There was a time just a few years ago when it was quite fashionable to talk about the European Debt Crisis. Why, we would wake up in the morning, have a spot of tea, some toast and some eggs, then jabber on until noon of eurocrises and pending doom of “The Old World”.

Around that time, I made a prediction that the euro would trade to parity against the dollar. It wasn’t something I could really trade on, since the only available products were untrustworthy scams and the timeline was long and unpredictable.

Here’s the link to the last time I mentioned the call, back in 2012. I suspended it because the then idiot Tea Party freshmen decided to destroy the credibility of the US government and we were still in the middle of easing programs designed to destroy the US dollar.

But I warned then, the future would be full of sudden shocks where the EURUSD would be prone to collapse and near parity. Well, here we are, with the EURUSD rate just now hitting 1.07 today.

This is the key reason why our markets are so volatile right now; especially true for commodities. Oil doesn’t know up from down specifically. The balance of trade is being thrown off.

This ends with stability of currencies. We don’t need the old EURUSD range back per se. We just need the bleeding to stop so we can find a new equilibrium.

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Yesterday I received reports that uranium U308 spot prices stood at $39.25 per pound as of March 2, 2015. This is a ferocious recovery from the lows of $28.00 in the middle of last year; a rally of 40%.

We are still at least another 50% short of where uranium spot was trading when the Fukushima reactor melted down. Still, this price recovery is constructive.

The recovery in uranium miners has taken longer than I expected. Certainly I was aware that this might happen, but I took early positioning because I figured there were better odds of the market pricing in a recovery early on. Instead, fearing the “Chernobyl Syndrome”, the market curled up into a fetal position and didn’t move for four years.

I remain long CCJ and, despite being very disappointed with the short sighted antics of their upper management, am willing to continue holding out for gains. CCJ’s operations continue to perform beyond reasonable expectations, all things considered.

After CCJ hits $30, I will donate a portion of the proceeds to the Canadian tax agency to offset the cost of chaining their Board of Directors and tossing them into a pit of despair.

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Today BAS was up 4.5%. I’d normally be elated by this kind of action, but I am not.

Because last Wednesday BAS was 20% lower. And the week before that BAS was where it is today. And the week before that BAS was 20% lower.

In fact I’d say generally speaking that watching a stock ratchet between $5 and $8 is a generally tempestuous experience that does things to mans sanity. Dark things. Quiet things.

Dark, quiet things.

I want those dark things to be done to oil short sellers now. He says to himself, slowly rocking in his 9th floor prison.

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I purchased OMAB, a Mexican airline company, is December of last year. OMAB has been putting up strong performance numbers and yet remains very much off the radar of most investors. They have control of some key geographical regions; hotspot destinations for vacationers.

Passenger traffic grew greater than 14% alone in the fourth quarter of 2014, year over year. The 2014 year showed passenger growth of greater than 10% – accelerating into year end.

Income from operations grew 56% in the fourth quarter of 2014 year over year, and total 2014 income increased 23%. Revenues grew 6% in the fourth quarter versus 9% for the 2014 year. Adjusted EBITA were up 14% in the fourth quarter and up 13% year over year.

OMAB is growing fast and aggressively and yet is still priced very competitively.

Thanks to lower fuel prices, OMAB is blessed with strong wind behind their sales. You could also reasonably make the case that stronger consumers are finally making time for long put-off vacations. OMAB is growing amenities in airport locations to expand non-core revenue.

Naturally I am looking forward to see how they do in 2015.

Note: I apologize for being somewhat absent the past few weeks. My wife had some health complications which have consumed vast amounts of my time.

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I am watching BAS very closely, for reasons that should be plain. I dug into the most reason filing and have a few observations.

BAS lost $0.45 per share in the most recent quarter ($0.56 per share after further impairment of goodwill), driven by business disruption for lower prices and extreme cold weather. However, this loss was driven entirely by write downs and does not appear to have consumed cash.

Without asset impairment BAS had earnings of $0.11 per share. As of right now BAS operations appear to be conserving cashflow well. The most recent quarter, expenses exceeded revenues by about $10 million. BAS has $59.5 million in depreciation and amortization, leading me to believe that BAS operations are still cash flow positive.

BAS is aggressively cutting into payroll, reducing employees by 10% in the most recent quarter. They are negotiating with their customers, offering concessions to defend business, and even managed to mildly grow revenues in the most recent quarter as a result.

I do not expect BAS to hold this performance. That is asking too much. They are currently expecting revenues to decline by 21% to 26% sequentially. That is an enormous drop and more losses should be expected.

For the moment, BAS is well capitalized. They have $80 million in cash and an addition $233 million in revolving credit.

It is my belief that BAS will weather the storm. I trust their management to make the right moves here; they have done so before so this is not new territory for them. They are watching cash flows closely and will keep expenses in or around those levels to preserve the business.

I believe that BAS will succeed in keeping cash burn to some level that staves off any insolvency concerns for some years, thereby allowing them to outlast the recent downturn in oil prices. I also believe that BAS has competitors that are in much worse position than BAS.

BAS will survive, and BAS will flourish in the aftermath of this oil industry crisis.

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The title of this post more or less speaks for itself. We had a 7 million barrel inventory build, yet two positions most susceptible to that sort of thing recovered and wound higher anyway.

I fully understand the possible danger here, holding these oil names still even after the “joy” I experienced in the second half of last year. But in my estimation, there comes a point when men separate themselves from boys, and needless worrying is shown to be just that.

Humanity endures. And capitalism is to date the closest thing to humanity. You can pretend like the world is just going to sit tight and let calamity knowingly take hold. Or you can believe man will take the steps necessary to prevent such a thing.

In the early years after the depths of the Great Recession, I made some bets against humanity. I bet that oil would trade to $60 (it’s amusing seeing it happen now with me on the opposite side of the fence) and that there would be massive growth shocks. I lost then just as you’ll lose now.

Man endures. Job growth is coming back and early signs of life in wage growth are also creeping up. There are, as there have ever been, many many things that a man could concern himself with. Disease and pestilence, war and famine, corruption and malfeasance, natural disasters, savagery and every other possible thing in between.

But man endures still.

The most pressing problem for the US at the moment is the strength of the US dollar. This is why there is a $10 spread between WTI and Brent, and why US manufacturing is having some problems…because a strong dollar opens them to strong competition. Our manufacturing base has had an easy time of it lately.

But these are problems to be overcome and nothing more. Our trifles are the great boon of another. The oil will find its home. I am tired of these drab years and would very much welcome a return to the soaring spirits of the 90’s. Others are looking for a chance for optimism too. At the end of the day, many of our problems are just numbers on a page. And numbers on a page are hardly immutable.

No we shall overcome our problems.

And man will continue to endure.

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