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

To: JBINWC who wrote (22753)	5/23/1998 11:17:00 AM
From: halfscot	Respond to of 95453

About the only way you can play the OSX, or any other index for that matter, is with options-I think. (I'm sitting here scratching my head wondering if I'm sticking my foot/feet in my mouth) That's the only way I've ever played the indexes. BTW it's also a great way to lose your limited resources very quickly. Be very careful. Good Luck, halfscot

To: JBINWC who wrote (22753)	5/23/1998 11:38:00 AM
From: marc chatman	Respond to of 95453

Apart from options, you can look into sector mutual funds. I know Fidelity has a Select Energy Service fund, which includes several of the stocks in the service sector (top holdings include RON, RIG, SLB, HAL, FLC, CXIPY, FLC, NE, DO, BHI). I would guess that some of the other large fund managers also have energy funds. I've never invested in these, but I've seen some pretty smart investors who have.

To: JBINWC who wrote (22753)	5/24/1998 6:29:00 AM
From: MonsieurGonzo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95453

JBINWC; RE:" Playing the OSX.X index without options " Yes, there must be a fund for this sector, and some surfing on the internet might reveal more than one for you to choose from. Try starting off on Yahoo's mutual fund site... biz.yahoo.com ...and there are numerous other mutual fund sites to search/explore. If you want to Do It Yourself, look here... phlx.com ...and you can see how the OSX.X index is itself derived, with the "weights" for each component. So, if you wanted to allocate 20% of your investment capital to the Oil Service Sector, take your $$$ and multiply it by .2 to get the number of $ you have for a D.I.Y. OSX. Then multiply that OSX total $ by the weight for each component (to get the number of shares you'll want to buy of each) in the OSX, et voila! you now have all 15 stocks of the OSX.X index, and you can put them into a little portfolio along with the OSX.X index and track it that way. The advantage of buying all 15 OSX.X stocks is reduction of volatility by virtue of diversification. You have eliminated (or minimized) specific risk, and only the market risk for the entire OSX sector remains. This works well with a really deep-discount broker, like a $10/trade DATEK or something like that. (Unless you have mucho dinero, the trade commissions can defeat 15-stock sector portfolios, consisting of odd-lots, etc.) For investment purposes, long-term (18-months) this is a pretty good time to buy oil, amigo mios. You might wish to take that 20% oil service allocation (or whatever - certainly don't put all your eggs in one sector!) and further split it such that 75% is the OSX, and 25% is the OIX.X "BigOil" companies (or something like that). BigOil stox are turtles, but like, they ain't gonna go outta business anytime soon, either. This would offset some of the volatility inherent with the OSX with the (lower) volatility of the OIX BigOil companies. I would recommend the XOI.X BigOil index over the OIX.X save for the fact that XOI.X contains DD, DuPont, which is really the bellwether of the CEX.X Chemicals. (^_^) Hope this response was helpful; have fun ! -Steve