June 5th, 2008 Living Off Dividends Posted in Canroys, Commodities, Currency, Forex, Gold/Silver, Investing, Mutual Funds, Oil and Gas 6 Comments »
Regular readers know I’ve been pretty pessimistic on the outlook of the US economy and bearish on the US dollar as well. However, since it seems like everyone is echoing the same sentiment, could it be that we’re due for a short (or medium) term spike in the US Dollar?
According to Lou Basenese, editor of the The Alpha Intelligence Alert, think it’s time to go long the USD.
Here are some of the reasons he cites:
1. Bernanke & Paulson Rediscover “Verbal Intervention.” Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke finally got off their duffs to defend the dollar. Paulson got things started in Qatar on Sunday. Speaking to the leaders of the Gulf oil states, he urged the countries to think twice about abandoning their dollar peg, as “ending the peg is not the solution to the inflation problem.” And Bernanke stepped up today. Speaking, via satellite, to an international monetary conference in Spain he insisted Fed policy will be a key factor, “ensuring that the dollar remains a strong, stable currency.” After such a long silence, this week’s tag team approach is nothing but a positive development.

May 24th, 2008 Living Off Dividends Posted in Canroys, ETFs, Education, Investing, Oil and Gas 16 Comments »
As I mentioned 5 weeks ago when oil breached $115/barrel, demand for the black gold will cause the price to keep on rising. On Wednesday, I drove to USC where I had an interview at the Marshall School of Business for the full-time MBA program. While driving there, I heard that Oil had exceeded $133 per barrel. I had a great interview (where I spoke about my background, my interests, the state of the economy, what a moron George W. Bush is, and the current elections) and then proceeded to a friends’ place to spend the night.
I later heard that oil prices hit $135/barrel. That news was broadcast incessantly on all the news channels and I kind of felt that it was being overdone. Whenever everyones saying that the price of something is breaking all records, it usually pulls back. I think thats why the US Dollar had shown some strength this year. I woke up on Thursday and bought the ULTRASHORT OIL & GAS ETF (AMEX: DUG), it went up a dollar and I exited my position, happy to have made enough money to pay for my gasoline bill for this month.

April 30th, 2008 Living Off Dividends Posted in Oil and Gas 9 Comments »
Oil dropped below $114 today after hovering around $117 per barrel. But I still think the long term trend is up.
According to Kevin Kerr, editor of a commodities investment newsletter,
“The U.S. is filled with gas hogs, but the developing world is catching up. Last year, Chinese drivers bought 5.5 million cars, minivans and SUVs and 3 million commercial vehicles, up from just 1.6 million vehicles sold in 1997. Sales are expected to grow 15-20% this year. Looking down the road, China’s auto sales are expected to grow by 1 million vehicles annually through 2015.
“Meanwhile, India is poised to rocket past China as the world’s fastest-growing car market. Sales of passenger cars in India increased 12.17%, to 1.5 million, in this past year.
October 24th, 2007 Living Off Dividends Posted in Commodities, Oil and Gas No Comments »
September 22nd, 2007 Living Off Dividends Posted in Oil and Gas, alternate investments 13 Comments »
July 3rd, 2007 Living Off Dividends Posted in Oil and Gas, Stocks No Comments »
Recently ConocoPhilips(COP) announced that it was going to walk-away from its investment in Venezuela. President Chavez had indicated that it was going to take-over COP’s operations in the Orinoco Valley. Rather than waste time with negotiating with a tinpot dictator and get pennies on the dollar, COP just decided to walk away.
It’ll probably just write off the entire $4.5 Billion as a loss. For some reason, the stock hasn’t reacted badly to this news at all. Today it gapped up and is trading at an all time high of $80.62!
Pretty interesting. If a loss of $5 Billion and future revenue won’t drop a stock, I wonder what will?
The stock has nearly quadrupled in the past 5 years. I was hoping bad news would drop it a little bit and provide a good entry point.
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May 21st, 2007 Living Off Dividends Posted in Cars, Commodities, Oil and Gas No Comments »
According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, the rush to produce ethanol has resulted in sharply higher prices for corn. Corn is used to feed cattle and pigs and as a result of the price increase, farmers are feeding their pigs trail mix, candy and Top Ramen noodles!
Besides trail mix, pigs and cattle are downing cookies, licorice, cheese curls, candy bars, french fries, frosted wheat cereal and peanut-butter cups. Some farmers mix chocolate powder with cereal and feed it to baby pigs. “It’s kind of like getting Cocoa Puffs,” says David Funderburke, a livestock nutritionist at Cape Fear Consulting in Warsaw, N.C., who helps Mr. Smith and other farmers formulate healthy diets for livestock.
California farmers are feeding farm animals grape-skins from vineyards and lemon-pulp from citrus groves. Cattle ranchers in spud-rich Idaho are buying truckloads of uncooked french fries, Tater Tots and hash browns.
February 9th, 2007 Living Off Dividends Posted in Commodities, Currency, Economy, Foreign Stocks, Global Economy, Gold/Silver, Investing, Oil and Gas, Real Estate, Stocks, housing bubble 1 Comment »

November 23rd, 2006 Living Off Dividends Posted in Canroys, Oil and Gas, alternate investments 4 Comments »
November 10th, 2006 Living Off Dividends Posted in Oil and Gas 1 Comment »
I got my first oil revenue check today! It was for a whopping $35.12!!!! At this rate it’ll take 30 years to get my money back! Its for a project where they’re drilling 10 wells in the Gulf of Mexico.
To be fair the operators had told me not to expect anything until December 2007, so atleast they’re doing something.
I also got an email from them saying that as a christmas present they’ll be sending me a copy of The Millionaire Maker. Its a good book but I don’t recommend the mentoring course.
We finally resolved the insurance issue on our Natural Gas pipeline deal in Texas. Now thats resolved we can finally turn it on and start making some money! Of course it’ll probably be about 4 months before we see any money, but the insurance issue cost us atleast 3 months worth of delays.
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November 2nd, 2006 Living Off Dividends Posted in Foreign Stocks, Oil and Gas No Comments »
November 1st, 2006 Living Off Dividends Posted in Foreign Stocks, Oil and Gas No Comments »
October 19th, 2006 Living Off Dividends Posted in Oil and Gas No Comments »
July 15th, 2006 Living Off Dividends Posted in Inflation, Investing, Oil and Gas 1 Comment »
Woohoo!
I’m not actually jumping with joy, but I’m still quite pleased. Every dollar that oil goes up, my returns from the oil well I’ve invested in go up along with it.
My calculations on the returns was based on my crude oil selling $55 dollars per barrel. With oil trading at $78 I can expect to sell my lite sweet crude for roughly $68/barrel. Thats a 23% increase in profits with no change in expenses or production!
Sure my gas expenditure goes up, and eventually it will push up the price of almost everything else, but so long as I keep my profits higher than the amount of increase, I’m ahead.
Its always good to hedge one bets and diversify a little bit.
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February 16th, 2006 Living Off Dividends Posted in Currency, Economy, Oil and Gas No Comments »
