Oil Industry Gets $1 Billion Tax Tweak in GOP's Senate Bill
Senate Republicans included a tax break estimated to be worth more than $1 billion for oil and gas producers in their version of President Donald Trump's sprawling fiscal package.
The provision would allow energy companies subject to a 15% corporate alternative minimum tax to deduct certain drilling costs when calculating their taxable income. Companies including ConocoPhillips, Ovintiv Inc. and Civitas Resources, Inc. lobbied in favor of it.
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Forbes
20 minutes ago
- Forbes
Gold = Conflict = Energy = Platinum
The missiles are aimed at the sky at sunset. Nuclear bomb, chemical weapons, missile defense, a ... More system of salvo fire. Regular readers of my articles will know I like to doodle on charts, and that overall, my simplistic crayon technical analysis tends to provide a useful guide. This is because I prefer simple situations, and simple charts simply show the simple outcomes of the big picture driving prices. I also like long-term charts because they filter out short-term noise and reveal the long-term trends where the big money is made. So, here is a rendition of the above: The gold chart: a friendly trend for the next few years In my book of chart setups, you couldn't really get a more bullish chart, but if you threw the chart away and looked at the fundamentals, you would have to say there are also super-bullish. In true internet troll style, I've been saying that gold is for war, but dialing that back, you can certainly say 'gold is for conflict.' If you do, it's hard to guess the top of this bull market. Some time ago, I set it initially at $3,500, but I moved it to $5,000 when the chart unfolded. This is the destination in my mind now. From the chart, you can see the market expects it could go much higher, but it's a probability, not fate. A chart is just a time-decayed summation of all needs and expectations, and the theory goes that the hive mind of a market is a pretty good guesser. A chart is simply a record of the evolution of the hive mind's thinking, and my interpretation is very bullish for gold – and sadly, a bit bearish for humanity. Unfortunately, the value of gold is often inversely related to the value of life, and as the tempo of conflict rises, so does gold. Yet, since only markets speak truth to power, I'm happy to participate. I've been talking about platinum here, and I hope you took note because it has rallied. This is a chart from the article on May 15th: The platinum and silver charts compared This is what happened next: The platinum chart: what happened next It's still performing well, as are silver and palladium. With my internet troll hat on, I'll say platinum is going to parity with gold. It might not happen exactly, but you get the inference. Gold = platinum was a long-term lock, and with less than 200 tonnes of platinum (and, for that matter, palladium) produced annually, why wouldn't it now return to that level as the planned banning of internal combustion engines is evaporating? Not everyone has gotten the memo, but energy demand and production are set to increase tenfold over the next 20 years, heralding a new era. Why? Because of AI. There is no limit to the demand for intelligence. AI = energy + silicon, and there is no second place. So, the energy kraken is unleashed – cannons be damned – as the periodic table comes back into fashion.
Yahoo
20 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Editorial: Want to know how a socialist mayor would govern New York City? Ask Chicago
A major city. A heated mayoral election. A familiar dilemma: a moderate, business-friendly Democrat versus a democratic socialist. New Yorkers, take it from Chicago — we've seen this movie before, and the ending isn't pretty. New Yorkers will cast their ballots Tuesday in New York's mayoral primary, where 11 candidates are vying to win the Democratic primary in America's largest city. Frontrunner and former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is in a tight race against New York state assembly member Zohran Mamdani. Mamdani wants to freeze rents, open city-owned grocery stores, provide bus service for 'free,' tax corporations and the 1%, and increase the minimum wage to $30, among other left-wing positions that differ greatly from Cuomo. Most of Mamdani's ideas are shared (at least in principle) by Mayor Brandon Johnson, and many of them are popular in blue cities. But experience has taught us here that far-left candidates do not make for effective or popular municipal executives in today's stressful economy. Johnson tried to float a $300 million tax hike — and failed. He tried to pass a 'mansion tax' that would've hiked the real estate transfer tax — and failed. He's built too few affordable housing units for too much money. He's isolated himself from many of the state and federal officials he hopes will come to his financial rescue, and he's done egregious special favors for the people who got him elected — namely, pushing an incredibly costly new contract with the Chicago Teachers Union. He forced out a highly competent schools chief who wouldn't cow to his desire to borrow recklessly. His city is broke, but he wants to spend more. The list goes on. Johnson's approval rating cratered in his second year — a reflection of how quickly progressive promises collapsed under the weight of governance and Chicago's financial reality. What sounded good in theory has translated into dysfunction, driven by fiscal missteps and political inexperience. Johnson is one of the most progressive mayors in the U.S., but Mamdani, inarguably, is yet more radical. In the end, the New York mayoral race likely will come down to voter turnout. Unfortunately, like most places, voter participation in New York has steadily declined, dropping from 93% of registered voters in 1953 to 57% in 1993 to just over 20% of registered voters in the 2021 mayoral election. A new Marist College poll shows Cuomo leading Mamdani 55-45 in a ranked-choice tally. However, the same poll finds Mamdani with a 34-point advantage over Cuomo among voters under 45, and young voters have turned out during early voting. The wild card is cross-endorsement. Mamdani and fellow candidate Brad Lander have done just that in a bid to take down Cuomo. Unlike Chicago's nonpartisan runoff system, New York uses ranked choice voting, allowing voters to list up to five candidates in order of preference. If no candidate gets a majority of first-choice votes, the one with the fewest is eliminated and those ballots are redistributed to voters' next choices. This process repeats until one candidate receives more than 50% and is declared the winner. We're intrigued by New York's ranked choice process, which offers voters the chance to express their preferences more fully and encourages candidates to pursue broader support than do traditional voting processes. Turnout for the mayoral primary in Chicago was abysmally low — just 36% of registered voters cast a ballot in the 2023 primary. We blame that, in part, on the city's decision to hold these primary elections during the harshest weather we face all year, in the heart of February, though vote by mail exists as a remedy for folks who don't wish to brave the cold on their way to the polls. Low turnout makes it easier for radicals to capture public office. And that's a mistake we hope New Yorkers don't make. If New Yorkers are frustrated with Mayor Eric Adams, they should be careful not to trade him for someone who might preside over a city that is less competitive and less financially secure. Trust us — we've living that reality. Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@
Yahoo
20 minutes ago
- Yahoo
10 Reasons Every American Adult Should Invest in the Stock Market
Investing can be scary, and there are many horror stories out there. But investing can also be simple and boring. If done right, history shows that losing money in the stock market is unlikely on a long-term basis. These 10 stocks could mint the next wave of millionaires › Investing can be daunting for many reasons. Stocks, index funds, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) go down all the time, and the market has been extremely volatile, especially since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. Furthermore, most people are investing money they will need in the future, and nobody can predict the future. That said, 62% of Americans reported owning a stock in 2025, according to a Gallup poll. Here are 10 reasons every American adult should invest in the stock market. The main reason most retail investors buy stocks, index funds, or ETFs is because they want to start saving for retirement. I don't need to tell anyone that life is expensive when you consider the cost of paying a mortgage or rent, food, transportation, and clothing, among many other expenses. These expenses can eat up a large portion of your paycheck, which is why people need to think about ways to grow their wealth over time. Investing allows people to do this while they work and sleep. Most investors have likely read stories about people investing in meme stocks like GameStop back in 2020 or some small cryptocurrency that no one has ever heard of. Rarely, someone does strike it big, but often, people end up losing their money on these high-risk trades. That roller coaster ride certainly isn't for everyone, and rightfully so, because many people need every last dollar they can save and can't afford to make overly risky bets. Luckily, investing can be quite boring if you invest in an index fund or ETF that buys a basket of diverse stocks set up to generate steady returns for patient investors that stay invested for years if not decades. Many investors with a long-term horizon invest in the broader benchmark S&P 500 index. According to data from Berkshire Hathaway, the S&P 500 has generated compound annual gains of 10.4%, including dividends, between 1965 and 2024, for an overall gain of 39,054%. That means $1 invested in 1965 would be worth $390.54 now. While the S&P 500 can be volatile on a short-term basis, the longer one stays invested, the more likely they are to make money. This is generally because long-term investors aren't trying to time the market, so they ride out generally short-term downturns and profit from recoveries. Now, investors may be concerned that the S&P 500 is too heavily concentrated by a group of stocks called the "Magnificent Seven,"+ meaning diversification in the broader benchmark index is less than it used to be. This is true. A group of large companies specializing in tech and artificial intelligence have taken the market by storm. Stocks like Nvidia and Apple now have market caps well over $1 trillion, a feat that used to be unthinkable. For investors who want to avoid this concentration, there are ways to buy an equal-weighted S&P 500 fund that removes the weighting of each stock. Investing requires patience, but if you trust the process, you'll realize that you can accumulate more wealth than you may have ever thought possible. This is due to the power of compounding. For instance, let's say you're just starting your career and don't have a lot of spare cash to invest but manage to scrape together $500. If you invested that money in the S&P 500, assume long-term historical returns of 10.4%, and add just $100 to your portfolio a year for 30 years, that initial $500 will grow into over $27,000. All you have to do is wait patiently. Also, as your career advances, you will likely have more disposable cash to invest, which will significantly enhance your returns. Now, a lot of risk-averse people may simply care too much about their money to trust the market, and I can certainly understand this sentiment. Unfortunately, keeping money in a checking account that doesn't earn anything will actually lose you money. This is because of inflation, in which consumer prices generally rise over time. Just think about how much prices have risen from before the pandemic in 2020 to now. If you kept your money in a checking account, its value stayed the same, but the price of pretty much everything else rose, leading to a loss of purchasing power. Many people are investing through an individual retirement account (IRA) or a 401(k) through an employer. In these cases, the U.S. tax code actually allows people to deduct a certain amount of contributions from the income they earn that will be taxed, leading to a lower tax bill. The limits in 2025 for an IRA are $7,000 per year for those under 50 and up to $23,500 for a 401(k). It can definitely make a difference. There's more than one way to invest. Some people buy large, very safe blue chip stocks; some buy stocks for their dividends; and some are more aggressive and make risky bets, hoping that one big win will make up for all the other losses, similar to a venture capitalist. The point is that you can invest in different strategies, sectors, regions, etc. Speaking to a financial advisor can be helpful because they can assess your current financial situation and your risk tolerance to develop a good investment strategy for you. When most people have money, they want to spend it. This tempts all of us to make purchases that we may want but don't necessarily need. By putting a certain amount of money each year into a retirement account or portfolio, people are removing some of these temptations and reinforcing smart spending habits. As I mentioned earlier, each dollar invested can go a long way due to the power of compounding, so each dollar we don't invest subtracts from your future wealth. It would be wonderful if everyone had financial freedom all the time, but that just isn't realistic. However, most people need more money as they get older because they have more responsibilities, whether it's starting a family, buying a house, or dealing with higher medical bills. If you invest younger when you typically have less responsibility, you'll be happy you have an investment portfolio that you can use later on if needed or that you aren't stressing about retirement. More than a few disciplined and patient investors have achieved financial freedom much earlier than they likely ever thought possible by starting early. Ever feel like you missed the boat in buying the most successful stocks? Then you'll want to hear this. On rare occasions, our expert team of analysts issues a 'Double Down' stock recommendation for companies that they think are about to pop. If you're worried you've already missed your chance to invest, now is the best time to buy before it's too late. And the numbers speak for themselves: Nvidia: if you invested $1,000 when we doubled down in 2009, you'd have $373,066!* Apple: if you invested $1,000 when we doubled down in 2008, you'd have $38,158!* Netflix: if you invested $1,000 when we doubled down in 2004, you'd have $664,089!* Right now, we're issuing 'Double Down' alerts for three incredible companies, available when you join , and there may not be another chance like this anytime soon.*Stock Advisor returns as of June 9, 2025 Bram Berkowitz has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. 10 Reasons Every American Adult Should Invest in the Stock Market was originally published by The Motley Fool Sign in to access your portfolio
