EconInvestor

R-Squared Energy Blog is one of the best blogs on energy. Robert Rapier writes the blog.  He has a lot of expertise in the petroleum industry but writes a lot about alternative energy sources.

What I like about his blog is that he brings things to a technical level rather than a political level. He also strips away a lot of the hype.

Unfortunately, “R-Squared Energy Blog”, which used to be its own blog, is now wrapped into “Consumer Energy Report”.  Some of the articles in “Consumer Energy Report”  push a political agenda – rather than sticking to technical issues.  Many “solutions” such as cap-and-trade are terrible economic solutions that do very little to solve pollution (if that is indeed the aim of the program).

One of the first articles written by Robert Rapier that I read was: Lessons from Brazil. He has updated the article since:  More Brazilian Ethanol Whoppers. Both are worth reading.

Rapier writes interesting articles on methanol. For instance: Methanol versus Ethanol: Technical Merits and Political Favoritism.

Check it out!

Here’s a good article on the basics of oil futures pricing: Oil Fundamentals . Concepts hold true for other commodities.

These authors claim that High Yield, Low Payout  ratio stocks have the best performance.  This author applies the formula to stocks and here are his results: 10 Stocks With Sustainable Dividends. He discusses the indicator further in this article: A Simple Indicator for Dividend Investors.

This article gives A Look at the Legendary and Secretive Renaissance Technologies’ Medallion Fund . Given the returns, I’m putting this on my reading list.

To wrap up, this article also gives sector average dividends: Top 5 U.S. Dividend Paying Stocks for 2010