Oil is still hovering around $54 a barrel and oils stocks are priced assuming around $40 to $45 a barrel.  This creates a great buying opportunity for stocks like British Petroleum (BP) with a 7.7 percent dividend and ConocoPhillips (COP) with a 4.4 percent dividend. 

Until a viable alternative energy is found, we are dependent on oil.  Oil is used in countless products, from your shoes to your Tupperware... almost everything includes a something that is petroleum based.  And you know cartels are illegal in the United States for a reason... they can alter and fix prices by changing their output (supply).  The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is a cartel of twelve countries made up of Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuala... and OPEC doesn't want to see cheap oil.  Their goal is a price of $75 per barrel and it's only a matter of time before this is achieved.  So buy some oil stocks that pay dividends while oil is cheap and you'd be laughing all the way to the gas station with a pocket full of cash to buy some unleaded... I would say take it to the bank, but who knows if they'll be around.


Read more about oil here.

You can't spell Exxon Mobil without booM!  Fortune released their yearly Fortune 500 list today, ranking the nation's largest public companies in order based on 2008 revenue.  Exxon Mobil overtook Wal-Mart to regain the Fortune 500 championship title.  Wal-Mart has held the top spot for six of the last seven years.  

Exxon took in $442.85 billion in revenue last year, up almost 19 percent from 2007 and continues to pull in record revenue even after the bursting of the oil bubble.  Their profit also wasn't too shabby,  earning $45.2 billion. 

Wal-Mart is still holding up well compared to other retailers as consumers are searching for deals, even if it means shopping at Wal-Mart.  Wally World's 2008 revenue climbed 7 percent to $405.6 billion.  The world's largest retailer took in $13.4 billion in profit, not even 30 percent of Exxon's...

These two giants fared quite well when compared to the remaining 498 companies.  Overall earnings fell 85 percent to $98.9 billion from $645 billion in 2007, the biggest yearly decline since the list was started in 1955.

This will have to be the Quote of the Day soon... "America is getting used to the sound of bubbles bursting," Fortune said.  That's not a good thing, one bubble bursts and we fix it by creating another... Check out more here.