The Chemours Company had a fantastic start to 2023

The Chemours Company is a diversified chemical company serving multiple industries. Here are its products:

Exhibit 1:

Here's the graph of the monthly returns of the Vanguard S&P 500 Index ETF and the Chemours Company:  

Exhibit 2:

Source: Data Provided by IEX Cloud, Graph Created Using Microsoft Excel and RStudio

The Chemours Company averaged a monthly return of 2.59% compared to a 1% return for the Vanguard S&P 500 Index ETF (Exhibits 3 & 4). 

Exhibit 3:

Source: Data Provided by IEX Cloud, Calculated Using Microsoft Excel

Exhibit 4:

Source: Data Provided by IEX Cloud, Calculated Using Microsoft Excel

A linear regression of the monthly returns of the Vanguard S&P 500 Index ETF and the Chemours Company estimates the beta (the coefficient of the Vanguard S&P 500 Index) as 1.82. Yahoo Finance estimates the beta as 1.88 based on five years of monthly returns.   

Here's the output from the linear model:  
 

Call:

lm(formula = CC_Monthly_Return ~ VOO_Monthly_Return, data = VOOandCC)

Residuals:

     Min       1Q   Median       3Q      Max 

-0.23930 -0.07880  0.01016  0.07621  0.29157 

Coefficients:

                   Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)    

(Intercept)        0.006698   0.018764   0.357    0.723    

VOO_Monthly_Return 1.825643   0.325520   5.608 1.45e-06 ***

---

Signif. codes:  0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1

Residual standard error: 0.1224 on 42 degrees of freedom

Multiple R-squared:  0.4282, Adjusted R-squared:  0.4146 

F-statistic: 31.45 on 1 and 42 DF,  p-value: 1.45e-06

The stock had a great January 2023 with a return of 18% compared to a 6.2% return of the Vanguard S&P 500 Index ETF.  

Here's the chart of the monthly returns of the Vanguard S&P 500 Index and the Chemours Company:

Exhibit 5:

Source: Data Provided by IEX Cloud, Calculated Using Microsoft Excel

Energy Transition will be Messy and Expensive. Hold on to Your Barrel of Oil for Now.

Many people anticipate that electric vehicles will win the transportation race and replace the internal combustion engine. Many journalists and energy experts have been warning for a while that the transition from fossil fuels to renewables will be messy. Daniel Yergin says that we are in an energy-mix era. 

Lithium - one of the critical materials used in batteries - is in short supply, and its prices have increased by 5x. Electric vehicle battery costs are set to increase for the first time in a decade. 

Meanwhile, European Union is beginning to realize that they cannot simply abandon nuclear power and still keep the lights on. They plan to classify nuclear power and natural gas as "green" power sources. In my opinion, there is no such thing as fully green energy. For example, lithium mining and mining for other materials in producing an electric vehicle are damaging to the economy. The world needs good recycling technology to create a circular economy and minimize emissions and environmental damage.       

General Motors Ultium Battery and Global Vehicle Platform for Electric Vehicles.
(Source: General Motors)

The surge in oil prices in the past year, coupled with the reluctance of oil companies to invest in new oil discoveries, could lead to higher energy prices and even an energy shock. This lack of investment in new oil supplies could increase inflation.   

I am going to buy Total S.E. (NYSE: TOT) on any short-term weakness

Total S.E. is on Bank of America's Top Rated Stocks list. When I saw that name, I was intrigued. Why is an oil giant from Europe on this list? I have done my research and found out that they have a growing green energy portfolio for which they are not getting much credit now.  I am going to buy on any short-term weakness (below $45 may be a start) and put it away for a long time and keep collecting the dividend (6.6%).

(Source: Google)