Targa looks particularly well-matched with an uncertain economy in 2013
Not surprisingly Targa Resources Partners (NGLS) has show a little weakness recently after the February 14 date (record date January 28) for paying the master limited partnership’s fourth quarter dividend.
What’s surprising is how small the retreat has been. I suspect that this strength in a dividend-paying stock after the dividend payout is a sign that investors are feeling a little less aggressive and a little more conservative at current high.
The retreat wasn’t very large—from $41.88 on February 14 to $41.04 on February 20—but decline pattern is normal for stocks and master limited partnerships (MLPs) that pay hefty dividends. (Targa showed a projected dividend yield of 6.5% at the February 14 price.) Some holders of the stock, having collected the quarterly dividend, sell with the idea of buying something else about to pay a dividend and maybe returning to hold Targa closer to its next dividend payout.
The dividend for the fourth quarter of 68 cents per unit ($2.72 per unit on an annual basis) is a 3% increase from the third quarter and a 13% increase from the dividend in the fourth quarter of 2011. The partnership continues to project a 10% to 12% increase in distributions for 2013.
If you believe those projections, and I think they’re reasonable, then that $2.72 in dividends turns into $2.99 to $3.05 a share at the end of 2013. And that would equate to a $45 a unit price and at a 6.8% yield at end of the year. (Which is–$45 by December 2013—what I’m going to set as my new target price for Targa in my Jubak’s Picks portfolio http://jubakpicks.com/the-jubak-picks/ .)
On February 14 Targa Resources Partners reported financial results for the fourth quarter of 2012 and for the full 2012 year. Read more
Energy is on a run and U.S. refiners look like the best way to profit
Quick, name the best performing sector for 2013 to date.
Did you say energy? The sector is up 8.6% for the year as hopes for global growth (or is that hopes of Chinese growth?) drive visions of growing global demand. West Texas Intermediate crude is up another 1% today and Brent crude is up 0.6%.
Shares of U.S. refiners with geographic exposure to the U.S. oil boom in regions such as North Dakota’s Bakken formation or Texas’ Permian Basin have done as well—HollyFrontier (HFC) is up 8.4% in 2013—or better—Marathon Petroleum (MPC) is up 13.9%.
And going forward I think refiners with U.S. oil boom exposure are likely to outperform in any dip in the sector created by worries that higher oil prices will put a damper on global growth. (Well, oil prices could at some point. At $97.40 a barrel for West Texas Intermediate and $114.16 for Brent, oil is near the point where its price does start to bite into growth.)
Why are U.S. refiners a good bet to keep climbing even in a dip for the rest of the sector? Read more
NGLS
I added Targa Resources Partners (NGLS) to my Dividend Income portfolio http://jubakpicks.com/jubak-dividend-income-portfolio/ on January 11 because the units offer a really attractive potential for dividend growth and capital gains. The current dividend, at 6.81% on January 11, isn’t any too shabby either. (For the most recent update on that portfolio see my post http://jubakpicks.com/2013/01/11/reformatting-my-dividend-income-portfolio-for-a-period-when-dividend-investing-gets-more-important-and-tougher-too/
The big upside here comes from Targa’s acquisition of oil and natural gas pipelines from Saddle Butte Pipeline that for the first time moved Targa into the Bakken shale formation of North Dakota that is the heart of the U.S. oil boom. The deal also gave Targa its first oil pipelines—before that Targa had been a natural gas only pipeline play. The North Dakota oil boom is currently very underserved by pipelines, which gives pipeline companies with footholds in the area, and that now includes Targa, an opportunity to invest today’s cheap money in profitable new capital projects.
After the deal Targa reiterated its projections for 10% growth in distributions to holders of the MLP (master limited partnership) units in 2013 from 2012 levels. Read more
Buy pipeline MLP Targa Resources for its 7% yield
In my November 23 post on buying income assets in what increasingly looks like a bubble in income assets http://jubakpicks.com/2012/11/23/i-think-the-argument-that-were-in-an-income-asset-bubble-is-easy-to-make-deciding-when-it-might-burst-and-what-to-do-about-it-are-much-harder/ , I suggested opportunistically looking for income-producing assets that had been sold down at the moment for no good reason. From that point of view I suggested units of Targa Resources Partners (NGLS), which took a pounding from $42.83 on November 6 to $35.96 on November 16 on news that the company would price a secondary stock offering at just $36 a unit. It’s typical for secondaries to get priced below the current market in order to attract new money. But in this case the pricing seems to have been aggressively low and that took down Targa. After all if you can buy the secondary at $36, why pay $42 for units on the market?
What makes this drop a very interesting opportunity is that the capital raised is going to finance an acquisition that takes this pipeline master limited partnership (MLP) into North Dakota’s Bakken shale formation. (For more on this fast-growing oil region see my post http://jubakpicks.com/2012/11/20/the-oil-world-turned-upside-down-and-how-to-invest-in-the-rise-of-the-u-s-to-top-global-producer-by-2017/ .) Targa is buying Saddle Butte Pipeline’s crude oil pipelines and natural gas gathering and processing operations in the Williston Basin for $950 million. The growth potential here is very solid—not only is oil and gas production climbing in North Dakota but also the region is underserved by pipelines with 74% of North Dakota crude traveling by (more expensive) truck.
For Targa, which already operates in the Barnett and Wolf Camp areas in Texas’s Permian Basin and in Louisiana’s Tuscaloosa play, this is an initial foothold in the Bakken oil shale geology.
The deal also gives Targa its first oil pipelines, which increases the diversification of a company that had been hooked to natural gas and natural gas liquids. Read more
I think the argument that we’re in an income asset bubble is easy to make–deciding when it might burst and what to do about it are much harder
We are looking at a bubble in the market for income assets.
Money continues to pour into the government bonds of the United States, Japan, Germany and other “safe haven” countries even though yields there are negative after inflation and even though some of these “safe havens” rank among the world’s most indebted governments.
Dividend stocks too have risen to historic highs even as yields have dipped. For example, an index that tracks the Standard & Poor’s “dividend aristocrats,” a basket of 51 stocks that have increased their dividends annually for at least 25 years, hit an all-time high in October.
We all understand the reasons behind this love affair with income assets. Stocks have been scarily volatile for the last decade or more—and threaten to become even more so. The world’s central banks have flooded financial markets with cash, crushing yields, but at the same time promising to keep interest rates extraordinarily low for an extended period, in the formulation of the U.S. Federal Reserve. A sputtering global economy has resulted in low rates of inflation and frequently, in fact, deflation seems a more immediate threat than inflation.
But we know that we’re nearing the end of this cycle. The yield on two-year Treasury notes could drop below the current 0.24%–that’s a negative 1.96% yield at recent U.S. inflation rates—but the yield is unlikely to go below zero. At some point—mid-2015 in the Federal Reserve’s most recent formulation—the world’s central banks will start raising interest rates again. A return to global growth or simple demographic pressures or the aging of the world’s population will lead to higher rates of inflation.
And we all know the big important questions too: When? And What? Knowing what we know—about the likelihood of a bubble and the eventual breaking of that bubble—When do we take action to avoid getting caught up in the bursting of that bubble? And when we take action What do we do? Read more
