Yesterday I started two new positions at 5% of assets each. They are NADL and SXCP.

NADL is a deep water drilling company that is coming into serious Russian money later this year, and I am effectively betting that the world does not wage sanction war when it comes to oil. My price for NADL was $6.29.

SXCP is involved with the nice clean process of manufacturing coke for metallurgy. They are just a good value buy. My price for SXCP was $28.98.

While it would have been my preference to tell you yesterday that I initiated these positions, it was not sadly within my time constraints.

Cash position stands at 8%.

I stepped in and nibbled on BAS for $19.37, taking cash down a couple percent.

I am furious with myself for missing the bloodbath in HCLP this morning. Work had my full attention, and if I had known that HCLP was down another full 10%, without hesitation I would have stepped in and bought even more.

Cava…

Today I started the building of a new position in the VOC Energy Trust ($VOC) by trading 5% of my cash position for units costing $12.68.

The exact details of the trust are nuanced and I will get into them later. The high level overview is that VOC has profit rights to a percentage of several oil & gas related assets until a pre-arranged expiration date or a total level of production is attained and sold, whatever comes first. I’ve reviewed the arrangement and believe that at current pricing, with the amount of time and volume remaining to the trust, it’s a no brainer investment.

At $12.68 and the most recent distributions to unitholders, the trust was yielding 12.3% annually.

If you look up the chart, you’ll see some extreme volatility. That makes perfect sense, as VOC is a leveraged play on the price and volume of oil. But over the remaining life of the trust, I think today’s prices are a solid bet.

More detailed analysis will follow. Cash stands at 23%.

I made purchases of CCJ, taking the position to 20% of assets once more.

The terror of the crowd notwithstanding, the stars are aligning.

It is time for the days of CCJ, my child.

Added to HCLP for $54.87

I deployed 5% of my cash position, buying up shares of ETP for $60.15. This raises ETP back to a full 10% position on my book.

Why shouldn’t I? ETP is a winner. It’s going on a stealth September run, when everyone is afraid.