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Gold/Mining/Energy : Strictly: Drilling and oil-field services -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Area51 who wrote (83635)	1/6/2001 2:33:50 PM
From: Aggie	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95453

Big Dog, Area51, hello. I've been mulling this general issue over for a long time, and it's my belief that the misconceptions that investors and oil companies suffer under is that it is possible for an oil company to survive when its senior executives try to pander to the interests of the stock investor. Our industry cycles are typically 5-7 years, yet in the past decade we have seen our senior executives employ techniques which serve no other purpose than to create the illusion of a healthy, undervalued, profits & dividends generating company - all for appealing to the fickle palates of prospective stock holders. Right-sizing, downsizing, spinning off of assets, merging with others, nearly all of these new-speak techniques have their heritage in the notion of executives paid with stock options whose primary objective is a high stock price, not company growth. Couple this with a rampant population of the markets with new or first time investors, who are relatively unschooled in business or the principles of capital and venture investment, and it's a recipe for disaster: A company with a 5-6 year cycle governed by quarterly performance results, stock price, and notional popularity. Dismal. I increasingly believe that we will see disenfranchisement from the markets and an increasing use of private investment instruments (bond issues, joint ventures, limited partnerships, etc.), away from the market hubbub, which will include the truly savvy investors - the ones who understand the business properly, and are willing to be patient. The stock markets have been invaded by the riff-raff, the investor-peasantry, and the wealthy must always have their exclusivity, nicht war? Any comments? By the way, I came across a very good Must-Read on the notion of downsizing and what it is really used for: geocities.com Regards and Good Luck to All, Aggie

To: Area51 who wrote (83635)	1/6/2001 2:35:18 PM
From: WWS	Respond to of 95453

Another "must read" is the 3-part "Energy Roundup" appearing this weekend over at TheStreetCom. It is hosted by Christopher Edmonds and features Marshall Atkins of Raymond James, two analysts from Simmons and Co. (but not Matt himself), plus three other sector analysts. Don't miss it if you have a subscription, and remember that you'll have to change links at the ends of Parts 1 and 2 in order to transfer to the next Part. thestreet.com (Sorry, Area51, I honestly did not see--until I had already posted--that you too had posted the very same link to the TSC exactly one post before mine).

To: Area51 who wrote (83635)	1/6/2001 4:00:16 PM
From: excardog	Respond to of 95453

area 51 Your thoughts and concerns regarding the oil services and E&P's appear to be well grounded and probably the reason the sector has a hard time getting money to hang around so to speak. Funny thing is every time the Nasdaq tanks and I'm watching the tape all I see for the most part are 10k and up blocks of XOM sliding by. I would assume money gets parked there for safety sake but the question remains how do we get the money to stay? My feeling is there needs to be a better understanding world wide of the problems that we are truly facing in the years ahead. Yesterday CNBC finally took notice of the power problems that exist in California and look what happened all hell broke loose. We've been on to this problem on this thread for maybe a month now. Bank of America I'm sure had some sort of prop job going on with it since it closed at $48 or so. Watch for a gentle slow bleed over the next few months with that issue as the houses plant upgrades and distribute their shares among the masses. Criminal really. Back to the problem of getting funds to remain "invested" here and not "traded". The fact remains that we are near the point where we import nearly 60% of the oil we consume. Unfortunately that number is expected to increase as the years go by. One way to assure certain levels of pricing that promote exploration and less dependence on imports would be to limit them. This sounds crazy to most I would imagine but think of it as an OPEC price band in reverse. If for example the price of oil rose to over $30 a barrel we then allowed more oil to be imported thus bringing the price down and when oil got too low we limited the imports thus bringing the price back to a more reasonable levels say $25 dollars a barrel. Companies would be assured of price supports which would promote exploration and "investors" would be assured of a reasonable return on their investment. Of course this process could only work until world demand exceeded supply. Then with any luck our exploration efforts will have generated enough supply that our level of imports could be reduced. I'm afraid this is a some what crazy idea and that most would laugh it off but somewhere in the not too distant future world wide demand is going to exceed supply and then we will be forced to face the problems head on. Economies that are net importers of oil will become the victims of the whims of the countries that export to them. Can you imagine the Arabs being able to control the direction of the peace talks in Israel. These events are not that far off IMO. So in the meantime the American populace will continue to enjoy their "god given" right to cheap, all be it less abundant energy until the time that we get whacked upside the head and all hell breaks loose once again. How to profit will remain the question for now. How to survive could become the question that we face in the future. Regards Scott