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

To: Art Bechhoefer who wrote (92344)	7/16/2001 3:38:11 PM
From: Frank Pembleton	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95453

Art, you'd have to define what amount of time a long term trend is, myself I invest in an intermediate time frame. I expect prices to be soft for at least 2-3 years, or until economic issues are settled here and abroad. a more economical way to extract oil from tar sands. I believe they are mining the stuff at $12 per barrel, it is now profitable and they are expanding production. I concur with you on the Long Term, but that doesn't stop the stock price of Syncrude or Suncor to fall, no matter what the reserves are. We'll enjoy more news with our upcoming weekly AGA/API scare, we'll have to see how bad the news is, and how the O&G group reacts to it. Will we see a bottom in the next couple of days? I doubt it... Will I try and catch the bounce? Not really. :) Please keep in mind oil has only dropped to $26 and look at the correction, what if it goes to $16? The possibility is there, that's what the market is telling us. Regards Frank P.

To: Art Bechhoefer who wrote (92344)	7/16/2001 8:47:03 PM
From: isopatch	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 95453

Art. Although I don't agree with you you've expressed your opinion in an carefully reasoned manner. That's the way I like to discuss issues with people. After all, if we all agreed about everything it would be a boring world. We'd all drive the same car and live in identical houses, yada, yada. Hell fire. That'd be worse than socialism.<g> As far as the Humbert Curve, Ian Campbell, et al. are concerned? Sure. Over the VERY long term those fundamental geological concepts will dominate and produce increasing scarcity and eventually a return to higher prices due to declining reserves and production of hydrocarbons. But I see at least 2 flaws in your reasoning. 1. You speak as if there's no difference between the E&P companies fortunes and those of investors/traders in that companies stock. But there is a very big difference. And it's temporal in nature. Cycles in the stock market, and Slider and I have pointed out over and over here, DO NOT coincide with earnings peaks and troughs in company revenues, earnings, cash flow, etc. The stock market discounts fundamental news by, on average, six months. And this cycle was another demonstration of that fact to the neophyte investor/traders in this sector. 2. Long Term to me is holding a taxable investment for longer than one year. The problem is that in a stock sector, such as the energy stocks, even Intermediate Term up moves (1-7 months by my preferred holding period) can turn into declines large enough to 4 or 5 times as much of your gain as you would surrender to the gov even in the highest tax bracket! So, as an investor with the objective of making the most of my net capital growth opportunities consistent with my personal risk profile and investment style it's simple common sense NOT to hold onto a fully invested position even through an Intermediate decline, let alone a cyclical Bear Market. And that, Art is what we're in now. I'm afraid you just not a good enough salesman to convince me that "good investing" requires me to intentionally allow my hard earned profits from the previous boom to disappear in the interest of being called a "Long Term Investor". By sharp contrast. I'll be buying back a much larger number of shares in my favorite stocks at the lower prices near the bottom of the cycle than I sold near the top. As a result my investment results will be vastly superior to my counterpart who just buys and holds the same stocks for years and years through both boom and bust cycles. Think I'll stick to my style.<g> Regards, Isopatch

To: Art Bechhoefer who wrote (92344)	7/17/2001 9:00:25 AM
From: Frank Pembleton	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 95453

To all, Politics in the last 30 years has been the driving force in "oil shock" psychology. The whole notion that we are running out of oil <yawn> happened in the late sixties, along with the socialization of North American politricks. IMHO, sex, drugs and rock'n roll have more in common with an oil shortage <yawn> then the automobile ever had. To support these new social policies you need to create dependency and it's done by creating fear, without fear there is no need for social engineering -- energy policy anyone? We can sit here with our collective intelligence and espouse the virtues of the Hubbert supply curve <yawn> or we can take an intermediate view of the market and play the psychological factor of fear and greed. Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds, written in 1841 by Charles Mackay illustrates this perfectly. More things change, more they stay the same! One last point, at any given time the difference between supply and demand is in and around 2% -- in either direction. How else can one explain going from "The Economist" front page lay-out of "drowning in oil," to the Peoples Republic of Californication "rolling black-outs" in two short years? Running out of oil? It's the wrong question to ask... Regards Frank P.