Boone Pickens' Holdings

An article in the Wall Street Journal last month mentioned that Boone Pickens' hedge funds had lost nearly $1 billion for the year through August 31st.  One fund was down nearly 30% through 8/31 and another smaller commodity-focused fund was down 84%.  The Boone Pickens funds are energy specific, and the S&P 500 Energy sector is down another 34% since the end of August. 

While the BP Capital holdings have not been released yet for the end of the third quarter, the holdings as they stood at the end of the second quarter indicate that performance has most likely gotten much worse since the end of August unless serious hedging strategies were put in place. 

Below we highlight equities that the fund held as of the end of the second quarter.  We highlight the performance of each stock in Q3, since the end of Q2, and in October alone through last Friday.  As shown, while most stocks were down significantly in the third quarter, they got absolutely slaughtered in the first eight trading days of October.  Many people attribute much of the decline over the last week or so to margin calls and forced selling from hedge funds.  With the huge declines in energy stocks this month, one has to wonder if the BP funds were part of it.

Many may remember the huge $165 million contribution that Pickens made to Oklahoma State's athletic department back in 2005.  While it worked out well in '06 and '07, unfortunately Pickens "insisted that the money be managed by BP Capital."  Darren Rovell has an interesting article on the OSU story over at CNBC.com yesterday.

The release of BP Capital's holdings at the end of the third quarter should be coming soon, and it will be very interesting to see how they have changed over the last three months.  If they didn't change much, it's hard to imagine the fund making it through this mess.

click to enlarge

Comments

[joe1:]

this is a classic example of anytime you see an "opinion" on CBNC. ask whats the motive, can it be self-serving. Its possible here. He was on CNBC all summer touting 150 oil. Funny. I will give him credit for pushin alt energy though.

2008 Oct 14 05:54 PM

[Distressed ...:]

I can't believe CHK hit $11.99 this past week

2008 Oct 14 06:07 PM

[helplessobs...:]

With the CHK CEO being wiped out in the market, it shows running a exploration and natural gas company is quite different from managing a stock portfolio. We wont see much of Pickens or McClendon on TV from now on. Like other comments I like Pickens plan for shifting motor transport over over to gas. The problem is compressed natural gas needs to be stored at very high pressures to get much mass into a reasonable volume. Propane stores at 177 psi in a liquid form at 100F which makes it nearly perfect for automobile use. While a gallon of propane has less energy(91000 vs 120000 btu) that equivalent gallon of gasoline, it is still an excellent automotive fuel.

2008 Oct 14 08:59 PM

[Dame Daxx:]

CHK has doubled since Friday.

Boone has stumbled on oil all year. When it first hit $100 (going up) he shorted, losing a lot. Then he switched to being long, only to get hit again when it came down.

The markets, all markets, this year have just been a Casino. I like this quote from the FT yesterday:

"So many trading models have failed catastrophically over the past months that the survivors can wonder if anything other than randomly distributed luck can be relied on."

2008 Oct 14 09:19 PM

[Paul Killinger:]

Gee, I guess this means his net worth may be cut in half, all the way down to maybe $2 billion. Poor fella! I recall him saying once he became a billionaire four different times. It's simply the nature of his business.

2008 Oct 15 10:56 AM

[billp37:]

What's the HEAT RATE for wind energy?

1 Kilowatt hour = 3412.14163 BTUs.

We wonder if Pickens has thought about this?

2008 Oct 15 12:16 PM

[fran:]

BILLP37--

your point is ???

2008 Oct 15 01:53 PM

[billp37:]

"your point is ???"

Have you thought about implications of first law of thermodynamics to solar and wind electric power generation?

Where do the BTUs come from to generate the advertised electric power output?

And where are the BTUs robbed from?

The point is: What are the consequences of transferring BTUs from wind and solar to electricity generation?

I don't know. But I am curious.

Energy is not one of my areas of expertise, Only an area of interest.

Am I clear?

cheers

home.comcast.net/~bpayne37/pnmelectric...

But if you want to know how Ali Vakili Rad and Masoud Hendi got sent to prison, then maybe I can help.

www.prosefights.org/th...

2008 Oct 15 09:14 PM

[billp37:]

Let me correct misspellings

membres.lycos.fr/justi...

regards.

from us cats

www.prosefights.org/fu...

2008 Oct 15 10:23 PM

[icandoitdon:]

boone "oil won't go below $100" pickens is a little long in the tooth for this game, just like kerk kerkorian, car ichan and yes....warren buffet.

questions for each of them:

boone: when are you going to fold your investment in air?
kirk: which is the better investment..casinos or automobiles?
carl: which stock would you recommend...motorola or yahoo?
warren: do you think maybe you jumped too soon on goldman and GE?

2008 Oct 15 11:24 PM

[Pipo:]

I was never s fan of Pickens. All in all he is a geologist...

My favourite investor is Jim Rogers and you can find out what he is buying and selling at jimrogers-investments....

2008 Oct 16 11:25 AM

[Michael Zhuang:]

Not that you guys should care, but here is David Swensen's public equity holdings ....

investmentscientist.co.../

2008 Oct 17 01:06 AM

[Andy Abraham:]

Seems everyone has an opinion...and the governments a much more optimistic idea... How long do you think until we rebound from the economic situation we are in?
I have heard next year... to the example of Japan 20 years +
As a member of Myinvestorsplace.com, we are seriously looking for solutions.

2008 Oct 17 04:16 AM