Over the past decade, as businesses have undertaken digital transformation initiatives to improve efficiencies and outcomes, cyberattacks have continued to increase in both frequency and complexity. These cyberattacks are increasingly committed by well-funded criminal and state-sanctioned groups seeking to exploit vulnerabilities and disrupt operations for financial gain or to steal intellectual property and other sensitive data for competitive gains or national intelligence purposes. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses of all sizes have responded to new, unexpected customer and employee needs by accelerating their investments in digital technologies. These investments have not only driven positive business outcomes but have also created new areas of vulnerability for companies across their entire technology supply chain and infrastructure. The increase in the number of endpoints resulting from the exponential growth of mobile computing and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, as well as the larger technology infrastructure surface areas supporting cloud-computing needs, has provided cyber attackers with more areas to potentially exploit and gain unauthorized access. These cyberattacks contribute to a wide variety of adverse outcomes—lost revenue from network downtime, increased costs from ransom payments, fines and/or mitigation spending, lost data integrity, impact to the business from increased reputational risk and, in certain cases, national security risks. As businesses continue to invest in digital transformation to accelerate growth initiatives, the increased threat from cyber criminals will also require larger and more targeted investments in next-generation cybersecurity defense technology to protect digital assets and networks while minimizing the operational and financial costs of a cyberattack.

Natural gas prices have surged in recent months. Acute supply concerns in Europe have predominantly driven the surge, which has been exacerbated by severe heat waves that have increased demand for power and reduced traditional power generation capacity.

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) addresses three key areas: climate issues, corporate taxes, and healthcare.

The Federal Reserve (The Fed) is fighting decades-high inflation with aggressive monetary policy. Many market watchers now expect at least a mild recession in response. The S&P 500 Index's 17.3% loss and the NASDAQ's 25.5% loss year-to-date through 6/24/2022 would suggest equity investors share this concern (year to date, the Alerian MLP Index (AMZ), a midstream energy focused index, is up 9.2%). To understand how midstream might perform through such an environment, we thought a look at history could be helpful.

It’s hard to miss recent news headlines about the “global energy crisis.” Resilient global demand and a lack of sufficient available supply have created an energy crunch that has pushed up global energy prices. Soaring oil, natural gas, and coal prices are happening just as the winter heating season approaches in the Northern Hemisphere and as rising inflation poses an increasing risk to global economic growth.

The term “infrastructure” has come to the forefront in recent months thanks to the Biden administration’s focus on renewing and improving America’s physical footprint through additional fiscal stimulus. It also has a dual aim of improving the pace of economic growth.