Hands up folks, who had Exxon Mobil (XOM) to be inside the top-ten S&P 500 performers at the start of the year? Well, that’s where it is; up around 30% year-to-date, the oil giant finds itself in 5th or 6th spot at time of writing. Sure, the year is still young, and there’s plenty of time for that to change, but few would begrudge Exxon…

It’s been a while since I’ve written about AT&T (T), with a reader message prompting me to post a brief update today. Put simply, my view on the struggling Dallas-based telecom giant to date has been that it is just too darn cheap, warts and all. Those warts now include the unwinding of its big ticket acquisitions, DirecTV and WarnerMedia, plus another biggie – the…

Coca-Cola (KO) stock hasn’t been getting a lot of love lately on my Twitter feed, and that’s understandable judging by its recent history. The shares trade around the $61.40 mark – roughly equal to a 4% earnings yield; 2.8% dividend yield – which may look a bit rich in light of the headwinds facing soda consumption in developed markets. That trend has shown up at…

As I mentioned in the last piece on First Hawaiian, a ‘safety first’ approach is definitely not the worst way to treat investing in bank stocks. I know Farmers & Merchants Bank of Long Beach (FMBL) isn’t for everyone (and that really is understating it), but it does dovetail nicely with that sentiment, and it’s just about as rock solid as you can ask for…

One thing’s for sure, quality isn’t going to be an issue when it comes to the Hawaiian banks. First Hawaiian (FHB) is just about the largest of the bunch with $25.5b in assets (Bank of Hawaii being a very close second), and they don’t get the love they deserve from the wider investing community in my view. In a way, that’s understandable. Earnings quality and…