RE:RE:Im inVega1357 wrote:
I sincerely wish you well with EXE and don't dispute anything you say. However, I don't regret having sold my EXE and buying ALA. On Friday ALA was up almost five times as much as EXE on a percentage basis and my account is worth $5000 more now than if I would have held onto EXE. I think that ALA is still very cheap at Friday's closing price of $12. Virus or no virus, people need natural gas to heat their homes in the winter.
I should have added that a stock's dividend yield is the market's current assessment of the risk to the dividend. Rightly or wrongly, the market is assessing that the risk to EXE's dividend is somewhat higher than for ALA given than ALA's present dividend yield is 7.8%, which I think is also think is very good for a stock with a payout ratio of less than 50%. What was EXE's payout ratio for the last reporting quarter -- around 90% ?For a company with very small profit margins, even a small decline in revenue (the government doesn't pay for empty rooms if it should come to that, I'm sorry to say), could put the dividend at risk.