Wednesday trading action in crude oil saw the black gold stick its
head above $100, which may be the least psychologically-significant
round number out there since the people who do the trading are
mostly professional speculators and energy companies who have lots
of other things on their minds. In essence, this is not a retail
market driven by reactionary extremes of emotion as much as it is a
battle of titans who use either arsenals of supply/demand data or
algorithmic trading firepower, or both, to move the price.
Despite the occasional fear spike due to Middle
East tensions, or covert price manipulation at physical market
delivery hubs (as is being investigated regarding the 2008 price
highs above $140), the pros aren't scrambling to buy tops and sell
bottoms because they aren't driven by fear -- greed maybe, but
we'll get to that. And they don't necessarily care where the price
of oil "should" be. They just want to know what the other guy will
pay, and depending on their time horizon and how deep their pockets
are, the energy trading firm that can make solid predictions about
the next 3 days, 3 weeks, or 3 months wins big.
For example, I sit and write a couple of blocks
from one of the biggest energy trading desks in the business.
BP (BP) moved its energy trading operation from
the Chicago suburbs recently to take over the old CME
Group (CME) trading floors on Wacker Drive when "the Merc"
bought the CBOT and moved all the pits to LaSalle Street in 2008. I
don't know how many traders they have there, but I can tell you
that they are involved in just about every facet of the physical
markets for crude, gas, and distillates, as well as using futures,
options, and OTC derivatives to make markets for customers, manage
their own risk, and, of course, for pure speculation.
You've no doubt heard about the crude oil futures
curve being in either contango (future delivery contracts
have successively higher prices) or backwardation (prices
trend lower for farther-dated contracts). One can buy or sell a
futures contract for WTI at every delivery month going out over
five years. Make no mistake, a firm like BP knows and "owns" every
nuance on that curve, and there are dozens of hedge funds and
smaller proprietary firms I know of that try to duplicate their
success simply using computer algorithms and price forecasting
models.
That doesn't mean every professional trading firm
wins all the time. In theory, they can't since trading is a
zero-sum game and on the other side of every winning position is a
losing one. And while this is true within a given contract market,
say crude for delivery in July 2011, players may have multiple
hedged or offsetting positions in options or OTC contracts. The
point is that it is a pros' battlefield where sophisticated
knowledge, tools, and resources are the weapons.
The firms that win consistently are either titans
like BP, who are spread out through every niche of the industry, or
hedge funds and smaller prop shops without physical market business
interest who focus on a particular trading model like futures curve
spreads. I use BP as an example to show you what a typical titan in
this market looks like and what they are doing. The thing to keep
in mind is that we can't compete with the pros' knowledge and
market access, so we just have to follow the long-term trend.
Emerging Markets = Peak Oil
Speaking of competing forecasts on oil, we were
given a big reason to doubt whether it should cost over $100 per
barrel recently when the CEO of Exxon Mobil (XOM),
Rex Tillerson, made comments earlier this month at a Senate hearing
about $60-70 being fair value, if based purely on supply and
demand. His explanation for the current excess value was that price
was being driven by the speculation of big oil companies and the
high-frequency trading firms we just talked about. I wonder if any
of the Senators thought to ask, "Is Exxon involved in this
speculation?"
The more important question is whether or not
Tillerson is correct. The market seems to be giving a much
different answer than this expert. And most of that answer revolves
around two synergistic themes. First is the idea of scarcity for a
non-renewable resource. This idea often comes by the moniker "peak
oil," symbolizing that we may have seen, or are about to see in the
next few years, the maximum levels of reserves globally.
The second theme is that Emerging Markets demand
for energy is very strong and will only continue to grow as
billions of people aspire for the lifestyles of the developed
world. This isn???t just a long-term investing trend for the next
five to ten years. It???s what I call a global secular mega-trend
for the next decade and beyond. Of course it will ebb and flow,
especially if China is forced to put the brakes on growth. But the
big picture supports the idea that triple-digit oil is here to
stay.
Whether or not peak oil is here yet -- especially
as new discoveries are made and new technologies like tar sands
extraction, hydraulic "fracturing," and biofuel and natural gas
alternatives supplement conventional crude supplies -- EM demand
will make it come true faster. The macro-fundamental call by
Goldman Sachs (GS) analysts Tuesday about crude
prices averaging over $115 per barrel for the next two years was as
much a function of EM demand growth as it was a commentary on the
"machinery of speculation" that someone like Tillerson might decry.
Rex might be right about what fair value "should" be, but the
market is going to err on the side of global economic trends and we
should too.
Playing the Oil Field
But if we can???t speculate on the price of crude
and compete with the pros, how can we profit from it? By finding
solid stocks that allow us to invest in the trend and win. Tuesday,
I highlighted the buying opportunity in, Suncor (SU), to take
advantage of the pullback in crude and its related equities. Today,
I want to discuss two candidates that offer exposure to oilfield
services. Lufkin Industries, Inc. (LUFK) and
Baker Hughes Inc. (BHI) both provide essential
equipment, technology and services to energy E&P firms, and
both names became Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks on Wednesday
morning.
Lufkin Industries designs, manufactures, sells, and
services various types of oil field pumping units, power
transmission products, foundry castings and highway trailers.
Lufkin manufactures four basic types of pumping units: an
air-balanced unit, a beam-balanced unit, a crank-balanced unit, and
a Mark II Unitorque unit. The stock has consistently been a Zacks
Rank Buy or Strong Buy since early March when it was trading in the
low-$80's and ran to highs near $95 in April.
The Zacks Rank for this period was based on
analysts revising their estimates upward at a rapid pace, with the
consensus for 2012 moving from $4.58 EPS to $5.13. If we look back
120 days, analysts were a lot closer to $3.50 for 2012 when LUFK
was trading in the $60 handle. Clearly, increased visibility for
the company's earnings, and analysts in agreement about those
projections, helped the stock price move as much as 50% higher in
the past few months. Granted this is just a 2.5 billion-dollar
concern, with only 4 analysts following it, but as a "sell the
bullets" (in this case, "pumps") kind of company in the peak oil
war, the table is set for it to show up on the menu of more
sell-side investment firms with hungry research analysts.
Baker Hughes, according to the company website,
provides "products and services that enable you to drill, evaluate,
complete, and produce the energy that drives the global economy.
Our reservoir technology experts also offer independent consulting
services, geomechanics modeling, petroleum engineering, and
reservoir simulation services to achieve superior results." If
Lufkin can be considered providing the "bullets" in the oil war,
Baker Hughes could be said to have the "guns." As a one-hundred
year old oilfield service company that specializes in helping
E&P companies maximize their reservoir values, BHI has a $30.5
billion market cap and about 30 analysts covering it.
BHI earned a Zacks #2 Rank (Buy) last November for
the first time since the before the recession hit in 2008. And in
the past 30 days, analysts spoke even louder about their earnings
projections with over 20 upping their estimates for the current
year and 2012 to consensus EPS of $4.07 and $5.22, respectively.
Then this week, a couple of company experts offered some very
bullish estimates of $4.48 and $6.00, which effectively bumped the
consensus up a penny for each year. This was definitely part of the
calculation that pushed BHI to a #1 Rank on Wednesday.
Earnings Estimate Revisions--A Powerful
Leading Indicator
The size of the rally in both of these stocks on
Wednesday -- LUFK and BHI closed up nearly 6% and 5%, respectively
-- was a little surprising to me, since there was no
company-specific share-moving news for either. But on top of
positive sentiment across the sector following the Goldman Sachs
commentary, there was an energy E&P company attracting
attention that may have added some fuel to the buying fire in the
oilfield service names.
Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. (COG) is
a $6 billion firm with oil and gas properties located in four areas
of the United States: the onshore Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast;
the Rocky Mountains; Appalachia; and the Mid-Continent or Anadarko
Basin. The stock was up over 7% on double the average volume as
buyers stepped in at the 50-day moving average just below $53. Of
note, COG has been a Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stock since April
29 after all four analysts covering it raised their earnings
estimates to boost the consensus by 11% for this year and by 23%
for 2012.
Which brings me back to another thing LUFK and BHI
had in common that could be curiously linked to their big price
moves. As already mentioned, they both received the Zacks #1 Rank
(Strong Buy) before the start of Wednesday's trading. This is not a
wildly unusual coincidence since our proven quantitative model is
reliably predictive of stock prices because of the simple fact that
earnings estimate revisions are closely tied to institutional
investor buying or selling decisions.
It's just that, normally, upward earnings revisions
that bring about a boost in the Zacks Rank take weeks to unfold
into potential share price appreciation as the big money elephants
of capital markets lumber slowly into large positions. In this
case, the markets were "on to us" early and couldn't get enough of
the guns and bullets needed for triple-digit oil.
Kevin Cook is a Senior Stock Strategist for
Zacks.com
BAKER-HUGHES (BHI): Free Stock Analysis Report
BP PLC (BP): Free Stock Analysis Report
CME GROUP INC (CME): Free Stock Analysis Report
CABOT OIL & GAS (COG): Free Stock Analysis Report
GOLDMAN SACHS (GS): Free Stock Analysis Report
LUFKIN INDS (LUFK): Free Stock Analysis Report
EXXON MOBIL CRP (XOM): Free Stock Analysis Report
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