13 comments

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  Soren Macbeth

  4 months ago

  At least we have some measure of true inflation that are not mangled/hidden by the fed. Oil and food (riots in Haiti anyone?) are off the charts. I love it when people blame "speculators" for the rising oil and food prices.
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  howardlindzon

  4 months ago

  thats exactly it. once the craze really hits, both could get silly
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  KristianHansen

  4 months ago

  We see 80, 100 and now 120 a barrel. I don't see this trend stopping anytime soon. Saw an interesting blog posting in the WSJ about it today - http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2008/...
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  steveplace

  4 months ago

  any idea what happened to The Fly?
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  dogwood

  4 months ago

  server problems from what I've heard
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  Soren Macbeth

  4 months ago

  Another fact I didn't know until recently: Petroleum is a major component in the development of feritlizer, further entangling the relationship in pricing between food and oil.
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  howardlindzon

  4 months ago

  its why I am only taking a fewbreakouts and half positions. I cant get excited about this market and there are just so many oil and ag stocks I am willing to own.
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  Soren Macbeth

  4 months ago

  Certainely. Although, to my mind, I want to load up as heavy as I can when and where the trends are. If that means owning every oil and ag stock and etf out there, so be it. In strong bull markets and especially strong bear markets, correlation tends to 1 making diversification of little value. So long as you have functioning risk and money management strategies if pays to go where the strength/trends are, especially in a bearish market.
  
  Disclosure - Never traded a stock in my life :)
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  IBH1

  4 months ago

  Just repeat 100 times: I believe in parabolas; I believe in parabolas. Then hold your nose and buy!
  
  I don't mind paying into strength, but this is a bit out of hand. Most of these stocks are trading at least 2x standard deviations from the mean (50-day). That is overdone. I would hold what I have, but not buy at these levels. If they go higher, big deal. There is always something else to own.
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  Brian

  4 months ago

  There is a bull market in yogurt too!
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  gregory

  4 months ago

  yeah, it will stop, a little after 2012 ... psychics have been talking about this time for thirty years, futurists for about fifteen, analysts for about three, and the street still hasn't figured it out
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  howardlindzon

  4 months ago

  thx gregory - I think you may be right, but its getting closer to the end here. something has to give
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  Gerald Buckley

  4 months ago

  Howard, Gerald here. You know how close I am to the energy exploration industry here in Tulsa by day... (btw, did you get that Tertzakian book yet?) T Boone Pickens shorted oil this past year and is kicking himself. In fact, only mea culpa I've ever heard him offer. Must have cost him a gob. Anyway, he's long on exploration again.
  
  I have no position in any of the upstream service or oil cos. Many of them are doing phenomenally well. Particularly the data driven service companies (Schlumberger, Halliburton, etc).
  
  On the supply side... yes, there's an end in sight. It's WAY off on the horizon ( > 50 years). Plenty of runway there to find more or create viable alternatives. What Hubbard's Peak didn't adequately anticipate is the rate at which technology would improve and make marginal discoveries and tough recoverables into viable playable reserves. You have LOTS of deepwater discoveries coming online with companies going deeper and deeper finding bigger and bigger gas fields particularly.
  
  Russia and China have yet to tap their own basins fully. Why should they? There are way too few refineries anyway right now. Frankly, there aren't enough geologists, physicists and engineers to get the job done. There's been a big brain drain in the industry since 1985's crash. On the educational front you'll see many of the students chasing the post-graduation $$. Geologist/geophysics/geo-engineers are going to be hot the next several years.
  
  Don't be surprised if oil hits $200/bbl before seeing a correction.
  
  While in San Antonio airport Monday a lady from California button-holed me once she found out I was in exploration sector and railed on me about being the boogeyman. "Why's oil so high!?" she asked.
  
  Me, "Ma'am... are you paying $3.50+ per gallon?"
  
  "Yes."
  
  "Get San Francisco to boycott gasoline for a week. Not a day. A full week of hardship. And you'll see prices go down. Otherwise, the companies are getting what you're paying and have NO need to adjust downward. Classic supply and demand. You pay it. They charge it."
  
  "Bullshit! Your one of Bush's cronies."
  
  "If you don't like the price of bananas at the store what do you do?"
  
  "Hello! I don't buy them."
  
  "Right. What eventually happens?"
  
  Silence. Golden silence.
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