Time to sell RIG?
1. oil is at the top end of OPEC's target range. If it goes higher from here (for any reason), OPEC will increase production, the Wall
Street Journal will say "the cartel's discipline is broken", and I'll get another chance to load up on RIG at 25.
2. RIG has been in a trading range of 24-31 for all of 1999. Every attempt to hold above 31 has failed.
3. Eventually, sustained 20$ oil prices have to help Transocean's bottom line, and the stock price. But management says profits might not improve till 2001, which gives us lots of opportunity for false rallies.
4. I haven't seen any published revisions to forward earnings guesses, since the SLB merger. "Down a bit short-term" is all I've read. 1.40?? 31/1.40 gives them a forward multiple of 22. That seems a bit high.
5. The merger makes RIG a gorilla in deep-water drilling, dominating the field, with a position far ahead of rivals. Big-cap is still better, or at least more visible to Fidelity fund managers. I think the recent small cap revival will fade, and the long-term trend in favor of big-caps will resume, and continue until the bottom of the next recession.
6. When drilling recovers, the stock will be making all-time highs. "When" is the question. If EPS doesn't go up until mid-2001, then we'll be in a trading range, with false rallies every couple of months, all the way through 2000.
7. The overall market, at an absurdly high valuation, has stopped paying attention to excellent earnings, and is back to worrying about inflation/interest rates. Greenspan has said he'll hike interest rates if he sees signs of inflation, and he also said the two trends he watches for signs of inflation are costs for commodities and labor. Looks like both are going up. I predict two more Fed hikes this year, taking back everything they gave us last fall. |
