A recent article by an Bloomberg analyst in London makes a case for the over supply of oil tankers, with orders for an equivalent of nearly a third of the existing fleet.

The spike in crude oil prices has sent a flurry of orders in for more hauling capacity as demand from China is still in the sights of the market.  Grant Smith foresees these new tankers hitting the seas about the time demand starts to fall off due to high commodity prices.

Naturally, this scenario is the largest risk to my potential Frontline (FRO: chart, web) position.  While …

I got to thinking about this topic again today after I read a post by Trisha from Building an Empire.

She recently bought a new (for a used price) PT Cruiser and paid cash for it.  She thought the idea of paying cash for a car was kind of cool, but fretted the fact that she used up a ton of cash reserve to do it.

This got me thinking (actually, I’ve been thinking about this for a while), is it always smart to pay cash for a car?

After putting the numbers to it, I found that the answer is no, so long as you have the cash to pay for it anyway.

For instance:

Back at the end of July, I wrote about the acquisition of Esprit Energy by Pengrowth Energy Trust (PGH: chart, web).  I also boasted about my impecable forsesight (ok, so I was more lucky than good, but I’ll take it) that PGH shares would fall due to the consolidation of their Class A shares with their Class B shares to form a single unit.

Well, looking at the chart now, it appears that the consolidation effort lowered the price to just under $22 on July 26, and it’s now on it’s way back up. I …

Yesterday I went over to meet with the tenants at my rental property to address some concerns they had:

“It seems our house isn’t sealing up very well, we got our utility bill and it was a little high. Also, we’ve got a house fly problem in the kitchen, and we’d like to get a cat.”

After meeting with the tenants, they showed me a slight gap between where the back door meets the door jam.  While it isn’t big enough to dump all their expensive cool air to the outside, it may be an entry source for the house flies (they’ve also got the kitchen trash can right by the door, …

Crude oil prices are driving up profits to levels never seen before in both large-cap oil companies and small-cap companies.  Another group that is reaping the benefits of high oil prices is the individual investor.

There is nothing more lucrative right now than holding an oil and gas interest, and evidently independent drilling companies are taking advantage of the individual investment capital floating around in the market.  Drilling partnerships are being advertised on the radio and have become prolific across the internet.

“All that is required is an initial investment of $52,000 and you could see returns of $6,000 per month for the next 20 years.”

Sounds too good to be true, and like an educated investor, you ask yourself “where’s the risk?”.  Good question.

The risk lies in your business partner.  Namely, your drilling partners.  Companies like PetroInvest and Northstar Energy offer partnerships in what they call low risk wells.  They’ll go drill new offset wells in fields that are already producing, thereby lowering the chances that they’ll end up with a dry hole.

They may offer you a 1% working interest in the well(s) for anywhere between $10,000 and $80,000 up front.  (Remember what a “working interest” means?)  Depending on the program, this is just to drill the hole.  After they log the hole and convince themselves it’s worthwhile to finish, they’ll come in and complete the well.  At that point in time, they’ll ask you for more money.  In this case, 1% of whatever it costs to complete the well.

I’m getting closer to narrowing down a placement for my Roth IRA contribution, and am strongly considering Frontline Ltd (FRO: chart, web). 

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Frontline pays a 14% dividend, with a payout ratio of 109%.  In a round about way, they’re tied to the oil and gas industry, which I’ve tried to shy away from since I’m overweight in oil and gas in the first place.

However, Frontline gives me worldwide exposure to the shipping and freight industry, and even if oil prices go down, demand for …

Well, well, well.  Look who we have here!

President (or dictator, depending on who he wants wiped off the map next) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iraq has entered the blogosphere in an attempt to win over the hearts and minds of the savy world  ‘net surfer.

Within a couple days of the launch of http://www.ahmadinejad.ir/, Technorati listed it as the 3,722 most popular blog on the internet.  Even more impressive (or disturbing, however you look at it) is that it’s the only blog from a sitting head of state.

So why would a sitting head of state turn to the blogosphere, much less the internet, to garner global support for his …

The U.S. Energy Department said today that crude inventories were down by 1.6 millions bbls for the week ending August 11, bringing the decline to 4.5 million barrels over the last three weeks.

What’s interesting though, is that imports fell last week, even though the Prudehoe Bay facility was shut down.

Gasoline inventories fell by 2.3 million bbls, confirming that demand is still strong, and is still 1.7% higher than it was at this time last year, even though pump prices are at a premium this year over last. 

Refinery output was at 91.5% for the same week ending August 11, and this fact coupled with …

I’ve got a new problem in my house (not my rental, but my primary residence).  It seems the windows the builder chose are not the greatest, and I’ve got condensation forming between the panes of at least two windows.  What irritates me is that the house is not even 5 years old.

While it doesn’t bother me too much, I can’t help but think how much the insulating factor has gone down, not to mention it’s another flaw that will be present when we sell our house.

Unfortunately, it will take some digging to find out the manufacturer of the windows, as the ID labels have been …

Well, it’s been over a month since the FSBO test started, and very little has changed, other than the fact that the realtor has the competition all wrapped up in this little experiment.

In talking with my neighbors, they’ve had a few people look at their house, but no offers yet. On top of that, of the half dozen people who’ve walked through it, a majority of them are realtors.  I suspect that they are scoping out the FSBO market for potential clients.

To make things more interesting, after having their house on the FSBO market for only a month, they dropped …