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I took a 67% loss on VOC…(vomits)

This was on the books from last year, and I’ve held it now for about 12 months. I’m going to retain HCLP and BAS, but VOC was just too ugly to keep around right now.

I want the tax deductions this year, to start the clean up process. I like VOC but it’s an ugly pure play on oil prices. I would have thought buying this thing after a 50% drop was a pretty safe venture, but really who saw the extent of this fiasco in oil prices?

In November, I’ll take another look at VOC, after the write off is locked in.

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Oil Treading Water

Another disappointing inventory report sent oil down about 1% over the past 24 hours. Despite this, the oil names are holding up okay. BAS, HCLP, and VOC were all up today, and ALDW was down if you can imagine.

We’ll see what tomorrow brings. The oil and energy patch is down from the recent top, but this is a process we are working through.

See you tomorrow.

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What A Wonderful Day

I am 70% long, and this is what my day looked like:

BAS +12.61%
CCJ +7.56%
HCLP +3.42%
ALDW +1.99%
VOC +1.76%
TIS +1.48%
OMAB +0.70%

It’s difficult to scoff at a day like that.

Yes I am still down from 2014. I have no desire to hide behind spin. 2014 was a horrible year. But as I said to those of you asking why I was still hanging around BAS, it was because BAS had 100% of upside…at least. And now here we are, closing in on $10 from $5.

I like all on the list. I’ve carefully vetted these positions and wouldn’t it be something if it was these same positions that ultimately redeemed me? I’m not wedded to the thought (for fear it will kill me) but it’s certainly quite possible.

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BAS And VOC Ended The Day Higher

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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Good Showing Today

Not bad all things considered. CCJ, HCLP, OMAB and TIS all went higher, with HCLP up more than 4%, OMAB up more than 3%, and TIS up more than 2%. BAS was down 1%, but this is a process.

BAS just recently announced their rig count numbers. Utilizations are way down, from 67% at the beginning of 2014 to 56% today. 4% has occurred just since the start of the new year.

Well? We’ve seen that these methods are more expensive. Now let’s see how cheap they can be. And who’s going to be around next year. My guess; BAS are champs.

If oil prices run back to $100 now that Russia has decided to play nice, I will die from laughing. The days of global competition are done; the USA is the victor. I know you defeatists want to apologize for our might – it’s nothing but luck of course, and that is somewhat true – and rekindle the “peaceful” yester-years of blood thirsty despots butchering the peasants for land and spoils, never ending. Save your breath.

Someone was going to win this game sooner or later, and it looks like that someone is us. Rather than wishing upon us another 1,000 years of savagery, suck it up and move on. You could hardly ask for a more genteel ruler than America, no? What other nation has ever spent this much time self-reflecting and prostrating over the vanquished?

Our President’s order is about to smote tens of thousands to ruin. And when he is finished, he will give a long, sophomoric lecture on the importance of civility and equal opportunity in the global marketplace. Could you imagine the look on the faces of Genghis Khan or Alexander the Great, if they could see such a spectacle? I imagine they would have both cast down their arms and retired to spend their final days as hermits.

What comes next is very important. The crowd is skittish, but today surely helped. We need Brent to breach $60 soon, and it would be very constructive if bond yields of the safe havens could, you know…yield something again.

The people are very scared of the Eurozone breaking up…for why, I could not possibly tell you. The euro has brought nothing but suffering on the nations of Europe. It was as if a spattering of intellectuals across the continent tried to trick Germans, French, Greeks, Italians, Spaniards, Finnish, Austrians, Belgians, Irish, Dutch, and Portuguese people into thinking they were all from the same place, like they wouldn’t figure it out.

It seems that way because that was exactly what happened. Such a brainless ploy. And almost set up to fail, from the beginning. The number of American economists, almost uniformly and unanimously across all walks of life, that laughed at this idea; it is incredible.

I will spoil the ending. Greece is going to walk away from the Eurozone, and nobody will care.

Did creating the Eurozone destroy the global economy in the first place? There were many currencies that were trading one day that didn’t the next. The euro came out and life went on. Reversing the process is no different, except at the end of the rainbow, Greece defaults and ruins their credit rating for a decade, and a bunch of banks get whacked (what else is new?). Then voila! we have a brand new example of what not to do when managing a country, as Greece becomes the butt of jokes for a half century (see France as to fighting wars or Venezuela as to not being filthy animals, for reference).

I remain cash heavy for now, but am looking for that moment when people start getting excited again.

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