Note to Charlie mUNGer: Do you really want to go the “Al Gore Route”?
Warren Buffet sidekick, Charlie mUNGer, recently wrote a parable about the USA titled: Basically, it’s over…” I’m not disagreeing with his view, but look at this quote which refers to the USA:
“…rich in all nature’s bounty except coal, oil, and natural gas.”
OK, he was exaggerating a bit for his parable, but take a look at this weekly chart of natural gas over the past couple of years (click to enlarge):
The price of natural gas has continued to plunge right through The Winter of Al Gore’s Worst Nightmare. Does it look like there is an energy crisis on that chart? Not hardly. It turns out that natural gas is found in rocks, and the USA has lots and lots of rocks. In fact, we are sitting on so much natural gas that one badly placed spark could blow up the whole country.
That gas has been there all along; we just couldn’t find it. But now we have new technology, and we are finding it like crazy. If all that you have to dig with is a straw, the only place you will ever find oil is in Iraq. Everyplace else requires better drilling technology.
The moral of the story is that energy is a function of technology. If you say that the world will run out of oil on such-and-such a date, you are really proclaiming to know the future of technology. And seriously, who would be foolish enough to do that?
Thank you SIR!
The world will some day run out of idiots but not out of Natural Resources.
Well, he’s sorta right about the oil (relative to the top oil producers I suppose), but we are second only to Russia in natural gas production and have the largest coal reserves (by far) of any country – although China produces more coal than we do. All in all, a very silly and uninformed statement.
Furthermore, we actually have a reasonably large amount of oil, its just that we use so much of it that we are forced to import it (mainly from Canada and Mexico – only a little from the Middle East).
I have taken a few energy & environment classes in my day, so when people start spouting off crap like this it hits a nerve.
I would love to see some long term volume info on actual futures contracts for oil and natural gas over the last 5 years. I’m willing to bet the large drop in NG prices has everything to do with a massive drop in speculation (it surely isn’t a supply/demand thing) – sadly, my charts only go back about a year for the futures.
Say, maybe we’ll be able to get blood out of a turnip after all!
Some links:
NG Production
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/gasproduction.html
NG Reserves
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas
Coal Production
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_producing_regions
Proven Oil Reserves
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves
Oil Production (I’ll bet most don’t know the US is #3)
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2173rank.html
Oil Consumption (again, we use way more than anyone else)
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_oil_con-energy-oil-consumption
Towelie,
Have you seen this site?:
http://www.wtrg.com/prices.htm
It has lots of charts, some going back to 1869.
Matt
Very good point Matt.
Here is the Honda Civic GX.
http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-gx/
And then we need to refuel.
http://www.cngprices.com/
Yerk,
Bill is not afraid to eat crow. I also had
some.
Signs point to an interim top March 8th to
March 11th…after some air is lefy out, it
looks like the market wants to make a high
around May 20th.
If the unregulated market were to be regulated,
George would owe over $200 Trillion.
More like $300 trillion. I like to watch this; it puts me to sleep at night. The ultimate sheeples counter:
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
Went back to Vegas to play an old trade and played one double deck shoe of blackjack (roughly 12 to 15 hands in 5 minutes) and made 5 units ($125). I was there on business, so no time to play at the tables. Not my usual unit, but I had a staff member with me…betting black wasn’t an option.
Phantom of the Opera was sensational as usual. Great seats and a great seminar.
I’ll melt into the background here now…I’ll still lurk but post very, very little because I’ve found that trading isn’t for me. Too much stress and I’m almost always wrong. My fault, no one else’s. I’ll always enjoy reading the posts though. This group is a riot and a great bunch. Thanks Matt.
Good point(s) about prognostications and science…
In the late 70′s I took a course titled “The physics of energy” as one of my BS courses for my B.S. The course was given by a hot physicist (at the time) who spend each lecture on about 300 sq ft of blackboard for the entire semester “proving” why there was simply not enough hydrocarbon on the planet to supply us past about ’95. When we got to about ’90 I stopped listening to any “famous” scientist about issues of this sort. The Gore-esk movement falls in the same category (notice, now, that they need to re-analyze the data). Now, if they show me a photo of a comet approaching real fast, different story. But, as for armchair scientists with calculators and absolutely no empirical data…
Speaking of which, the market (and carry trade) also has to show me how we are going to get past the 4406 new 20 day highs we pulled off on Friday, which is 7.2% greater than any reading we’ve had in this bull run since 03/09. When we’ve had a thrust past 3900, guess what has always happened the very next day? Fits in with your NFP post Matt…
Stay nimble folks…
http://www.investmentpostcards.com/2010/03/07/your-house-as-seen-by/
LOLLLLLLLLLLLLL
Futures Prices
Market Last Change %
Crude Oil 81.94 +0.44 +0.54
Natural Gas 4.505 -0.088 -1.91
Corn 375.5 -7.5 -1.99
Soybeans 942.75 +0.75 +0.08
30yr Bond 116.59375 -0.09375 -0.08
10yr Note 117.046875 -0.468750 -0.40
NY Gold 1135.7 +0.5 +0.04
NY Silver 17.405 +0.023 +0.13
Emini S&P 1138.00 +1.50 +0.13
Emini Nasdaq 1886.75 +1.25 +0.07
Emini Dow 10561 +16 +0.15
Thanks After,
Almost to the upper MOO resistance line. Something should happen when it is hit.
The reason for SRS’ big crash on Friday? Someone sold tons for a hedge. I don’t have a link, that information was on the iPhone TDAmeritrade news.
So another technical reason for such a move – has nothing to do with funnymentals.
AAPL’s iPad isn’t coming out until April. This run-up in price is buy the rumor… guaranteed it will sell the news next month.
Well, maybe not guaranteed for the first couple of weeks but after that. Basing this upon my bias that a notebook is better than an iPad.
SPY has peeked above the lower MOO resistance line twice. Third time could be the real deal – if there is a third time.
check out the fly today…
After,
Is that the symbol FLY?
bias up. 1150 line in the sand for a small bearish intermezzo.
no, the blog -g-
sorry, my 11:25 post was to George
Oh, okay.
Here’s the UNG ETF. Setting up for Juice when the Honda comes out:
http://i48.tinypic.com/90q59u.jpg
If you ever have a heat sink break away from the mobo, don’t throw the computer away, it CAN be fixed. I fixed one over the weekend after being told to scrap the desktop.
After,
There IS a symbol FLY and I have been following it ever since you posted that. I just may scalp it.
SPY is working its way down to the 15min 36MA where it could take a ‘bigger’ bounce. It bounced off its 5min 9MA but on that time frame there is overhead resistance of its 36MA.
So, could go either way from here.
URE is .01c from matching its high it had in late December 2009.
Consolidate, move higher… repeat all day while waiting for a reversal. What could be easier?
K,
Put another quarter into the market slot machine so it will go somewhere.
What we need is a MOAR!
SPY still has not corrected its 15min MACD divergence, even with that last move up. It could still happen but it will need lots more steam.
It could be trying to fill the MOO gap which has been better resistance than I thought. But… this rally is getting long in the tooth.
The latest MOO/DOO chart:
http://i48.tinypic.com/qpjnsz.jpg
Hey, I know why the full moon didn’t work the first of March, because it isn’t the “real” full moon. This month has two full moons, the second one coming toward the end of March.
So, the last one was a fool moon.
CBOE index put/call ratio currently 2.08. The only other readings over 2 since the 3/09 were 2.09 on 8/26/09 and 2.11 on 9/28/09.
Sorry, I meant to type 3/09 bottom. Statistics are correct though…
Thanks Joan. The 3/09 marked a bottom.
Oh, you said that… my bad.
Too little, too late for even a mini-MOAR. I’ll take anything though.
Huggin’ that inverse.
APY on its 15min 36MA – again. It will try reversing to some degree. However, that time frame’s MACD is still negative.
That should be SPY.
URE has been good to me.
Now time to watch the debt clock some more.
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
Bit of a sloppy close there, and futures are still falling after the bell.
Cisco will be announcing a miracle tomorrow, or so sez CNBC:
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/marketwire/0593751.htm
If the market yawns at the news, the bulls might want to think about hitting the exits.
Fund meeting today HPQ and AAPL were presented but since I haven’t turned into a dictator majority voted to not buy them as they are overpriced.
K,
Design by committee is always a tough challenge. The president should have veto power.
CBOE put/call ratio ended up closing BELOW 2 at 1.94. But, since it looked likely a couple of hours ago, it is worth mentioning that he only 2 times since the bottom that it did close ABOVE 2, the SPX dropped over 35 points within the next four trading days.
2thfixr,
I hope you will trade some, at least a little. Will miss your comments. I understand though, it’s hard to concentrate and work at the same time. Even swing trading takes an effort.
Matt
I have heard from reliable sources that they have discovered a way of digitizing and transporting mass over the internet. After watching 1,000,000 reruns of Startrek they have it down. Now George can truly buy peanuts over the internet and begin eating them in near real time. This will be some way cool stuff. beam me up Scotty.
String
Hook me up to a USB port, Scotty.
George
Short airline stocks and grab your bag, it’s on!
String
http://www.businessinsider.com/jim-rogers-if-europe-let-greece-go-bankrupt-the-euro-would-go-straight-up-2010-3
K,
I liked his comment about Fannie Mae being the problem. It got into trouble but the Fed blamed it on “traders” and speculators, cut off short-selling and stuff.
“They” ain’t got a clue… hmmm, where have I heard that before?
Stringm,
I wonder how many gigabytes I’d convert into?
traders and speculators also kicked apple from $200 to 85 but apple did nothing wrong so it rebounded even stronger.
doesnt matter if speculators attack. if you can survive it (aka dont have an underlying problem for them to speculate on) then you’re good to go.
George
I am not sure how many you would convert to now, but with dead brain cells and dry skin I know I would amount to much less than I used to. I am sure I will fit in the pipe real easily.
String
Stringm,
Ha! I’ll eat a lite lunch so I’ll transport better.
Thanks George, but having given too much at the altar of trading, I’ve got to concentrate on what I am good at: dentistry (and counting cards). At least I’ve made money at the tables. I doubt I’ll pay capital gains for years–if ever again. Sometimes the best offense is a good defense: aka, don’t lose any money being stupid.
I tried, but obviously I’m not cut out for short term trading. I’m an investor–not a trader. Plain and simple. Glad I finally recognized it. I’ll still be around. Great ideas here, and love the group. I’ll put in my 2 cents when needed. Thanks.
Nano Energy has arrived:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/thermopower-waves-0308
Nano is exciting stuff.