Price of a Gallon of Gasoline Around the World and Across the US

You may have been reading about the gas shortage in the United Kingdom, with long lines forming at the pumps. Even if British drivers can find a gas station with petroleum available, they may have to wait over an hour to fill their tank.

Hopefully, this won’t happen in the United States like it did in the 1970s.

Yet, the price of gasoline at the pump in the US, has been increasing with prices around six dollars gallon for high octane gas in California.

Have you ever wondered how the US gas prices compare to other countries and how prices compare across the United States? The following is a selection of prices per gallon in US dollars from various American cities and countries around the world, based on recent averages.

Prices per Gallon of Gasoline Around the World

Hong Kong	$9.72
Italy	$7.43
UK	$7.08
Switzerland	$6.62
Japan	$5.29
India	$5.26
US – San Francisco	$4.69
Canada	$4.64
US – Los Angeles	$4.64
China	$4.44
Australia	$4.29
US – Chicago	$4.23
Mexico	$4.18
US – New York	$3.62
US – AVERAGE	$3.54
US – Oklahoma City	$3.25
US – Austin	$3.18
Russia	$2.61
Saudi Arabia	$2.35
Iran	$0.23
Venezuela	$0.08

Investing in Old Collectable Baseball Cards: How to Get a Share for Free

by Fred Fuld III

Did you collect baseball cards or other sports cards when you were a kid? Did you save your collection?

Hopefully you did, and hopefully your collection is in good condition, because you could be sitting on a lot of money.

If your mother threw away your collection after you moved out, not to worry. You can still build your collection again, albeit at a much higher price.

Some investors are even looking at sports cards and other memorabilia as long term investments and short term trading vehicles.

This is done through shares in these cards, just like shares of stock, through a company called Collectable, and the shares are registered with the SEC.

The company offers IPOs (Initial Public Offerings) in shares of rare sports cards. After 90 days, the shares start trading like regular stocks.

Collectible has already had substantial buyout offers on some of its cards. Just one example from a few months ago. Collectable received an offer to buy out the Wilt Chamberlain 1954 High School Full Uniform for $632,000. The uniform was IPOed on Collectable on December 10, 2020, for $316,000. The asset had been trading on Collectable’s secondary market at $442,400.

As another example, back inn April, Collectable received an offer to acquire a 1979 Wayne Gretzky card for $225,000 which had its IPO in December at $67,000. Including Collectable’s equity interests in the offering and broker dealer transaction fees, the offer represented a 213.8% premium over the price investors paid on the IPO.

Collectable is now offering a free share of a collectable sports card or other memorabilia, just for signing up. They give you a free share and me a free share.

If you are interested, click HERE.

Just remember, I never recommend collectables as investments. Don’t forget to check out my article called Last month I bought a Racehorse, an NFT, and a Collectable Baseball Card: Are We In a Bubble?

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Stocks Going Ex Dividend in October 2021

The following is a short list of some of the many stocks going ex dividend during the next month.

Many traders and investors use the stock trading technique called ‘Buying Dividends,’ also commonly referred to as ‘Dividend Capture.’ This is the strategy of buying stocks before the ex dividend date and selling the stock shortly after the ex date at about the same price, yet still being entitled to the dividend.

This technique generally works in bull markets and flat or choppy markets, but you need to avoid the strategy during bear markets. In order to be entitled to the dividend, you have to buy the stock before the ex-dividend date, and you can’t sell the stock until after the ex date.

The actual dividend may not be paid for another few weeks. WallStreetNewsNetwork.com has compiled a downloadable and sortable list of the stocks going ex dividend in the near future. The list contains many dividend paying companies, lots with market caps over $500 million, and some with yields over 2%. Here are a few examples showing the stock symbol, the ex-dividend date, the periodic dividend amount.

Physicians Realty Trust (DOC)	10/1/2021	0.23	5.02%
J P Morgan Chase & Co (JPM)	10/5/2021	1.00	2.45%
Oracle Corporation (ORCL)	10/8/2021	0.32	1.42%
Abbott Laboratories (ABT)	10/14/2021	0.45	1.45%
Lowe’s Companies, Inc. (LOW)	10/19/2021	0.80	1.54%
Clorox Company (CLX)	10/26/2021	1.16	2.82%
Texas Instruments (TXN)	10/29/2021	1.15	2.29%

The additional ex-dividend stocks can be found HERE . (If you have been to the page before, and the latest link doesn’t show up, you may have to empty your cache.) If you like dividend stocks, you should check out some of the other high yield stock lists at WSTNN.com HERE .

Dividend definitions:

Declaration date: the day that the company declares that there is going to be an upcoming dividend.

Ex-dividend date: the day on which if you buy the stock, you would not be entitled to that particular dividend; or the first day on which a shareholder can sell the shares and still be entitled to the dividend.

Record date: the day when you must be on the company’s books as a shareholder to receive the dividend. The ex-dividend date is normally set for stocks at two business days before the record date.

Payment date: the day on which the dividend payment is actually made, which can be as long at two months after the ex date.

Don’t forget to reconfirm the ex-dividend date with the company before implementing this technique.

Disclosure: Author did not own any of the above at the time the article was written; affiliate links are on this page.

Stocks with Big Insider Buying

by Fred Fuld III

An insider is an executive officer or a director of a corporation, or an individual or company that owns more than 10% of the company.

When an insider buys stock in their own company, it is usually for a reason. It is usually because the prospects of a company look good and the stock is favorably priced. If an insider sells, it is often the opposite, although sometimes they need to sell to raise cash for various reasons. This is why insider buying is a better indicator than insider selling.

Of course, insiders are not allowed to trade on what is called “insider information”, which is significant non-public information.

However, insiders can invest based on their “feel” for the company. This is where the average stock investor or trader can use this to their advantage, because all insider transactions must be reported to the SEC.

Some stocks have had a substantial increase in insider buying, with several of them in the financial sector.

All of the following stocks have had over a 90% increase in insider buying during the last six months, and they all have a trailing price-to-earnings ratio and a forward P/E ratio of less than 15.

Company	Symbol	P/E Ratio
Artisan Partners Asset Mgmt.	APAM	11.04
StoneCastle Financial Corp.	BANX	5.11
TCG BDC, Inc.	CGBD	5.61
Finance Of America	FOA	0.34
GMS Inc.	GMS	14.56
Western Alliance Bancorp	WAL	14.02

Happy investing!

Disclosure: Author didn’t own any of the above at the time the article was written.

Heavily Shorted Debt Free Stocks

by Fred Fuld III

Many of the meme stocks, such as GameStop (GME) and AMC (AMC), have shot up in price several times because of the fact that they have been heavily shorted and subject to a short squeeze.

So if you are looking for other heavily shorted stocks, you might want to check out the stocks which have a large portion of their float shorted, and in addition, have low or no debt. If a company has no debt, it is hard for them to go out of business.

Here is a review of the short squeeze and its terminology. When you short a stock, it means that your goal is to make money from a drop in the price of a stock. Technically, what happens is that you borrow shares of a stock, sell those shares, then buy back those shares at a hopefully lower price so that those shares can be returned. This all happens electronically, so you don’t actually see all the borrowing and returning of shares; it just shows up on your screen as a negative number of shares.

Short selling can be profitable, but sometimes when the stock moves against the short sellers, and begins to rise, the short sellers jump in right away to buy shares to cover their positions, creating what is called a short squeeze. When a short squeeze takes place, it can cause the share prices to increase fast and furiously. Any good news can trigger the short squeeze.

Some traders utilize this situation by looking for stocks to buy that may have a potential short squeeze. Here is what a short squeeze trader should take into consideration:

Short Percentage of Float ~ The float is the number of freely tradable shares and the short percentage is the number of shares held short divided by the float. Amounts over 10% to 20% are considered high and potential short squeeze plays.

Short Ratio / Days to Cover / Short Interest Ratio -This is probably the most important metric when looking for short squeeze trades, no matter what you call it. This is the number of days it would take the short sellers to cover their position based on the average daily volume of shares traded. This is a significant ratio as it shows how “stuck” the short sellers are when they want to buy in their shares without driving up the price too much. Unfortunately for the shortsellers, the longer the number of days to cover, the bigger and longer the squeeze.

Short Percentage Increase ~ This is the percentage increase in in the number of short sellers from the previous month.

Check out the following list, but be aware, that often some stocks are heavily shorted for a reason. All these stocks have significant short metrics.

Big 5 Sporting Goods (BGFV) has over 45% of its float shorted and no long term debt. The percentage shorted has increased by 15% over last month. In addition, the stock has a short interest ratio, also known as a Days to Cover Ratio, of 5.9. This means that it would take almost six days for short sellers to cover their position, based on recent volume. The stock trades at 5.5 times trailing earnings. It is a sporting goods retailer in the western United States.

OppFi Inc. (OPFI) has 12.3$ of its float shorted. The short entered has had a one month increase of 6% and a short interest ratio of 4.4. The company operates a financial technology platform.

Sunlight Financial Holdings (SUNL) is another debt free company that has over 10% of of its float shorted. The percentage shorted has increased by 9% over last month. Plus, the stock has a short interest ratio of 6.0. The company provides a financing platform for solar installation.

Happy squeezing!

Evan Nierman: Crisis PR Expert: Exclusive Interview

by Fred Fuld III

The following informative interview was provided by Evan Nierman, a crisis public relations expert, and founder and CEO of Red Banyan, a crisis communications company. He is also the author of the the book Crisis Averted: PR Strategies to Protect Your Reputation and the Bottom Line. I previously reviewed the book a few days ago.

If you are wondering what to do if you are confronted by aggressive reporters, or even if you are hit with a reputation crisis that you didn’t expect, you should listen to this. This interview covers the following:

Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos and her court case
What crisis public relations is
Strategies for dealing with a crisis
The difference between a business crisis and a PR crisis
Dealing with reporters
and much more!

The Evan Nierman Interview

Enjoy listening to the great insights and information that Evan Nierman provides.

To stream the interview, click:

HERE

It may take a few seconds to load. You can also download the interview as an mp3 by right-clicking (or Control clicking) HERE and choosing “save as”

The Crisis Averted Book

The book Crisis Averted is available through Amazon and other book stores.

More Information

More information can be found about Evan Nieman and crisis management at RedBanyon.com.

Enjoy the interview!

All opinions are those of Evan Nierman, and do not represent the opinions of this site or the interviewer. Neither this site, nor the interviewer, nor the interviewee are rendering tax, legal, or investment advice in this interview.

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Investing in Hollywood Memorabilia? Like Rocky & Rambo? Check This Out!

For fans of Sylvester Stallone, y0u have a great opportunity coming up. Many of the items from his career will be auctioned off.

Julien’s Auctions will be holding an auction at their location in Beverly Hills and also live online on Sunday, December 5. It will feature many items from the award winning actor, writer, and director Sylvester Stallone.

Several sets of boxing gloves will be auctioned off, including the set from Rocky III.

One of the more interesting set of items is Stallone’s set of handwritten notebooks with story ideas for the first four Rocky films.

Also, a collection of Rambo knives will be featured in the auction, along with a headband worn by Stallone in Rambo: First Blood Part II.

Happy bidding!

“Every champion was once a contender who refused to give up.” – Rocky Balboa

Picture source: Wikipedia – designated as public domain

This page contains affiliate links.

Why Not Invest in Einstein’s Pipes?

by Fred Fuld III

If you re a pipe smoker, you might want to consider purchasing Albert Einstein’s pipe collection.

Boston based RR Auctions is currently auctioning off a collection of pipes that were owned by Einstein, some of which are made of briarwood and some are carved. It also includes a Menorah pipe holder.

The current bid at the time this is being written is $25,286. Pre-live bidding is now taking place. The live auction will begin Saturday, September 25th at 3:00pm EST in Boston, MA.

Crisis Averted: PR Strategies to Protect Your Reputation and the Bottom Line

by Fred Fuld III

Have you ever wondered what you would do if 60 Minutes called and said they wanted to interview you? Or maybe you opened your front door and there were a bunch of reporters standing outside.

If you own a small business or you are an executive at a major corporation, or even a celebrity or a politician, you need to read the book Crisis Averted: PR Strategies to Protect Your Reputation and the Bottom Line, by Evan Nierman.

Nierman is a crisis public relations expert, and is founder of Red Banyan, a crisis communications company.

He provides numerous anecdotes of instances where individuals and companies were stuck in negative situations, many times through no fault of their own, and the steps that they had to take to avoid most if not all negative publicity.

You, personally, may not be at fault at all, but someone at your company may have screwed up, which affects the reputation of your business. The book provides extensive advice on what to do in these situations.

My favorite chapter is Chapter 9 – Engaging with Reporters: Dos and Don’ts because reporters are really the key to whether information about you and/or your business gets printed in a positive light, a negative one, or not at all.

Anyone who runs their own small or large company, or corporate division, or sits on the board of directors of any entity including charities, should get Crisis Averted. Any other influential individuals in the limelight should also study the book.

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Last month I bought a Racehorse, an NFT, and a Collectable Baseball Card: Are We In a Bubble?

by Fred Fuld III

During the last month, I bought a racehorse, an NFT, and a collectable baseball card. I’m even considering buying modern art. All of these are generating extremely high prices, along with many other collectables, such as old hats.

So do these high prices predict an upcoming burst of a bubble, not just in the collectibles market but all financial assets?

Racehorses

Let’s talk about what I bought. First the racehorse. I actually didn’t buy the whole horse, I bought two one-thousanths of a horse. I guess that’s equal to one hoof. I can make a lot of money if the horse runs well.

NFTs

Second, the NFT, which stands for non-fungible token. I bought one, and I even created a couple of my own, which are listed for sale. When I have more time, I will write about the process. One thing I will mention to watch out for is the “gas tax”. If you don’t know what it is, hold off on doing any buying or selling and do some research.

If you want more background information on NFTs, you can check out some previous articles here, here, here, and here.

Sports Cards

As for the baseball card, I own a Mickey Mantle, a Willie Mays, a Sandy Koufax, and even a 1914 Babe Ruth.

Of course, I don’t own the entire cards, I just own shares in the card.

As an example, the Babe Ruth card is worth $6 million. The Sandy Koufax is worth $380,000.

Weird Collectables

These are actually “mainstream” collectables, almost like coins, stamps, and autographs. But some people collect some pretty bizarre items.

I know one guy why collected the pill bottles of celebrities. He would buy from autograph hounds who would go through the trash cans of famous people looking for cancelled checks, old letters, receipts, and so forth that may have a signature, and when they would come across a pill bottle which had the celebrity’s name printed on the prescription sticker, they would sell those little containers to the pill bottle collector.

Even more weird, in a collectables magazine, I saw a Wanted ad placed by a guy who wanted to buy “old mens underwear”. Now, I’m not sure whether he wanted the underwear of old men or men’s underwear that was old.

Just because collectibles may have a limited supply or just because they are old doesn’t mean they will always go up. Just look at Beanie Babies and Cabbage Patch Kids.

Collectibles Recommendations

So do any of these collectables make good investments? My long term readers know that I never make investment recommendations. However, I will make collectibles recommendations.

Only buy what you like
Only buy what you would like to hold for a long time
Never buy a collectable with the anticipation of selling at a profit
Buy quality, not quantity

Happy collecting!

Note: Collectable and Collectible are used interchangeably. Numerous sources can’t agree on which is correct for items that people collect.