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Restructuring

Something had to be done.

It is December, so I cleared my head and made some tough choices. I sold completely out of AEC, ETP, and BTU. AEC and ETP are the only two positions I have that have held up (made money, really). I don’t want to part with them, but it’s the best move.

There will be immediate cries about selling winners and doubling down on losers. This is nonsense. I’m not doubling down on anything.

The sheer magnitude of this calamity has left me with an enormous, outstanding loss for the year. It’s December – no way in hell I can absorb that loss in less than 30 days.

The only way I can view this is as a window of opportunity to cash out my winners tax free.

Cash now stands at 25%.

I’m sitting on the cash. My preference, obviously, would be to deploy into a sector not at all tied to oil and gas. But if my worst fears come to fruition, that may not be a real thing.

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Board Up The Windows

Some of you may say this carnage is contained in the energy sector. It is not. The selling is across all fronts of commodities, currencies, and being sustained by a rally in bonds. It’s time to stop dicking around and call it like it is.

The market is pricing in another recession.

The past week has been the most painful I have ever experienced. The idea that just a week ago, I was flat for the year is preposterous to me. But it is true. In one week, the market has gone completely insane. Or perhaps it sees everything clearly and I have the blinders on.

Let’s create a hypothetical recession and talk about it. What would it look like? I think it’s safe to say that it would be much less severe than 2009. Every recession cannot be the worst recession ever, that would defy the statistics. I would also say that the central banks would step in much faster and more forcefully. We are watching the total dismantling of business right now. If you aren’t winning, you are losing…badly.

If we catch a recession, I am guessing it would last no more than 8 months and set us back just a few percentage points in growth. A mild trough, setting up for a quick recovery. This is the best guess I can offer, looking at the historical distribution of other recessions, as no data has yet presented itself that the US is in a recession.

As for cash, I have decided not to raise any. But…and this is a big “but”…I do not trade for a living. I have a job. The money I manage on this site is my own money and I can afford to watch it go through 50% swings. My demise is spared simply by not having any margin and picking positions that don’t fold.

My greatest fear is that BAS gets dragged into bankruptcy. That would be tragic. Understand that I am betting against this, knowing full well it could happen. I do not want to marginalize the risks here; this is GKK all over again (a company I once rode from $32 to $3). If you are mindlessly following me, you are in severe danger.

I’m probably right 60/40. That means I’m still wrong 40.

CAPEX budgets have started to reflect realities, for oil and gas development. That makes sense. If 20% reduction is to be extrapolated, no question we are about to watch many many names fold. The question is, are any of mine amongst them?

If the CAPEX cuts are handled skillfully, then producers will rally around a few favorite services firms, passing tough love judgment on the others, ushering about their ends. This is a normal occurrence, which we see in many industries that rely on suppliers/services firms.

If the CAPEX cuts are handled daftly, the entire E&G sector gets plunged into a black hole, and they don’t recover for a decade.

Let the game of chicken commence.

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A Tale Of Two Companies

For me, the most pressing of matters is the fate that awaits BAS. This may seems odd, but even after cutting its position sizing from almost 25% of my portfolio down to 10% in August, this singular company has had almost comic effect on my positions. The 5% or so in purchases I made throughout its decline can hardly be called the tipping point, as the source of my fate has been without a doubt the move BAS made from $29 to $6.

It is almost idiotic to speak of. Am I blind to something the rest of the market clearly spots? I am human, after all. Barely. But I am human.

So I decided to go take a walk down memory lane, to the dark days of 2010. It was a horrible time, following the worst recession the US had witnessed in almost 100 years. Oil prices had fallen from $140 to (for a few short months) the $30’s.

I believed that looking at these two companies, the BAS of 2010 and the BAS of today, I might learn something. Can BAS survive this oil price rout? Am I even now venturing down the path of my own demise?

I will let you decide.

Here is BAS’ balance sheet in June of 2010 (when oil was trading comparably to where it is today).

063010 BAS

And this is BAS’ balance sheet as of their most recent filing.

093014 BAS Balance Sheet

Go then, Slavs. Pass your judgment, if you dare. Argue that these are somehow different companies.

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Added To SXCP

I made purchases of SXCP for $24.64, adding to my position.

My current account balance stands at 118% margin.

My wash sale of NADL was total luck. I got pissed off at them for failing to close the deal with Rosneft so I spiked the ball and stormed off the field. That locked in a 15% loss. Well, the stock is down another 42% from that point. That would have been another 5% loss on the account. Not pretty but I’ll take it.

There is good strength in my positions this morning. BAS is up almost 8%; I’d take that with a grain of salt, it has been flipping 10% week over week, lately. But HCLP and VOC are both up about 4%, CCJ is up another 1%, and BTU is higher by 2%. AEC is taking a breather, now nearing $22. So is ETP, pushing on $68.

My holdings are AEC, CCJ, HCLP, BTU, BAS, ETP, VOC, SXCP, and physical silver.

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Uranium Spot Prices Continue To Soar

Approximate prices for the uranium spot market lifted another 5% from last week. We’re now well back into the $40’s.

This is what I have been waiting for, for years now. CCJ is still one of my larger holdings, and there is still time left in the year to have it be a big hit. But even if it doesn’t work out before 2014 comes to a close, 2015 will work fine too.

Japan set off the stampede. It ends gloriously.

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AEC Up 7% Today

I mostly got out of the multifamily trade earlier this year, by selling out of MAA. MAA was a position built from shares of CLP that were swapped out in a merger between the two companies. CLP and AEC were an investment I had made in the multifamily space in 2011, betting that rental occupancy would remain at record highs and rents would experience pressure, while more generally mortgage generation and homeownership would continue to languish.

That worked out pretty swimmingly.

But I did make one…I wouldn’t call it a mistake, per say, but…misjudgment. I did not anticipate how much the street hates AEC.

I guess AEC’s CEO got on the dark side of Wallstreet back in the late 90’s. Not just Wallstreet; I had some people perchance on my articles hyping up AEC who hated the CEO so much, they took the time to tell me and anyone else reading. I guess I can respect that. Blackballing those that have crossed you is an American tradition of sorts. I do it all the time. No big deal.

But I was willing to give AEC a chance, and it has mostly paid off as well. In addition to collecting 5% annually for four years, AEC is now up about 35% from my entry price. Not an APC or RGR or HCLP by any means, no. But respectable.

AEC is up 7% today, continuing a big push it has been making in the second half of this year. AEC has been trading at a serious discount to its peers in terms of stock premium, but has been making moves to force recognition of that value.

If AEC can hit above $23, that will have put AEC at effective returns of about 16% compounded annually, since 2011. Not bad, I can live with that.

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