its mojo Sechin, who is known for his skepticism about Russia's cooperation with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, said the OPEC+ group has lost some its potential following the UAE departure from the alliance as well as earlier exits of Qatar and other countries. "As a result, the alliance's production has fallen from 58 to 37 million barrels per day over the past...
Images By Tang Ming Tung/DigitalVision via Getty Images When you see a fund with a dividend yield of 17.71%, your reaction can be twofold: you're either immediately intrigued or immediately wary. We are generally the latter. That's why we took some time to analyze the Abrdn Income Credit Strategies Fund ( ACP ). ACP overview ACP is a closed-end fund, founded on 01/27/2011, with about $1 billion in...
Images By Tang Ming Tung/DigitalVision via Getty Images When you see a fund with a dividend yield of 17.71%, your reaction can be twofold: you're either immediately intrigued or immediately wary. We are generally the latter. That's why we took some time to analyze the Abrdn Income Credit Strategies Fund ( ACP ). ACP overview ACP is a closed-end fund, founded on 01/27/2011, with about $1 billion in assets under management at the moment, which invests mainly in debt instruments: corporate loans, high-yield bonds, and positions in distressed credit. The idea is relatively simple: instead of betting on the growth of companies' profits, you bet on the ability of borrowers to regularly service their obligations. arbdn investments (aberdeeninvestments.com) The portfolio is concentrated mainly in the "Consumer Discretionary" sector (about 29%), followed by positions in "Financials" and "Energy". Nearly 95% of the assets are below investment grade. We are talking about issuers with volatile cash flows, and high dependence on debt financing, precisely those that feel the pressure when interest rates rise. 74% of the portfolio matures within five years. You can see for yourself the credit quality and maturity of the fund's issuers below: credit quality and maturity (aberdeeninvestments.com) And here you can see the top 10 holdings (of a total of 160 holdings) of the fund and its sector allocation: ACP fact sheet (aberdeeninvestments.com) It is hard to find an exact benchmark ETF that can be used as a substitute for the NAV of the fund, but the closest we were able to find was HYG: ACP vs HYG (author's database) - ACP Raises $100 Million in New Class of Preferred Stock Due 2030 On 12/18/2025. ACP closed a private placement of $100 million in Series A Mandatorily Redeemable Preferred Shares (MRPS) due 12/18/2030. The shares are rated A2 by Moody's, and the proceeds will be used primarily to refinance existing debt and make new portfolio investments. The offering includes 4,000,0...
PM Images/DigitalVision via Getty Images A few months have passed since I have covered Scorpio Tankers ( STNG ). This stock has run up quite a lot since the first article, and I can tell that the company still looks strong. Q1 2026 results were good, and the most important part was that they now have a stronger and clean balance sheet. STNG now has a net cash position, a modern fleet, bigger divid...
PM Images/DigitalVision via Getty Images A few months have passed since I have covered Scorpio Tankers ( STNG ). This stock has run up quite a lot since the first article, and I can tell that the company still looks strong. Q1 2026 results were good, and the most important part was that they now have a stronger and clean balance sheet. STNG now has a net cash position, a modern fleet, bigger dividends, a huge share buyback program, and the opportunity to rebuild the fleet without pressure on its balance sheet. This, in fact, also changes the risk profile, even though this is a tanker company and the rates cycle remains one of the main risks. However, today I believe that STNG looks like a safer option to play this cycle. The stock, though, is not that cheap like it used to be when I wrote my first articles; still, I believe that we have upside left. Q1 2026 As I already said, Q1 2026 was a good quarter, and most importantly, this quarter showed that Scorpio Tankers profitability recovered not only from one-offs. Yes, the company got profit from vessel sales, but even if we take this effect, adjusted net income was at $150.9 million , while adjusted EPS was at $3.02 compared to $1.03 a year ago. This is a good and strong difference that we see. I think it is also important to understand that improvement really came from a stronger product tanker market. Vessel revenue reached $312.9 million, while TCE revenue was up to $303.0 million, which shows that the company is benefiting from this cycle. It can still generate a strong cash flow even if ton-mile demand, Middle East dislocation, and longer routes persist. While Scorpio is currently smaller by its fleet size, earnings quality seems better to me as rates recovered at the same time when financial expenses decreased. Due to this reason, I believe it is now possible to call this stock a quality one. TCE Rates My strongest argument in this thesis is TCE rates. The problem with Scorpio Tankers was that the market was af...
You can claim Social Security retirement benefits starting at 62, and many people choose to do that, or to claim shortly after eligibility. An early claim relative to your full retirement age will shrink your monthly check, but a good number of workers are willing to accept that trade-off because they want to retire early and need Social Security to help them do it. One thing you should be aware o...
You can claim Social Security retirement benefits starting at 62, and many people choose to do that, or to claim shortly after eligibility. An early claim relative to your full retirement age will shrink your monthly check, but a good number of workers are willing to accept that trade-off because they want to retire early and need Social Security to help them do it. One thing you should be aware of, though, is that your net income from Social Security checks is most likely going to shrink starting at 65. Here's why that's the case for many seniors, what you should do to plan for it, and why it is not necessarily always a bad thing. Continue reading
The securities regulator in China signaled that the fund management industry needs to accelerate its shift toward delivering sustainable long-term returns. China Securities Regulatory Commission Chairman Wu Qing said the watchdog is studying a three‑year action plan to implement a new State Council guideline on private funds and will establish a “1+N+X” framework, according to a statement Saturday...
The securities regulator in China signaled that the fund management industry needs to accelerate its shift toward delivering sustainable long-term returns. China Securities Regulatory Commission Chairman Wu Qing said the watchdog is studying a three‑year action plan to implement a new State Council guideline on private funds and will establish a “1+N+X” framework, according to a statement Saturday on its website. The reforms include efforts to lower fees, standardize performance benchmarks and improve evaluation systems, the statement said, citing a speech by Wu. The framework will cover market entry, ongoing supervision, risk resolution and development support. Wu noted that algorithmic trading has become widely used across global capital markets, including in China, by quant funds, foreign investors, public funds, other professional institutions and some individuals. Regulators have introduced measures including trade reporting, enhanced monitoring, stricter oversight of abnormal trading and guidance to reduce trading frequency. They will further refine the regulatory framework to promote fairness and crack down on illegal and non‑compliant activities, including market manipulation and disorderly trading, Wu said. The speech underscored the growing role of funds in China’s equity market , noting that stock investment has grown 41% over the past five years to 13.4 trillion yuan ($2 trillion). Holdings now account for 13.7% of the free float market value of A shares, Wu said.
Sakorn Sukkasemsakorn/iStock via Getty Images Dividend growth investing is an extremely powerful way to achieve financial independence because, if you focus on blue-chip dividend growth stocks and build a well-diversified portfolio of them, you can have a high degree of confidence that, the vast majority of the time, your passive income will be sustainable and likely will keep growing year after y...
Sakorn Sukkasemsakorn/iStock via Getty Images Dividend growth investing is an extremely powerful way to achieve financial independence because, if you focus on blue-chip dividend growth stocks and build a well-diversified portfolio of them, you can have a high degree of confidence that, the vast majority of the time, your passive income will be sustainable and likely will keep growing year after year at a rate that meets or beats inflation over time. Thus, once you hit a point where your dividends exceed your living expenses, you can know that you are highly likely to be financially independent. Since you will be generating cash flow from your portfolio each year, that should be enough to live on and should continue to be so for the foreseeable future, since that cash flow stream will grow at a rate that at least keeps up with the rate at which your expenses increase. One of the simplest ways to do this is to invest in a diversified, low-cost dividend growth fund. Two of the most popular are the Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF ( SCHD ) and the Vanguard High Dividend Yield ETF ( VYM ). I last discussed SCHD in the wake of its portfolio reconstruction earlier this year and will touch on this more later in this article. Meanwhile, I last discussed VYM in December of last year, and discussed why it is an excellent dividend growth fund that often proves to be superior to simply investing in high-yielding funds. In today's article, I'm going to compare them side by side based on their current constitutions and share which one I think is a better buy right now for dividend growth investors. SCHD: Quality Filters and Impressive Growth SCHD screens stocks for inclusion in its portfolio based on the requirement that they must have ten-plus consecutive years of dividend payments, as well as screening stocks for cash flow to total debt, dividend yield, and five-year dividend growth rate. On top of these quality filters that ensure it only holds profitable dividend growth machin...