Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) reports earnings before the market opens this morning and analysts are expecting big things. In the run-up since mid-September, XOM stock gained 4.2% compared to 2.6% for the S&P 500 Index.

The consensus is it will earn 90 cents per share, against last quarter’s 78 cents, on revenue of $63.8 billion, versus $60.8 billion during the last quarter.

Call it the Trump dividend.

Despite the horrors of Hurricane Harvey, it’s the company’s refining operations along the Gulf Coast that are delivering the good news. Oil bulls like Mark Tepper, CEO of Strategic Wealth Partners, are urging that investors overweight energy as the benefits of higher crude prices should filter into earnings during the fourth quarter, providing a second-stage boost.

But if you’re going to get into Exxon Mobil, you need to decide quickly, because the best reason to own the stock may be about to disappear.

Capture the Yield

With its quarterly dividend of 77 cents per share now confirmed and to be paid on Dec. 11 to shareholders of record Nov. 13, Exxon Mobil sports a yield of 3.7% at current prices.

For income investors, that means you’re getting 25% more cash out of Exxon Mobil shares than a 30-year bond, which now pays you 2.97%. Income is the reason investors should own XOM, so if the shares spike after earnings, or on anticipation of a winning fourth quarter, your best reason to own it disappears.

At its present level of about $83 per share, Exxon is still trading for $10 less than it traded a decade ago. But during that time, it has delivered a steadily rising stream of dividends, doubling the rate from 35 cents per share in 2007 to today’s 77 cents. If you caught it at its 2010 bottom, when it traded below $60 per share, you are sitting pretty.

As baby boomers age out of the workforce and into retirement, these kinds of calculations will prove increasingly important. The search for yield is going to replace the search for growth in 40 million portfolios, and right now Exxon has it.

Profits are Downstream

The key to those profits is Exxon Mobil’s diversification. It is an integrated oil, able to profit from drilling for it, moving it around to arbitrage its price, and refining it, both for the U.S. market and for export.

Right now refining, which is called “downstream” activity, is the star, with “crack spreads” — the profit margin gained from heating oil to pull out products from asphalt to gasoline — having expanded largely due to the storms.

This may be why, while there are almost as many analysts on Wall Street telling you to sell Exxon Mobil as to buy it, InvestorPlace writers are overwhelmingly bullish.

Nicholas Chahine writes that you can go long, with confidence, and James Brumley calls it a buy. Chris Tyler says a collar strategy can lock in both dividends and capital gains. The bears are wrong, adds Laura Hoy.

Bottom Line on XOM Stock

I am not a long-term bull on energy. Energy analysts consistently underestimate just how quickly the renewable revolution, particularly efficiency, is holding down and even cutting demand for oil and gas. Government policy is no match for economic reality.

But diversified, international oil companies like Exxon Mobil can still deliver income, and they will be delivering income for some years ahead. There are just too many profit strings they can pull, including selling assets, increasing margins at retail, and grabbing trading profits from the developing world where most of the oil still lies.

You buy this stock, however, for income. You look for the yield and lock it in. Right now, that yield is attractive.

Dana Blankenhorn is a financial and technology journalist. He is the author of the historical mystery romance The Reluctant Detective Travels in Time, available now at the Amazon Kindle store. Write him at danablankenhorn@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @danablankenhorn. As of this writing, he did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.