mekats

Plenty of Natural Gas: Exploration and Production Companies Keep Increasing Oversupply

another nat gas expert......just watch storage and production and you have all the answers. author conveniently overlooks the years of lead time involved in the capital decisions to drill, develop, hookup wells, pipelines, etc. E&P companies try not to turn it on and off like a light switch which paper shuffling analysts would recommend as optimal "economic behavior". After buying your puts you may be treated to a lesson in self correcting economics as reduced drilling and depletion "take care" of soft demand and low prices.

Plenty of Natural Gas: Exploration and Production Companies Keep Increasing Oversupply

another nat gas expert......just watch storage and production and you have all the answers. author conveniently overlooks the years of lead time involved in the capital decisions to drill, develop, hookup wells, pipelines, etc. E&P companies try not to turn it on and off like a light switch which paper shuffling analysts would recommend as optimal "economic behavior". After buying your puts you may be treated to a lesson in self correcting economics as reduced drilling and depletion "take care" of soft demand and low prices.

Secret Information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Only by showing the trend in each of the categories (openings, new hires, separations, quitters) cited could one begin to draw any reasonable conclusions. Pronouncing good or bad by viewing absolute levels in a vacuum seems shortsighted.

The Energy Markets According to Stupak

Speed limits is something Rep Stupak knows something about. He'a former state policeman. Believing he can come up with the right regulatory structure for commodity trading is a frightening thought.

Retention Rate Is an Important Factor for Dividend Growth Companies

While I wouldn't quarrel with the author's conclusion that higher internal growth characteristic dividend payers outperform the S&P 500, the data shown above just doesn't look "right" to me. E.G. the 26 company table averaging a 17% ten-year EPS retention just implies too little plowback and too high a shareholder payout, in my mind. I can't imagine these companies paid out, on average, 83% of their earnings to shareholders. Furthermore, if this sample earned 20-30% ROE's, their 17% retention (plowback) would have afforded them 3-5% internal EPS growth prospects. This sampling of companies surely had much higher sustainable growth prospects than low single-digit. So while I concur with the conclusion much of the data is quite off-putting. Does anyone really believe IBM is a 20% dividend grower over the next 5 years?

ETFs with Rising and Falling Long-Term Averages

so a system for buying bond related ETF's is useful at this point in the yield cycle?! lots of luck

Is Short Covering Really Propping Up the Markets?

Data not terribly convincing. Stocks with shorts 40% of their float -35% while stocks with 5% of their float short -28.5%, only 1.5% below the average stock's decline is nothing short of torturing the data for precious little insight. The dominant influence was obviously market direction not the % of the float that was short.

Brazil's Oil Power Grab Could Hit Petrobras

Developing an earnings model or asset value for PBR over the next 10 years is riddled with risks. The noises out of the country indicate that investors will be last to see the rewards of their technical success. You will be better off living and working there but not investing there.

Whither Oil Prices?

The missing analytical insight is what oil price was CVX discounting when it sold at $102? Doubtful that it was $147/bbl oil. More likely $90-$100 as market grappled with what was sustainable. CVX at $80 has to be discounting $70-$80/bbl oil now. Can it discount substantially below that? Yes, if global oil demand declines in 2009. But that is a low odds possibility.

Real Disposable Income Up in Q2

I agree that the systematic understating of inflation yields high "real" metrics at a time when opinion/confidence surveys are providing grimmer evidence.

Oil Demand Should Continue to Fall

Not looking at semi log scales does the reader an injustice in terms of seeing any relationships. Eyeballing it, demand is up ~25%-30% while price is up 550% over 25 yrs. A 10mm b/d (20%) demand drop out of the OECD to me would imply a lot of negative aspects about exports and oil price elasticity. Not seen here is the oil supply line which if memory serves has non-OPEC ramping quite significantly shutting in OPEC capacity. That is not about to happen this cycle.

Crude Sell-off: Solid Entry Point into U.S. Oil Majors

Fitzman - don't recall your May post referencing a 10 yr timeframe. Thought it was a "going forward" recommendation. The 30%-40% losses in the last month will require a lot of that long term horizon in order to recoup.

Crude Sell-off: Solid Entry Point into U.S. Oil Majors

Re-reading the May 30 post about no need for portfolio diversification is as stunning a contrary indicator that has ever been on SA. Hard to not recall it when reading this one.

Crude Reality: Big Oil's Purposely Restricting Supply

A lot of hogwash.........how credible is it that any industry wants to induce a long term decline in demand for its final product and incent alternatives to supply a shrinking demand function. Makes absolutely no sense. And the notion that undiscovered reserves are dispersed linearly over all leased acres is a talking point worthy of Speaker Pelosi. Energy supply and demand is a complicated subject that befuddles many experts with decades of experience. Many of today's opinion setters have 20 minutes of knowledge as they play catch-up to the crisis du jour. Saddest aspect of this article is that it would be embraced as gospel by a majority of our Congress who have even less of an attention span for complicated issues.

Analyzing EPS Revisions for S&P 500 Companies

excellent piece of work..........what I'd expect from a Rhodes scholar.................. mot