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Energy Politics - Smart Move !

Mr President was on roll for second week - he made some more key moves in the game of politics for to push some of his key domestic initiatives (for good of country I must say). Now that health care is out of way, he puts his focus on Energy Policy. This is as important to America as health care. America imports nearly $500 B worth of energy from outside and any dent in this bill would help address trade imbalances. Here are key steps Obama took to start addressing energy issue America is facing:
  • Opened up vast areas to start drilling again - by sharing revenues with states, state governments who are in desperate need of additional revenues would be more open to this
  • Increase CAFE standards for higher mileage for cars from 2016
  • Additional focus on clean coal, nuclear energy
  • Changing vast fleet of government vehicles to hybrid, Eco-fuel equipped
These are small steps towards a very big policy initiative of "cap-n-trade". If congress can pass even minor version of "cap-n-trade" this year, it would make a big difference in America's energy problem and would be good for Mother Earth !

With so much focus on energy, let's talk about what happening in oil/commodity market and are there any good opportunities for investment.

Oil crossed $85 due to recovery gaining momentum all across the world. I am predicting that oil would cross $90 in summer of 2010 and may even touch $100 if speculation is not controlled. Is this repeat of 2008 ? I hope SEC and other government regulators pay close attention to speculation in commodity market otherwise rising oil price could choke economic recovery.

Now coming to investments - I would refer to my post about 2 months back on energy sector. I would still recommend some of the stocks in that post. In particular following ones:
  • XTEX ($11), AHD ($6) and ERX ($38)
  • You should also look at CHK ($23) and BBEP ($15)
  • HERO ($4.2), MMR ($15) and EXXI ($18) also offer excellent exposure to increased activity in oil sector
All major indices are up by about 5% which is their best first quarterly performance since late 90's. Does this mean stock market is on ascent similar to 1998-1999 or is it heading towards some rough waters as in 2000. More about that in next few weeks !

Myself and my son went to Apple store to check out "iPAD". Both of us really loved it - I would wait for few more weeks to buy one for myself. Apple has another winning product on its hands - kudos to Steve Jobs and all creative minds at Apple !

Have a great weekend and good week investing !

/Shyam

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