Chesapeake Reaches Lows Last Seen in 2000

We can’t blame Aubrey McClendon, he’s been gone for years. We can thank the “King Dollar”, “China Becomes A Consumer Economy” narrative for this one. McClendon announced he was stepping down almost three years ago and was gone come April 2013. Meantime, Lyft benefactor Carl Icahn is in for about 11% of a company with extreme leveraged exposure to energy, recently axed about one-sixth of its workforce and has around half the float short. It has something like $1.75B USD which must be conserved. The McClendonian summer during which $1.75B would have been lunch money has given way to winter for energy credits – just ask anyone in high yield energy. This is NOT Icahn’s only play in energy and raw materials – the mind reels when you lump in LNG, CVR and FCX. Hard to fade a kid from Queens who went on to card-shark his way through college and then turn the options business upside down but hard to see how CHK could even move from its now sub-$3 handle to anything worth what was plowed into it. The 19780s-era terror, now 2010s activist, of Corporate America, has lost something shy of a nickel for every dollar of his net worth ($1+B in paper losses so far) in CHK alone.