Archive for the ‘Oil’ Category
Take a look at the Oil refining companies
The oil prices are going down and it should be bad for all petroleum related companies, right? Well, have you guys looked at the pump prices for gasoline the last 2 months? I took a month vacation in December and when I returned I was shocked to see the price in my gas station rocketed from 1.58 to 2.18 (a shocking 60% up), while the world oil prices are still going down. And in fact, the trend is seen nationally. The gasoline prices have gone up more than 25% since Christmas. So, who is benefitting from this? The answer is – refiners. Their gross margins have gone up from about 10% in December to as high as 50% in January.
Historic gold, silver, oil prices and their relationships
Here is the result of some data collection on gold, silver and oil. Enjoy the charts 
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Did you know that the gold price in 1793 is about 20 dollars/ounce (ounce = ~31 grams) and now it is about $800 (about 40X gain in 300 years). http://goldinfo.net/yearly.html
Here is the 600 year history of silver and gold-silver ratio. http://goldinfo.net/silver600.html
Energy usage patterns of tomorrow
Couple of interesting graphs from today’s International Energy Agencies’ report:
Peak oil? Nah… But, you cannot keep continuing to rely on crude. Crude production is hitting a peak at the currently producing fields, but other forms of oil production will continue to be going up.
What is happening with oil and how do we hedge against its price rise?
This article appeared in Seeking Alpha
Oil prices have been steadily going down the last couple of months and a few are wondering how long this will last. The price of oil is around $67/barrel (1 barrel of oil approximately equals 42 US gallons or 159 liters) for December 2008 delivery and this is less than half the price we were seeing in the summer. However, the prices of future deliveries have not fallen that low. The prices for December 2013 contracts (to take oil delivery 5 years from now) are about $90 and this indicates that atleast a few traders believe that the price of the oil will go back up at some point. Let’s analyze what is happening, and see how we can take constructive action to protect us from future oil rise. We suggest two ETFs that might help you make constructive investment decisions based on this.
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