SLB and BHI; It’s A Beautiful Thing

When Schlumberger awoke this morning, sharpened its scimitar, and went out to face the day, it did so with the malicious intentions of carving out the hearts of any that stood in its path.  This stock has been on a hell bent path of furry all morning, its ally Baker Hughes faithfully by its side, and I am patiently following behind it, shaded in a war tent, dining on hummus and smoking hookah, as they cut their way forward, leading me into the promised land.

My shares of SLB have a $41.80 average cost, accumulated in the long lost days of yester year, easily my largest held position, and right now they seem to be up 46.8% year to date.  And if I see my way, that’s just the beginning.  I have every intention of holding onto these shares back until oil tops $100 per barrel (it will happen, sooner or later), with a keen eye on the date of October 30, 2009, when my first round of purchases become classified as long term holdings.

When that glorious day is reached, my shares will start shedding tax obligations like clothing in Cancun around the end of March, and I’ll break a fifth of Patron and a bottle of cactus juice out, and start bidding to have Ted Kennedy’s house leveled to make room for a Thalerland amusement park.

For the meantime, my target for BHI is somewhere above $38.  As to when I’ll drop the position exactly, that depends on the feel I get from the market.  Sentiments seem to have improved tremendously from where they were a few weeks ago, and I know oil can go higher in the face of this ever weaker dollar; that should translate to new highs for BHI, which means well above my target, $39 or even $40 should be attainable without much risk of a pullback in between.  However, I’m ever wary of the bi-polar characteristics of Americans these days, and may pull the plug sooner, for easy money.

However, eager to celebrate my kick ass new wealth, delivered by the hands of the French no less, those cheeky bastards, I loaded up on Altria this morning at $18.14 a share.  The beautiful thing about that stock is, compared to my margin interest rate, the dividend yield is still high enough that I can buy up large quantities, use the yield to pay off my interest, and still pocket a small profit.  It’s basically a safe bet, and wonderful use of margin.

I just wish now that I had loaded up on NRP instead of waiting for it to break $17.  Now it’s breaching $19, and I’m jealously sitting on a 10% loss as opposed to a delectable gain.