I have been trying to get all the info out of the newsletters and elsewhere about the planned merger of ETE to take over WMB to take place in the first half of this year. The energy strategist mentioned ETE as a best buy a couple issues ago. WMB is trading like the deal won’t go through. It is trading for $15.49 today while the buyout price is $43.50?? Both are solid companies that have increased their dividends last quarter and are yielding 16% at these depressed prices. I did a search and found out that ETE went to pretty big lengths to be sure WMB couldn’t back out or it would pay a 1.4 billion penalty. It is likely not WMB that would want to back out! Both stocks are down about the same amount, but the WMB shareholders can elect to receive cash, which means you could take the cash and buy a lot more shares of ETE than the original deal called for – I read some of the merger legaleze and I don’t think that constitutes a deal breaker. I was thinking I could sell some BPT I own at a big loss, get a stock that is beaten down an equivalent amount, get a 16% dividend instead of 10% (& going to drop next quarter), and take a huge tax loss to boot. If the deal goes through I could take the cash and make $28/share profit on a stock that cost $15.49, which would be tax free since it would be offset by the loss on BPT. Does my logic make sense or am I completely missing something?

Is there an ETF, ETN or any other fund or investable entity focusing mainly on natgas pipeline companies? If so, would you recommend investing in it?

I’m not sure what this has not been addressed in a flash alert but MLPL is about to pay out and close up shop on Feb 1, 2016. On Jan 20 the index it follows dropped 30% and triggered an automatic acceleration of payment based on a whole bunch of calculations but the largest component of the calculation is based on the VWAP of ^AMZ over the five days following Jan 20. Trading today at around 12.83, is this a good time to bail or will the pay out from UBS be higher than current share price?

Igor, GLP disappoints yet again. Do we hold at this point or sell and seek hope elsewhere. I was disturbed by the enormous insider selling in the $30s purportedly for estate planning purposes. Looks to me like they modeled out $30 oil and knew what was coming. Besides losing trust in the GP I have lost a heck of a lot of money on this one, unless you think it is a viable hold and the distribution can be restored over a reasonable period of time which in turn will lift the share price. As always your insight is appreciated.
Charles Torrey