Welcome to the Dividend Cafe weekly market commentary focused on dividends in your portfolio and dividends in your understanding of economic life.

Well, hello and welcome to the Dividend Cafe. I am excited for a Friday discussion on energy.

And we have covered a number of topics this year

that I think are prominent economic considerations

in the current state of markets.

We've looked at the recession scenarios.

We've obviously talked about the inflation deflation debate.

There's plenty of Fed and interest rate stuff out there.

And then last week was a broader discussion of where dividend growth investing fits into the kind of current paradigm, as well as the ongoing paradigm that we expect and believe

in macroeconomically.

And yet in the weeds of this, in the both short-term and longer-term scenarios, we have

an ongoing interest in the subject of energy. First of all, we care about the

concept of U.S. energy independence. We recognize that energy has profound impacts to other

aspects of the market, both in the sense that higher energy costs represent a higher input to much of the entire economy,

both for producers and consumers.

We recognize that lower energy costs could be reflective of weakening demand conditions.

There are, of course, supply issues with energy that may be relevant to geopolitics.

So energy touches a lot of things, and a lot of things touch energy. And then from an investor

standpoint, we care because of our own exposures that we both have and want to have, that are both, you know, real and that are

theoretical or hypothetical for the future.

So when we talk about the current state of energy, let me give you a little context.

Everyone, I believe, is aware that it was the highest performing sector in the market last year.

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