Exxon Mobil (XOM) is one of the world’s oldest oil companies, founded in 1870. It’s also the world’s largest publicly traded integrated oil conglomerate, with nearly 30,000 oil & gas wells on six continents. In fact, thanks to its refining and petrochemical business, Exxon has a presence in almost every country on earth. The company operates in three distinct but interconnected business segments: upstream oil & gas production, downstream refining, and specialty chemicals. The logic behind such an integrated business, in which Exxon controls all aspects of the fossil fuel business (from production to refining and retail gasoline sales), is that it diversifies Exxon’s sales, earnings, and cash flow. For example, low oil prices resulted in almost no profits from [...]

Department store retailer Macy's (M) has fallen about 40% since August 2018, including a single-day plunge of nearly 20% on January 10. Meanwhile, Macy's dividend yield has soared to over 6%, a level that causes many investors to start questioning the retailer's dividend safety. Let's take a look at why Macy's is being so badly punished by investors to assess whether this high-yield stock appears to represent a potentially solid long-term investment opportunity or an unsafe value trap to avoid.

Ventas (VTR) was founded in 1983 and is the second largest medical REIT in the country, with nearly 1,200 properties in the U.S., U.K., and Canada. The firm's property portfolio consists primarily of seniors housing communities, medical office buildings, life science centers, and inpatient rehab and long-term acute care facilities. The largest source of Ventas's cash flow is derived from senior housing properties, which are run by third-party operators under a triple-net lease arrangement (tenant pays all maintenance, taxes, and insurance), as well as by the company itself. Over the past few years, Ventas has embarked on an aggressive portfolio evolution in which it's been selling off assets in struggling industries (skilled nursing and parts of senior housing) and investing [...]

Consolidated Edison (ED) was recently downgraded by Bank of America Merrill Lynch on concerns that the firm's renewable energy business could run into trouble given its exposure to troubled utility PG&E (PCG). With PG&E planning to pursue Chapter 11 bankruptcy by the end of the month due to the liabilities it faces from its role in causing the California wildfires, some analysts believe PG&E may not honor the solar supply contracts it has with Con Edison. As the financial media tends to do, Bloomberg published a scary headline about this possibility: "PG&E's Woes Have Spread to New York's ConEd, 3,000 Miles Away." However, once you get into the details of the situation, it's one that dividend investors don't need to worry about. [...]