The day after publishing its long-term World Energy Outlook, the IEA came out with its latest near-term outlook. The report gives the nod to the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) dour expectations for global growth this year and next on the heels of the financial crisis. The IEA, accordingly, cut… Read More

As we discussed above, the world’s major governments are throwing tons of cash into the financial system in their bid to avoid the mistakes that led to the Great Depression. They’re doing this in the time-honored fashion of running the printing presses around the clock. You don’t have to… Read More

After 18 weeks of nearly relentless declines which have cut prices by 65 percent, oil is likely near a bottom now that projects are getting mothballed and OPEC is curtailing its output. Industrial commodities, likewise, broke an 11-week string of declines this past week as producers take have taken… Read More

The handful of metals that serve the dual role of having industrial uses as well being employed as a store of value have been especially hard hit in recent months. Investors have abandoned them as inflation hedges; and with the economy contracting demand is expected to drop off from… Read More

Investing in the stock and commodity markets during the past few months has been anxiety filled experience, to say the least. It’s not unlike how we would imagine Chinese water torture, drip by drip wearing away at one’s sanity. The best way to characterize what’s going on in the… Read More

Stocks covered this issue: Continental Resources (CLR) ConocoPhilips (COP)Lukoil (LUKOY)Gabriel Resources (GBU.TO)Nabors Industries (NBR)Cameco (CCJ) We’ve discussed in the past the wide-eyed divergence between gold and gold shares, which recently moved to an extreme that, as far as we know, had never been reached before. With… Read More

Government officials are eager to do what ever they can to end the financial crisis. A noted scholar of the Great Depression, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is eager to avoid the mistakes that led to the Depression. His first order of business has been to flood the banking… Read More

Despite all of the political rhetoric from both parties this past political season about making American energy independent, we are, in fact, quite far off in achieving that dream. One important step to making this noble goal a reality will be the development of our still-abundant natural gas resources… Read More

Our recommended oil major, ConocoPhillips (COP), has been hurt as oil and natural gas declined. To add insult to injury, despite reporting expectation-beating results in late October, the stock fell further. But this is no time to bailout on the stock. In fact, we think ConocoPhillips was a bargain… Read More

The global financial crisis has ravaged small natural resource companies. Not only have they had to contend with sharp declines in the prices received for the materials they extract, but fears that that would be shut out to the credit market, thereby endangering projects under development placed additional pressure… Read More