I’ve decided to stop posting to the Energy Investment Strategies web site and to take the site down eventually.  There are two reasons.   One is that I need to concentrate my efforts on fighting my cancer.  The other is that I think to a large extent my original aims for this site have been accomplished.  The site was started to educate investors about “peak oil”, its implications for potential future energy shortages, related increases in the importance and value of energy-related equities, and ways investors can best participate .  …

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Game Changing Battery Technology: Is It Here Now? Nearly every oil observer - Simmons, Maxwell, Jeff Rubin, many others, and least of all myself - see oil prices rising in 2 - 5 years, probably to new heights, if the global economy continues to recover.   That’s based on pretty accurate visibility of new oil supply over the next 5 - 7 years, fairly certain rates of decline in old fields, plus assumptions of demand growth rates for OECD, developing, and oil exporting economies.   I provided my own version of this …

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In response to my recent post suggesting that the forces of deflation are fighting those of inflation  (mostly weak housing, growing unemployment, and compulsory reductions in state and local budgets vs. the easy Fed and large federal deficit spending), one reader chastised me for even considering the possibility of deflation.  He and many other commentators say “it can’t happen”. They assume we must be entering a period of inflation because that’s the only way the gigantic projected federal deficits that will create mountains of federal debt - both in …

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In the conclusions to my latest newsletter I noted that, “Nearly every analyst is saying the market has come too far too fast and needs a pullback.  Great, let’s have one.”  Today I want to consider the pullback scenario further.  While it’s true that when “nearly every analyst” says something that thing is probably wrong, still  I think it might be reasonable for investors to take steps to protect the portfolio gains of the past couple of months in preparation for a potentially serious pullback.   Let’s hope that it …

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There is reportedly $4 trillion parked in U.S money market funds and other cash equivalents getting a return of approximately zero.   That’s a large cash allocation.  Breaking even seemed great a few months ago when most investors were being crushed by falling equity prices.  But now pessimism is waning and the last couple of months’ returns have been record-setting.  So cash is now starting to feel under-appreciated, pun intended.  One principle of investing always holds true:  funds must land somewhere.   So cash funds will either be re-invested where they …

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Oil and Stocks Advance Further   Oil and stocks seem to have bottomed as I suggested last month.  Since that March 16th post, stocks are up another 8%, a scorchingly hot run on an annualized basis.  Since March 6th the S&P is up over 21%.   Meanwhile the price of oil has risen almost 35% since February 18th, not quite two months ago. More Gains to Come I continue to expect further gains for both stocks and oil - and eventually for natural gas - but each is a different …

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Are stocks and oil bottoming?

Was last Tuesday’s 350-point rally the beginning of the end of the bear market or just a false “bear trap?”  And a related question: “Did oil bottom at $33 and will it get re-tested?”  Let’s see what we know.

Some things we know

Sometimes the objective observable facts can yield fairly clear conclusions.  Usually that’s not the case.  Usually you can use the available facts to make a decent argument in either direction.  But sometimes the facts seem fairly clear.

For example, there should have been clarity about being …

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A horse race is in progress that will determine the next generation automotive power plant.  In order to break our oil addiction cars must transition to electric power, which means the power plant must be either all electric or plug-in hybrid electric.  Either one requires a battery with vastly better cost/benefit ratios than is currently available.  The two near term favorites to fill the bill are nickel metal hydride and lithium-ion; a long shot on the outside is ultracapacitors.    Competing battery technologies also include an improved lead-acid battery and …

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Economists who adhere to Milton Friedman’s concepts say that inflation keys off the money supply, although the number-keepers define inflation in terms of the prices of goods and services.  So pervasive is the Friedman idea that lots of people now say the dollar will sink and inflation will reign because the government has been “printing” so much money and is planning to “print” even more - they equate the huge Federal deficits with an increase in the money supply.  (I put “print” in quotes because most of the money is …

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Our current investment trauma marks the end of an era of excesses in credit and real estate markets, of course.  But it also denotes that the United States is undergoing a far more general and significant transition - not only to a new government with a radically different agenda, but more lastingly into a whole new climate for investments. 

Gone is the era of wind-to-the-back investing powered since 1982 by continually lower interest rates and the virtuous influence of the baby boomer demographic bulge working its way through the U.S. economy …

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Some companies are cutting compensation levels and hours rather than cutting employment.  For example, here is a report on Visteon, the car parts supplier, that is putting 2,050 employees on a 4-day week and cutting their wages by 20%.  If you Google  “wage cuts” you get 529,000 responses.

Cutting wages and/or hours is a more humane way to downsize than firing people outright, in my opinion.  But to the extent that wage and hour cuts has been and will continue to be a trend, it disguises the unemployment numbers.  So …

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Energy investing - for me, at least - is mostly on hold.  I do have some mid-stream gas pipeline companies that pay great dividends but little else besides cash.  When will it be time to get back into energy stocks in a core portfolio sense?   Lets work back from the new fundamental realities of oil prices to their implications for energy stock prices.    Before 2003 (except during the politically related oil crises of the 1970’s) there was only one condition in the oil market: plenty of oil.  So oil …

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Credit conditions continue to tighten and in the real economy boom times are quickly turning to bust.  Economists expect to see a continuing series of dismal economic reports on GDP, employment, corporate profits, etc.  Behind the statistics will be more disappointing events, a veritable shoe  store of shoes getting ready to drop.  Here’s a list of coming attractions offered as perspective on what may be in store.

The Car Shoe

On the front burner, obviously, is a required “resolution” to the U.S. auto industry’s decades of mismanagement.  The money’s running out and …

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As the global economy heads into terra incognita and the stock market tries to prove it has seen the worst my thoughts, for whatever they are worth, are: 1. Some economic observers such as John Thane, the CEO of Merrill Lynch, and JC Penney’s CEO Mike Ullman are saying the current economy is comparable with the Great Depression.   We need fiscal stimulus (since we’re nearly out of gas in terms of monitory stimulation potential).  How much?  If we’re going into a depression the quantity of fiscal stimulus needed …

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Tom Friedman wrote a piece today criticizing Treasury’s use of the first $250B of the $700B “bailout” funding to buy equity in banks, saying it will stifle creative lending.  Friedman is apparently naive.  The reason Treasury put money into large banks was not to “stimulate” the banking system.   The reason is so that the banking system can function at all and so large banks can buy smaller banks.  The reason Treasury wants large banks to be able to buy smaller ones (really, mid-sized ones) is that they want an …

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