Royal Dutch Shell plc Message Board

intuition, not the college kind, tells me no. still believe this interval will snag a lot in the net. A little compare with Exxon short term tells me this is on soft sand. If I am taking history into account, thinking more about general markets in May and a lot less about this dividend run. If you remember only 80 days ago people were burned alive on the dividend run. Take a couple more market selloffs and it won't matter what they report anyway. Will hope for the fortune of investors here but I don't have the good feeling.

got it. you look for explosions rather than trends.

cashed all yesterday. not particularly impressed with prospects for push. reason. the 72 to 63 ski slope downward during dividend period last round. now we expect it to reverse jets. the results will aka Exx/Chevron with a 1% down or a ho-hum at best on positive. Ray, will go with the possible slide at the April/May turn as we have seen before. Not pretty. I would not mind getting the dividend but it was expensive last round and due to get more expensive this. Glad gold and services saved the day because reliance could not be placed here for any quick t/a.

Iran will get to Korea is, if not already. Then no one can do anything about it, just like they can't do anything about it for Korea. But Iran is cagier. The persians will do their bidding through surrogates. There is nothing we will do about it. There are things we could do, but we won't.

Turbo. This one is over. Getting Iran clear of plutonium enrichment is for US protection. As in, no Marathon explosion laced with radioactive materials. A mini suitcase inside a crowded sport venue with the top on will roll the entire contents, equating to a small city. And where we would be. Upmost confusion and worrying about Miranda rights and putting a picture of the terrorist on the front page of People. It's called the de-population of Rome to the countryside and walled fiefdoms to avoid the taxes and catastrophes. But you asked. Gold. And selling it off in a money printing environment. Priceless.

And thank you. Now would you please declare that you are selling your remaining stake this evening so that this thing shoots up to 70. Auction, I see that Yahoo now censors excrement. What's next, urine.

in position to make a lot of moneyt even if it burbs to 68. I know, that's so hard Shell, in an all-time high market. No pressure. in the meantime, have become sort of a dividend junky at these rates.

effective 5.6% dividend in the $64 range will stir some sanity into an otherwise insane pot. I don't give investors much credit for any sense, certain oil executives who love posing before cameras less. I see one more toothy grin from a hick who has flushed billions down the toilet......

"the company has not been very successful in increasing reserves".....yes. but worse, the company has not been able to replace reserves based on current production. the projections were at something like 85% reserve replacement over the next 3 years. investors choke on that metric. a strong effective M&A using that prolific cash stash was missed to increase the reserve base. Rules on reserve recognition relating to shale oil and shale gas also contribute.

i might follow with one more point. Shell US management E&P has got a lot of o&g engineers in senior management. They answer to the Brits for funding, but their recommendations tend to drill first, ask questions later if there a dollar to spend. What was needed during the natgas lull was not these type - we needed financial managers with savvy for acquisitions and investment. Not the drill-drill lease-lease that has created the current quagmire. I mean, we could invested in Chick Fillet, or whatever it is called, and made much more, right from the start. It is the business - grease.

It can be condensed. Natgas was $13 June 2008. It was $3 July 2009. It slithered to $2 the early part of 2012. Smart execs everywhere were planning on shipping out to Pandora, hatching multi-billion dollar multi-year plans in............2008. For Shell, call it $65b spent on New York Yankess that could not hit in 2009,2010,2011 & 2012. With everyone drilling like mad, where would you expect gas to go? Group think. Think of it in terms of everyone buying into an overheated market and expecting miracles. Natgas has most recently come back to around $4. North America was a deep ditch. It's just going to take time. It is not to say Shell will not pull a decent profit - just not as much as things could have been had they re-directed a lot bigger share of that $65b to acquisitions during the low period,

Shell will still be good for a climb shortly, assuming the wheels don't come off everything. Natgas price upswing will help, the oil price during the quarter was solid, and the eff dividend rate at current prices is compelling. As investors jockey for position going forward this will start to perc.