The Monday Barron's was short on closed-end fund data but long on Royal Dutch Shell, a dual national share which trades no less than 4 ways in the USA. On the Big Board, we have RDS-A and RDS-B, respectively the Dutch and British versions of the share, both equal to two shares in Europe. Your broker may use something other than a period between the stock symbol and the A or B, like a / or a – or even a ().

Then we also have the one-share versions traded on the pink sheets, RYDAF (Dutch) and RYDBF (British.) If you cannot afford a round lot costing $6600 you can buy one half on the pinks—but look out for the higher spread!

Now for your question. Why are we getting all hot about acquiring yet another European oil company? The main reason is the yield, officially 5.7% on the Dutch version and 5.5% on the British. We are having problems replacing a called bond and a high-yield stock taken over both last month. I am convinced that despite (or maybe because) Pres. Trump called for the Fed to halt its rate hikes, it will do no such thing. And while these are non-US stocks the price of oil is normally denominated in Greenbucks, the currency in which they earn and we eat.

Of course, my reason doesn't explain why I am in such a rush to buy that we want to put in our order before the European markets open up. That is because of Barron's. It ran no less than 3 articles singing the praises of Shell as a turnaround candidate, one by one of my favorite writers there, Vito Racanelli who quoted several bullish analysts: Jonathan Waghorn of Guinness Atkinson Asset Management and Moustapha Mounah, of James Investment Research. The latter cited Shell's sale of some Norwegian interests in order to buy into Vito field in the Gulf of Mexico where oil can be extracted for under $35/barrel. Poor Mr. Recanelli had to insert a parenthesis saying that it is called by the same name as he is. Both say the stock is due to rise with the higher margin, by up to 25% more based on its cash flow and normal p/e ratio respective. And there is a lovely 5.7% yield while you wait. (I deliberately settled for the lower UK payout because of Dutch tax law changes.

If Moustapha, Jonathan, and Vito are not convincing enough, you may also listen to Reshma Kapadia in the Barron's "cover story" on How to Invest Globally, Now, and her source, Brian Lloyd of Harding Loevner International Fund. He cites RDS as being less at risk from US-China trade tensions than global companies like auto-makers. She paraphrases his reasons why Shell is "less vulnerable to a petro swoon". "Not only is it the world's largest fuel retailer, but it also has a strong position in lubrifants and liquified natural gas." Moreover "at 11.5x earnings," Brian says, it's reasonably priced.

Her article also tipped Tsingtao Brewery of Hong Kong which I already talked about last week as Heineken did a complex deal to sell more suds in China. I think the Chinese will switch from a 150-year old local brew to premium exotic beers from Belgium's Anhaeuser-Busch Ambev (BUD ).

A Dutch relic from the past hit Sunday on seekingalpha.com, by "The Investment Doctor". I normally ignore anonymous contributors but this one wrote about Wereldhave, the Dutch-based Euroland REIT we owned decades ago, WRDEF. We owned it as long as it met US rules for pass-through real estate funds. But then the SEC decided that since WRDEF bought and sold its own shares in Amsterdam to keep the trading price close to the net asset value, this was no longer a legal holding for US investors. So we sold, although we still own non-US REITs from Singapore and Mexico which do meet SEC conditions. Since then a mechanism for adjusting prices for exchange-traded funds came into effect in the US as well but Wereldhave is not an ETF.

Dividend doctor doesn't seem to be aware of the overhang on US shareholders collecting the current Wereldhave yield of 8% after the yield was chopped 30% early this year. But he worries about Dutch regulations which may change the status of REITs and force Wereldhave to relist in next-door Belgium and get rid of its Dutch properties which account for about 40% of NAV.

I cannot say "no way, Jose" in Dutch but that's my reaction. I would consider the Dutch variant of RDS but not the Belgian one of WRDEF.

Note: since there were no trades late last week the closed positions table was not updated after the close of July.