With electric vehicle demand predicted to rise dramatically on the heels of the pandemic and clean energy trends, there has been a recent boom in negotiations surrounding producers of lithium-ion batteries and the components used to power them. Tesla Inc. (TSLA) is reportedly in talks with BHP Group Ltd. (BHP) for their nickel supplies and Romeo Power, an industry-leading battery manufacturer, has entered into a definitive agreement with RMG Acquisition Corp. (RMG), a special purpose acquisition company.

SPACs attack

Late last week, reports began to surface that Romeo Power, a company that offers market-leading energy density in its lithium-ion

According to the GuruFocus All-in-One Screener as of Sept. 9, the following guru-held companies have high dividend yields and are trading with low price-earnings ratios.

JPMorgan

JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s (JPM) dividend yield is 5.5% and the payout ratio is 3.48. Over the past 52 weeks, the stock price has decreased 10.29%. Shares are trading with a price-book ratio of 1.35 and a price-earnings ratio of 13.97. The company's average yield was 2.50% over the past 10 years.

The American financial institution has a market cap of $315.49 billion. GuruFocus rated its

Dividend investors should have a look at the following stocks as their dividend yields beat the S&P 500's yield (1.72% as of Feb. 14), which is used as a benchmark for the U.S. stock market.

BHP Group

The first company to consider is BHP Group Ltd. (BHP).

Shares of the Australian mining, metals and oil company closed at $51.69 on Feb. 14 for a market capitalization of $131.33 billion.

Based on Friday 's closing price, BHP Group offers a 5.15% yield for the trailing 12-month dividend and for the forward dividend. In 2019, the company paid a semi-annual cash dividend

Want to know how much a company has earned on the funds provided by investors and lenders? The answer is found in one simple data point: return on assets, or ROA.

It’s one of a relatively small set of ratios that help us effectively analyze businesses, as described by Axel Tracy in his book, “Ratio Analysis Fundamentals How 17 Financial Ratios Can Allow You to Analyse Any Business on the Planet.”

Another of those key ratios is return on equity, which refers to how much a company is earning on funds provided by just investors—no lenders. It’s an important distinction:

Australian miner, BHP Group (BHP), declined due to weakening iron ore prices. Prices peaked in the second quarter of 2019 on the back of supply disruptions caused by the Vale dam disaster. In recent months, iron prices have moderated 25-30% as capacity came back online, while demand slackened in China. The materials sector is commonly considered a bellwether for global economic activity; negative results could suggest further economic weakness in the months ahead, for which we are prepared.

From [url=https://www.gurufocus.com/StockBuy.php?GuruName=Bernard+Horn]Bernard Horn[/url] ([url=https://www.gurufocus.com/StockBuy.php?GuruName=Bernard+Horn]Trades[/url], [url=https://www.gurufocus.com/holdings.php?GuruName=Bernard+Horn]Portfolio[/url])'s third-quarter 2019 Polaris Global Value Fund shareholder letter.

While gurus hold positions in these companies, their share prices and returns continue to decline. The following are the worst-performing stocks over the past six months with a long-term presence in more than five gurus' portfolios.

Pfizer Inc.

Shares of Pfizer Inc. (PFE) have declined 15.57% over the past six months. The stock is held by 22 gurus.

The pharmaceutical company has a $196.08 billion market cap and was trading with a price-earnings ratio of 16.19. As of Tuesday, the share price of $34.45 was 23.71% below

According to the GuruFocus All-in-One Screener as of Wednesday, the following companies have high dividend yields but performed poorly over the past 12 months.

Total SA's (TOT) dividend yield is 5.4% with a payout ratio of 0.72. Over the last 52 weeks, the stock has fallen 17.62%. Shares are trading with a price-book ratio of 1.25 and a price-earnings ratio of 14.01.

The oil and gas company has a market cap of $139.44 billion and a profitability and growth rating of 5 out of 10. The return on equity of 9.29% and return

Company history and business

Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. (CLF), founded in 1847, is the largest and oldest independent iron ore mining company in the U.S., supplying iron ore pellets to the domestic steel industry. The company aims to have the only hot-briquetted iron plant in the Great Lakes region by 2020. It is divided into two segments: mining and pelletizing, and metallics.

The mining and pelletizing segment consists of large interests in four running iron ore mines and one closed mine. The metallics segment consists of the hot-briquetted iron production plant, which should be up and running by 2020.

At the end of July, BP PLC (BP) announced it is acquiring the bulk of BHP Billiton's (BHP) U.S. shale oil and gas assets for $10.5 billion, increasing its land area by roughly half a million acres and helping it gain access to high-quality shale assets like Eagle Ford, Haynesville and the Permian Basin. The deal is expected to close next month.

The agreement comes two years after the company reached a settlement with the U.S. federal government and states around the Gulf of Mexico for the fatal accident at Deepwater Horizon. The 2010 disaster forced the company to sell

Ken Fisher (Trades, Portfolio), chief investment officer of Fisher Investments, disclosed on Monday that he initiated four new positions in the metals and mining industry: BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP), BHP Billiton PLC (BBL), Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (FCX) and Rio Tinto PLC (RIO).

BHP Billiton

Fisher invested in 5,473,988 shares of BHP for an average price of $48.49 per share and 4,142,899 shares of BBL for an average price of $43.88. The two transactions increased the portfolio 0.6% in the aggregate.

According

Many industries are cyclical to a degree, due to either external factors such as consumer demand or due to boom-and-bust capital investment cycles. Mining and oil and gas are two of the most cyclical industries due to large fluctuations in commodity prices coupled with high fixed capital requirements.

Because the mining and oil and gas businesses tend to be capital-intensive, they tend to have a lot of operational leverage. So when commodity prices are low, they haemorrhage cash and when prices are high, they have high returns on capital. Because of this, they tend to sell for multiples of their

A new chairman was ushered in at BHP Billiton in early September. Under this leadership, BHP (NYSE:BHP) planned to divest its onshore shale business and sought a buyer for its Australian nickel business. Investors expects BHP will realize healthy valuations for these assets, as prices of nickel and oil are up 16% and 9% respectively since early 2017. Solvay was the only detractor of note in the materials sector, as the company missed earnings due to below-forecast core profits. The company was burdened by higher energy costs and foreign exchange conversion; yet management reaffirmed its optimistic outlook

Dear Fellow Shareholder,

January 5, 2018

The Polaris Global Value Fund (“the Fund”) returned 5.49% for the fourth quarter of 2017, in line with the MSCI World Index, which gained 5.51%. Global macro-economic growth was on an upswing, as evidenced by strong corporate earnings, heated M&A activity and increased consumer spending. As would be expected in such an environment, the Fund’s consumer discretionary and staples holdings dominated performance, led by Regal Entertainment Group, Carter’s Inc., Asahi Group Holdings Ltd., Greencore Group PLC and Tyson Foods Inc. Corporate takeover activity further boosted share prices: Regal became a target of U.K.-based

Global demand for iron ore was strong, backed by Chinese steel production; BHP Billiton (BHP) benefitted from rising prices of both iron ore and copper. The company also responded to an activist investor, enacting numerous asset allocation, operational and management measures most of which were in process already. Finally, BHP released robust fiscal year 2018 guidance across iron ore, copper, and coal but remained cautious on the petroleum business outlook. They decided to sell U.S. onshore (shale) oil properties.

From [url=http://www.gurufocus.com/StockBuy.php?GuruName=Bernard+Horn]Bernard Horn[/url] ([url=http://www.gurufocus.com/StockBuy.php?GuruName=Bernard+Horn]Trades[/url], [url=http://www.gurufocus.com/holdings.php?GuruName=Bernard+Horn]Portfolio[/url])'s third quarter 2017 shareholder commentary.

Mining is not a desirable business. High capital startup costs, commoditized products and continually high capital spending costs depress profitability, return on equity and margins. Meanwhile, commodity prices are unpredictable, making the business very unstable indeed. Volatile prices coupled with high costs make this an industry where only the fittest survive.

Over the past two years, however, the mining sector has completely overhauled itself. After the financial crisis, China’s economic boom inspired miners to invest tens of billions of dollars in new projects to ramp up production. Capital discipline went out the window, and billions were wasted on

Fortescue (FSUGY)(ASX:FMG), the $14.3 billion mining company, reported a 20% increase in its ore mined to 53.5 million tons in its fourth quarter and a 14% rise in ore processed to 45.9 million tons.

Another company metric –Â cash production costs (C1) –Â declined by (-)7% year over year to $12.16 per wet metric ton (wmt) from the year prior. In review, this metric is a lot lower when compared to three years ago when the world’s fourth-largest iron producer and explorer had $34.03 per wmt.

“Fortescue’s June quarter results

BHP Billiton (LSE:BLT)(BHP)(BBL)(ASX:BHP)(FRA:BIL), the $97 billion giant miner, delivered its half-year results in February. For BHP Billiton’s six months operations that ended in December, the miner reported an impressive 19.6% sales growth to $18.8 billion and $3.2 billion in profits – compared to $5.7 billion losses the same period last year.

As observed, BHP Billiton exhibited fewer expenses excluding net finance costs and related impairments, which helped lift the company to profits.

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"This is a strong result that follows several years of a considered and deliberate approach to improve productivity and

While presentations about plans to shake up public companies from activists like Bill Ackman (Trades, Portfolio) and David Einhorn (Trades, Portfolio) have slowed, Paul Singer (Trades, Portfolio) has taken the offensive on his fourth company in six months, sending a three-point plan to unlock value to the board of BHP Billiton Plc (BHP) on Monday.

“Despite being a leading global resources company with a portfolio of best-in-class large-scale diversified mining assets, in recent years BHP as an investment has underperformed a portfolio of comparable mineral and petroleum companies,” Singer said