Here are five stocks added to the Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) List today:
Intesa Sanpaolo (ISNPY- Free Report) : This new banking group which has leadership in the Italian market and a strong international presence focussed on Central-Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean basin, has seen the Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current year earnings increasing 11.3% over the last 60 days.
Swedbank (SWDBY- Free Report) : This leading Nordic-Baltic banking group with retail customers and corporate customers in Sweden, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, has seen the Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current year earnings increasing 9.1% over the last 60 day.
MARKEL GROUP (MKL- Free Report) : This company which markets and underwrites specialty insurance products in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and internationally, has seen the Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current year earnings increasing 5.2% over the last 60 days.
Group 1 Automotive (GPI- Free Report) : This company which is one of the leading automotive retailers in the world, has seen the Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current year earningsincreasing 4.9% over the last 60 days.
Bausch Health (BHC- Free Report) : This company which develops, manufactures and markets a wide array of branded, generic and branded generic pharmaceuticals, over-the-counter (OTC) products along with medical devices, has seen the Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current year earnings increasing 4.7% over the last 60 days.
Despite regional realignment, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia are squaring off over gas and territory at the northern tip of the Arabian Gulf, writes Salah Nasrawi
The rhetoric is once again rising along the strategic northern end of the Arabian Gulf, where four countries are involved in competing narratives over national sovereignty and territorial waters, raising fears of a return to disputes of a kind last seen four decades ago.
Though the spat seems to be over two separate issues, the disputes are increasingly overlapping, and they could bring the four neighbouring nations of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia into a broader regional flare-up.
The row intensified after Kuwaiti Oil Minister Saad Al-Barrak declared on 27 July that his country would commence drilling and production in the Al-Durra offshore gas field that Kuwait claims jointly with Saudi Arabia.
Iran also says it has rights to the field, which it refers to as Arash, which in Farsi mythology means a heroic archer.
The gas field, whose recoverable reserves are estimated at some 220 billion cubic metres (nearly eight trillion cubic feet) of gas, was discovered in 1967 and has long been a focal point of contention between the three countries that disagree over the boundaries of their territorial waters.
In 2000, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia made an agreement to share sovereignty over the area, and in 2022 the Saudi oil company Aramco and the Kuwait Gulf Oil Company signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to jointly develop the Al-Durra which means pearl in Arabic.
The development aims at producing one billion cubic feet of gas and 84,000 barrels of liquified natural gas (LNG) per day.
Iran has remained firmly opposed to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia’s claims to the field, which it says is situated in the neutral zone between Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iran. It has threatened to commence drilling in Al-Durra to explore and exploit the field.
Iran and Kuwait have held unsuccessful talks for years over their disputed maritime border area, which is rich in natural gas, but no deal has been reached. Recent attempts to revive the negotiations have failed, and Iran has said it may pursue work in the field even without an agreement.
Surprisingly, the escalation has come amid a growing diplomatic thaw between the Gulf Arab nations and Iran after years of icy relations. The rapprochement was made possible by a China-brokered deal under which Iran and Saudi Arabia resumed formal diplomatic ties after a years-long rupture.
The diplomatic breakthrough opened the door to a larger normalisation process intended to dial down tensions in the region, which is beset with old, deep, and seemingly intractable conflicts and regional geopolitical competition.
Improved ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia have revived hopes that the three countries will resume talks on maritime border issues, known as the Partitioned Neutral Zone (PNZ), and finalise an agreement on the Al-Durra field.
Capitalising on the Iran-Saudi deal, Kuwait invited Iran for a new round of talks last month to try to resolve their maritime border dispute after Tehran said it was ready to start drilling in the Al-Durra field.
Tehran reacted quickly to the Kuwaiti oil minister’s statement, its own Oil Minister Javad Owji said that Iran is ready to “make use of this field jointly and that we regard this as the [undeniable] right of the Islamic Republic of Iran”.
“We will not give up even one iota of Iran’s right to make use of the Arash field,” Owji told reporters last Wednesday.
In response, the Kuwaiti and Saudi authorities said in a joint statement last Thursday that “they alone have full sovereign rights to exploit the wealth in that area.” The two countries renewed “their previous and repeated calls to the Islamic Republic of Iran to negotiate” the demarcation of maritime borders to settle the issue.
Meanwhile, another border dispute has been unfolding further to the north around the strategic waterway of Khawr Abdullah between Iraq and Kuwait that threatens to spark a larger crisis over the two countries’ UN-demarcated border.
The dispute permeates the entire history of modern Iraq, as successive Iraqi governments since the modern state of Iraq came into being in 1923 have not accepted the British-drawn borders that established Kuwait as a separate sheikhdom after the signature of the Anglo-Ottoman Convention of 1913.
Iraq’s main objection remains that the British-drawn border line denies their state a proper outlet to the Arabian Gulf. It effectively mortgages Iraq’s transportation route in Khawr Abdullah to Kuwait.
Iraq also complains that Kuwait’s management of the waterway and its construction work there impedes Iraqi efforts to build a multi-billion dollar port on the Gulf.
Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein ordered Iraqi forces to invade oil-rich Kuwait in August 1990, annexing it and declaring it to be Iraq’s 19th province before being driven out seven months later by an international coalition led by the United States.
The recent escalation began when a memorandum by Iraq’s Minister of Transport Razak Al-Saadawi was leaked to the media in which he suggested that the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs “contest” a 30-year-old UN resolution that finally defined the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border.
In the memo, the minister complains that Iraq’s efforts to expand its port in Al-Faw and other maritime facilities are being hampered by “increasing [Kuwaiti] encroachment on its sovereign territorial waters” in the northern end of the Gulf.
Al-Saadawi stressed that the 1993 UN-imposed demarcation has “inflicted damage on Iraq by denying it its sea outlet and its historical maritime rights.”
“We are morally and patriotically obliged to declare the UN’s [measure] as nonbinding,” he was quoted as writing in the memo.
Though the Iraqi government later played down the minister’s suggestion, Kuwait dispatched its Foreign Minister Salem Abdullah Al-Jaber Al-Sabah to find out what was on the mind of the Iraqi leaders and to try to contain the escalation.
After meeting Al-Sabah, Iraqi Foreign Minister Fouad Hussein said that during their talks “the emphasis was placed on resolving border issues.”
He told reporters that the border talks would “continue through various technical committees” with a group of legal experts to meet on 14 August.
Government officials in Iraq and Kuwait have avoided making public statements on the bickering, probably in order to avoid a further flare-up, but politicians on both sides have nevertheless talked up the border dispute, some apparently for reasons of political opportunism.
Al-Sabah stirred public fury when he told reporters that the governor of Basra, an Iraqi province neighbouring Kuwait, had agreed to evict residents in Umm Qasr who have remained opposed to the demarcation process, saying that the new border has robbed them of property and territory.
Social media was awash with comments by Iraqis, some of whom were MPs or figures in political parties, blasting the government for its “complacency” and demanding a review of the UN demarcation of the border or even repeating the old narrative of an Iraqi claim over Kuwait.
Forty eight lawmakers have also asked the Iraqi parliament to open a debate on the UN-demarcated border. In their letter to the speaker, the MPs, mostly representing Iran-backed Shia groups, vowed that “not one single inch of Iraqi land” would be surrendered to Kuwait.
In Kuwait, newspapers and social media commentators displayed anti-Iraqi sentiments ranging from mockery and stereotypes to xenophobia and recalling Iraq’s invasion of their country in blaming the Iraqi hostility towards Kuwait.
Another mantra repeated by many Kuwaitis, mostly Sunni Muslims, is that post-US-invasion Iraq is dominated by pro-Iranian Shias and that these could be just as threatening as an Iraq led by the Sunni Saddam.
“We have been used to these media or parliamentary voices coming from Iraq. They are either ignorant or simply barking,” wrote former Kuwaiti information minister Saad bin Tefllah Al-Ajami in a newspaper column.
After Kuwait’s liberation from the Iraqi occupation in 1991, Saddam formally accepted UN resolutions appointing the organisation to assist in making arrangements with Iraq and Kuwait to demarcate the boundary between them.
The UN Iraq-Kuwait Boundary Demarcation Commission was established to help define the border between the two countries, its mandate saying that its decisions regarding the demarcation of the boundary would be final.
The UN Security Council also provided a map for the demarcation and decided to “guarantee the inviolability of the international boundary and to take as appropriate all necessary measures to that end in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.”
At a closer look, however, the two disputes seem inseparable not because they are playing out at the same time and in the same place, but because border rows in general have a detrimental effect on regional geopolitics. The conflict could become even more significant as huge natural resources are involved.
It is evident that whether it is maritime rights or energy deposits in the still un-demarcated narrow northern tip of the Arabian Gulf, the dispute is four-fold and involves Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.
While the Iraqi-Kuwaiti territorial waters are still to be delineated, Iraq could easily pivot its strategic attention and show an interest in the hydrocarbon-rich waters as well, arguing that the Al-Durra field boundaries could extend northwards towards the poorly defined border zone.
Increasing tension between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia with Iran will also deepen the alignment between Tehran and the Iran-backed groups in Iraq that have a big say in Baghdad and are believed to be behind the recent escalation.
The two disputes in the Gulf could jeopardise the swell of diplomatic deals that have rolled across the region since the landmark Saudi-Iranian rapprochement in March. They have the potential to serve as the underlying drivers of conflicts that remain unresolved and could reverse the entire normalisation trajectory in the region.
PDK Note: I will only transcribe RV Related or Intel with Financial relevance. If any certain podcast is mainly about politics and social opinions or any political-type picture posted on Marks videos I will not do any notes. So if there are no notes transcribed…there usually was little to no RV news at all included in that particular podcast.
MarkZ Update- Some highlights by PDK-Not verbatim
MarkZ Disclaimer: Please consider everything on this call as my opinion. People who take notes do not catch everything and its best to watch the video so that you get everything in context. Be sure to consult a professional for any financial decisions
Member: Good morning everyone! happy Tuesday!
Member: RV there yet or at least seeing the finish line ???
Member: This day in history:On August 8, 1786, the US Dollar was established as a national currency and system of value exchange, backed by precious metal.
Member: 08/08/1974 – Nixon announces that he will leave the White House at noon the next day, “I am not a crook!”
Member: Militia man seemed happy on his last video. maybe it's soon :)
MZ: Militiaman did a good one-“Iraqi Dinar - Accession to the Global Stage – WTO” It is well worth listening to. He gives his opinion of expecting something to happen “very soon” .
Member: Agree MarkZ, MM was spot on last night! And he seemed “giddy”.
MZ: Things are still very quiet. Searching for a bond contact is very difficult. I am hopeful this means things are well underway. My messages go straight to voicemail which means they are being quiet for a reason.
Member: Nda's…we hope.
Member: Mark- do you have any idea how we will be notified of RV here in Australia?
MZ: Same way everybody else finds out. A couple banking contacts say they will reach out to Recaps and other aggregating sites to send out the information ….a standardized list of instructions to let you know what to do. …where to go…ect.
Member: Plus Mark, Frank, TNT, Bruce and many others will be letting us know. You won’t miss it.
Member: Markets sell off just now! Dow going down!! Let’s hope it keeps lowering.
Member: Dow down 391.00
Member: Mark -- are you still under impression that Dong will go with the Dinar? I sure hope so.
Member: I think we are waiting for BRICS to announce the new gold backed currency on aug 22…to get things started.
Member: BRICS - Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa - haven’t formally announced the creation of a new currency but more than 40 countries are already indicating their interest to join the bloc according to Anil Sooklal, South Africa’s ambassador to BRICS.
Member: after BRICS meeting. I wonder -can we do multi currency account. then travel to the countries for their revalue?
Member: Wish we as individuals could join BRICS.
Member: I wonder if we have to be publicly gold backed before we RV?
Member: A banker was said to have told a customer who asked about the new offices…was told it was for currency exchanges. He was asked if he had any and he said “ dong and rate will be $3 per dont”
MZ: We had something similar happen in several different areas.
Member: What country is the bolivar from?
Member: Venezuela…..hope it revalues well.
MZ: “Just when you think banks are safe again, Moody’s sounds the alarm” To anyone that has studied economics- the writing is all over the wall.
Member: Major U.S. banks lose $262 billion in deposits; Heartland Tri-State Bank collapses:
Member: the failure of Heartland Tri-State Bank of Elkhart, Kansas, on July 28, with all customer deposits transferred to Dream First Bank, National Association (N.A.), also based in Kansas.
Member: Bank story: Bank says I still don't have any money in my account!
Member: We need Nesara/Gesara to happen worldwide….everywhere
Member: Yes, WhiteHats- stop coddling the sleepers, pull the lever already, time to start healing the land and our people.
Member: Oh, being in debt is an absolute blast! It's like a never-ending vacation in the land of bills, interest rates, and financial acrobatics. Who needs extra money, anyway?
Member: “The greatest evils in the world will not be carried out by guns, but by men in suits sitting behind desks.” C.S. Lewis
Member: What ever happened to arrests and indictments of the deep state….it seems to have just “gone away”?????
Member: Julie Green this morning title was Whistleblowers are coming that Will Destroy many in DC.
Member: It's amazing to me how other countries are talking about what's going on in the US. But you don't see any of in on our MSM.
Member: Life unfolds like a whimsical story, written by a mischievous author who delights in weaving together the crazy and surreal into our everyday experiences.
Member: Thanks Mark and Mods….hoping for some RV news by tonight…see you all then.
God Bless everyone
THE INFORMATION IN THIS PODCAST IS FOR GENERAL & EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. NOT INTENDED TO PROVIDE ANY PROFESSIONAL & LEGAL ADVICE. PLEASE CONSIDER EVERYTHING DISCUSSED IS MARKZ ’S OPINION ONLY.
Monthly dividend stocks have instant appeal for many income investors. Stocks that pay their dividends each month offer more frequent payouts than traditional quarterly or semi-annual dividend payers.
For this reason, we created a full list of 84 monthly dividend stocks.
You can download our full Excel spreadsheet of all monthly dividend stocks(along with metrics that matter like dividend yield and payout ratio) by clicking on the link below:
The following 20 monthly dividend stocks have
high dividend yieldsabove 5%. Stocks are listed by their dividend yields, from lowest to highest.
The list excludes oil and gas royalty trust, which have extreme fluctuations in their dividend payouts from one quarter to the next due to the underlying volatility of commodity prices.
You can instantly jump to an individual section of the article by utilizing the links below:
