LIVING OFF DIVIDENDS & PASSIVE INCOME

Regular readers know I’ve been pretty pessimistic on the outlook of the US economy and bearish on the US dollar as well. However, since it seems like everyone is echoing the same sentiment, could it be that we’re due for a short (or medium) term spike in the US Dollar?

According to Lou Basenese, editor of the The Alpha Intelligence Alert, think it’s time to go long the USD.
Here are some of the reasons he cites:

1. Bernanke & Paulson Rediscover “Verbal Intervention.” Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke finally got off their duffs to defend the dollar. Paulson got things started in Qatar on Sunday. Speaking to the leaders of the Gulf oil states, he urged the countries to think twice about abandoning their dollar peg, as “ending the peg is not the solution to the inflation problem.” And Bernanke stepped up today. Speaking, via satellite, to an international monetary conference in Spain he insisted Fed policy will be a key factor, “ensuring that the dollar remains a strong, stable currency.” After such a long silence, this week’s tag team approach is nothing but a positive development.

As I mentioned 5 weeks ago when oil breached $115/barrel, demand for the black gold will cause the price to keep on rising. On Wednesday, I drove to USC where I had an interview at the Marshall School of Business for the full-time MBA program. While driving there, I heard that Oil had exceeded $133 per barrel. I had a great interview (where I spoke about my background, my interests, the state of the economy, what a moron George W. Bush is, and the current elections) and then proceeded to a friends’ place to spend the night.

I later heard that oil prices hit $135/barrel. That news was broadcast incessantly on all the news channels and I kind of felt that it was being overdone. Whenever everyones saying that the price of something is breaking all records, it usually pulls back. I think thats why the US Dollar had shown some strength this year. I woke up on Thursday and bought the ULTRASHORT OIL & GAS ETF (AMEX: DUG), it went up a dollar and I exited my position, happy to have made enough money to pay for my gasoline bill for this month.

Oil dropped below $114 today after hovering around $117 per barrel. But I still think the long term trend is up.

According to Kevin Kerr, editor of a commodities investment newsletter,

“The U.S. is filled with gas hogs, but the developing world is catching up. Last year, Chinese drivers bought 5.5 million cars, minivans and SUVs and 3 million commercial vehicles, up from just 1.6 million vehicles sold in 1997. Sales are expected to grow 15-20% this year. Looking down the road, China’s auto sales are expected to grow by 1 million vehicles annually through 2015.

“Meanwhile, India is poised to rocket past China as the world’s fastest-growing car market. Sales of passenger cars in India increased 12.17%, to 1.5 million, in this past year.

Oil just broke through $115 per barrel today. While this may come as a shock to many , I’ve been preparing for it for the past 2 years. All the signs of an oil shortage have been visible in the media, but most people have either been ignoring it, been in denial or been too focused on what Paris Hilton or Brittany Spears have been up to!

China and India together have  a third of the world’s 6.66 billion people. If 10% of these 2.2 Billion people start buying cars, that’s 220 million new cars on the planet ready to start guzzling more gasoline. I think thats the current number of cars in the US, so effectively the demand on oil is set to double over the next few years. And along with Tata Motors new $2,500 car, you can be sure that eventually atleast 20% or more of India’s and China’s population will be driving cars instead of cycles or mopeds that give 247 miles/gallon. That 247 number is  not an exaggeration. Owners of Suburbans should refrain from crying right now.

Finally I’m getting some traction with my passive income! After all, that’s what this blog is all about. The total for March 2008 is $2, 667.18, and I’m ecstatic to have broken the $2,500 per month barrier. If I can sustain it at $2,500 per month, thats $30,000 per year. While I’m not living in luxury, it’s definitely a great safety net to have. This represents a 11.9% jump from February’s passive income and it has been growing at a steady clip for quite a while now. Hopefully, I shouldn’t have a problem maintaining it.

Here’s the breakdown:

• Online Income: $1645.30
  • Adsense: $339.28
  • Linkworth: $456.70
  • TLA: $103.61
  • Kontera: $62.07
  • Direct Ads: $330
  • Prosper Referrals: $175
  • Amazon: $117.82
  • Domain Embarking: $60.82
• Savings Accounts: $133.10
• Real Estate Trust Deed: $0
• Direct Oil Drilling Investment: $270
• Dividends from Canroys: $517.71

Based on continuing weakness in the dollar, gold briefly breeched the $1000 level yesterday along with oil hitting an all time high of $111 per barrel. I had a really strong suspicion that we’d see $1000 gold by mid-March.

Despite what Bernanke and Paulson said last summer, the housing bubble has spread to other parts of the economy and subprime mess has not been contained. In a last ditch effort to prevent banks from collapsing, the Federal Reserve announced a bailout of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other banks, promising to exchange bogus mortgages for Treasuries during a 28 day window. They named this Term Securities Lending Facility (TSLF) but it’s just a good old bail-out.

Kevin Kerr, editor of Global Resource Trader, thinks that natural gas prices are set to spike heading into winter. If you look at the charts of natural gas prices, it typically heads higher in the last few months of the year.

Kevin also thinks we’ll see oil at $100/barrel early next year. Check out his interesting video.

I spent most of Saturday listening to an investment presentation by some oil guys from Texas and Oklahoma. I come in contact with them on a previous deal. At that time I had shown their investment presentation to my CPA (who usually turns down every investment I show him) and he was so impressed, he decided to fly out and meet them. He’s become their accountant and is investing heavily in their current deal.

Incidentally, in the previous deal where I came across the oil guys, they were also investors like me in a gas pipeline deal in Texas. It was a pretty sweet deal and we should’ve gotten cashed out with a 30% profit after a year. Unfortunately our partner, Grant Wilson III, decided to swindle us out of the profits. After spending over a year with this jackass, subsidizing his travel and living expenses he just decided that he deserved all the profits and he’s disappeared. Luckily we got all our principle back.

Recently ConocoPhilips(COP) announced that it was going to walk-away from its investment in Venezuela. President Chavez had indicated that it was going to take-over COP’s operations in the Orinoco Valley. Rather than waste time with negotiating with a tinpot dictator and get pennies on the dollar, COP just decided to walk away.

It’ll probably just write off the entire $4.5 Billion as a loss. For some reason, the stock hasn’t reacted badly to this news at all. Today it gapped up and is trading at an all time high of $80.62!

Pretty interesting. If a loss of $5 Billion and future revenue won’t drop a stock, I wonder what will?

The stock has nearly quadrupled in the past 5 years. I was hoping bad news would drop it a little bit and provide a good entry point.

Yesterday, I bought some more Canadian Income Funds, also called Royalty Trusts or Canroys. As I mentioned before, I recently refinanced a property and I managed to pull some money out (totally tax-free!).

Rather than spend the money on an SUV or a big-screen TV, I opted to divide the money into 3 parts. The first 1/3rd went towards replenishing my emergency fund which was drawn down by vacancies in my rental properties. The second 1/3rd went towards future investments in summer just in case there’s a pullback in the stock market and the last 1/3rd went to building up my passive cash-flow.

Long time readers will realize that I haven’t made any effort display my net worth or any goals of net worth. That’s because I feel its a meaningless number. If I had a $1 million dollar net worth and it only generated $25,000 a year in income (like Cd’s did a few years ago) that’s pretty sad. On the other hand, if I owned a $1,000,000 car-wash that generated $125,000 that’s pretty significant.

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, the rush to produce ethanol has resulted in sharply higher prices for corn. Corn is used to feed cattle and pigs and as a result of the price increase, farmers are feeding their pigs trail mix, candy and Top Ramen noodles!

Besides trail mix, pigs and cattle are downing cookies, licorice, cheese curls, candy bars, french fries, frosted wheat cereal and peanut-butter cups. Some farmers mix chocolate powder with cereal and feed it to baby pigs. “It’s kind of like getting Cocoa Puffs,” says David Funderburke, a livestock nutritionist at Cape Fear Consulting in Warsaw, N.C., who helps Mr. Smith and other farmers formulate healthy diets for livestock.

California farmers are feeding farm animals grape-skins from vineyards and lemon-pulp from citrus groves. Cattle ranchers in spud-rich Idaho are buying truckloads of uncooked french fries, Tater Tots and hash browns.

I read an email today that mentioned China (who is already the planet’s largest coal consumer) claims it will need an extra 80 million tons by next January. India is also estimated to need an extra 120 million tons, and most other Asian countries are expected to increase demand by 7%.

According to Kevin Kerr, “Coal prices are going much higher than I thought. Keep an eye on those diesel prices too, they are already creeping up. These two markets are going to surge this summer, absolutely.”

Since I like to take advantage of investment opportunities whenever I come across them, I placed an order to sell PUT option contracts on James River Coal Company (JRCC). Its essentially a long position on the companies stock, which has nicely trended up 50% in the past several months.

I came across this article last night, 32 Reasons Why The Stock Market Will Jump This Year.

While its written as a serious prediction, I personally feel its more like a christmas wish list or a list of finalist answers at the Miss World Beauty Pagent!. Here are some of the gems

#1. Housing and Auto-manufacturing weakness will subside
Based on what? Major layoffs in both industries?

#5. Unemployment with stay at record lows.
Hmm…with the massive layoffs in Housing and Auto-manufacturing, you really think so?

#7. Inflation will continue to decelerate, with CPI averaging around 2.0%.
Hmm…ever since the minimum wage was jacked up, small business around where I live jacked up the price of everything along with it. That doesn’t sound like low inflation to me. Anyone who thinks that CPI is an accurate measure of inflation makes way too much money to begin with. Once you take out all the factors that cause inflation, of course you’ll be left with 2%. What a doofus.

A few weeks ago, I cursed the Canadian Finance Minister for causing my CanRoys to drop significantly overnight. I may have been premature in cursing him.

I originally bought them for the dividends that they were paying out, mostly in the 8-12% range, with the occasional one paying out 13-14%. However, the severe drop in prices caused their yields to jump proportionately to 12-17%. One of the companies I bought became a 19% yield! Even if Flaherty’s taxation of dividends became true, it would still be 4 years away and by then you would’ve gotten nearly 80% of your money back. Last week money started flowing back in Canroys. I picked up a little more on margin. The one I picked up, AAV currently gives a 17% yield. So even if I have to pay 9-10% margin interest I’m still ahead by 7%. Plus if Oil & Gas prices continue to rise which I think they will I’ll see some capital appreciation.

I got my first oil revenue check today! It was for a whopping $35.12!!!! At this rate it’ll take 30 years to get my money back! Its for a project where they’re drilling 10 wells in the Gulf of Mexico.

To be fair the operators had told me not to expect anything until December 2007, so atleast they’re doing something.

I also got an email from them saying that as a christmas present they’ll be sending me a copy of The Millionaire Maker. Its a good book but I don’t recommend the mentoring course.

We finally resolved the insurance issue on our Natural Gas pipeline deal in Texas. Now thats resolved we can finally turn it on and start making some money! Of course it’ll probably be about 4 months before we see any money, but the insurance issue cost us atleast 3 months worth of delays.

The Canadian Royalty Trusts [or Canroy's for short] sold off big today.[For a great post on Canroys, check out this post on Wealth Building Lessons.] People just dumped them. I lightened my load a little bit too. I sold about 15% of my Canroys and bought gold stocks instead.

I think a lot of it is an over-reaction. Even if the government does raise the taxes 40% some of them are yielding over 15% at these low levels. In the energy sector, between 40-60% of the dividend is termed as return of capital so its tax exempt.

So a 15% yield now becomes a 12.4% yield. Thats not so bad is it? What do you guys think?

Besides, on existing canroys theres a 4 year grace period. Maybe the next Canuck Finance Minister might reverse the decision.

I’d recently put a bit of money into Canadian Royalty Trusts – the Canadian equivalent of REITs here in the US. Now, thanks to the socialist Finance Minister I’m down 10% today!

Toronto stock market tumbles after Ottawa moves to tax income trusts
Wed Nov 1, 12:34 PM

TORONTO (CP) – Finance Minister Jim Flaherty created havoc Wednesday on Bay Street and Main Street as income trust investors suffered massive losses following his Halloween surprise announcement that trusts will be taxed.

The Toronto stock market’s main composite index tumbled more than 300 points in early trading, and late in the morning was off 223.23 at 12,123.36, a decline of 1.8 per cent.

The loss was much steeper for trusts, with the S&P/TSX income trust index down 10 1/2 per cent.

“I’m put out, not to put too fine a point on it,” declared Brendan Caldwell, president of brokerage firm Caldwell Securities Ltd.

Christian at InvestorGeeks.com thinks that Oil will stay in the $50-$60 range for a while and that the Dollar won’t continue it slide.

Opec just reported that its cutting production by 1.2 million barrels a day. This will definitely push the price of oil upwards.

No one knows where the price of oil or gas will go, but global demand will eventually push it upwards. The Energy Department isn’t promoting any alternative energy research so I don’t know where he think the alternative energy to substitute oil will come from.

I’m betting on oil prices going up and I don’t think pushing the price to $75/bbl will push our economy into recession. They might blame the coming recession on oil, but I doubt thats the main reason.

Woohoo!

I’m not actually jumping with joy, but I’m still quite pleased. Every dollar that oil goes up, my returns from the oil well I’ve invested in go up along with it.

My calculations on the returns was based on my crude oil selling $55 dollars per barrel. With oil trading at $78 I can expect to sell my lite sweet crude for roughly $68/barrel. Thats a 23% increase in profits with no change in expenses or production!

Sure my gas expenditure goes up, and eventually it will push up the price of almost everything else, but so long as I keep my profits higher than the amount of increase, I’m ahead.

Its always good to hedge one bets and diversify a little bit.

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I just read online that Syria just announced that it would start charging for its oil in euros instead of the tradition dollar. In researching this topic i found a very interesting article. Don’t know if its conspiracy theory or not, but its interesting reading nonetheless.

The Proposed Iranian Oil Bourse
here’s an excerpt.

The Proposed Iranian Oil Bourse
by Krassimir Petrov

I. Economics of Empires

A nation-state taxes its own citizens, while an empire taxes other nation-states. The history of empires, from Greek and Roman, to Ottoman and British, teaches that the economic foundation of every single empire is the taxation of other nations. The imperial ability to tax has always rested on a better and stronger economy, and as a consequence, a better and stronger military. One part of the subject taxes went to improve the living standards of the empire; the other part went to strengthen the military dominance necessary to enforce the collection of those taxes.