The Next Big Change in the Energy Markets

Thoughts are again turning to the next big change in the energy landscape.

As it unfolds, I have been working on how to exploit this trend and will be rolling out my recommendations when I appear at the MoneyShow in Las Vegas next Tuesday and Wednesday.

Of course, before I sketch my new approach to the Caesar's Palace audience, I'll outline it here first. You can expect more on this in coming Money Morning editions.

Today, I want to extend on Saturday's discussion and set the stage for the revisions I will be begin sketching out in my next article.

This is once again about hedging.

But this time we will be developing a strategy to profit from the current energy climate.

Initially, the application I have in mind will relate to crude oil and natural gas. There will eventually be ways to include renewables, power generation, and even coal into the mix.

But we can move on oil and gas now.

The Art of Hedging

The art of the traditional hedge involves employing a very simple concept. By taking at least two opposite positions, an investor couches a portfolio against the full impact of major pricing volatility. One should go up, the other down, regardless of what the market actually does.

Such an insurance policy always has a slight preference in one direction or the other. Otherwise, a perfectly structured hedge will result in a "0″ return.

Futures contracts are a case in point.

The objective is to "insure" one position by taking another in the opposite direction. There, one could take an option in an attempt to offset volatility in a contract already held. The option gives an investor the right - but not the obligation - to buy a certain asset at a specific price and time.

A futures contract requires that such a purchase be made.

If the initial contract turns out to be correct, the option is allowed to expire and the investor sacrifices only the premiums paid for the option. The downside is the amount one has to pony up for a futures contract. One in crude, for example, requires the purchase of 1,000 barrels of oil.

However, if not investing in futures contracts on commodities (or any financial asset for that matter) or stock options, hedging strategies are designed as an offset to simple changes in stock prices.

This is accomplished by acquiring stocks that tend to profit when underlying fundamentals go in different directions. A direct simple play here on the underlying oil would be buying into exchange traded fund (ETFs) that improves when oil goes up - for example, the S&P GSCI Crude Oil TR Index ETN (NYSEArca: OIL) - and offsetting that by purchasing one that improves when the oil price moves south.

The most used here is ProShares UltraShort DJ-UBS Crude Oil (NYSEArca: SCO).

But hedging can also be used with all manner of straight stocks. One particularly straight forward approach is to parallel companies sensitive to natural gas price fluctuations. In this example, you want to benefit if the price goes up or down.

The Risk May Outweigh Reward

Many investors will think this is a recipe to short stocks. That is also a statement on the period in which we live. Not too long ago, if you didn't like a stock's prospects you sold it. These days you short it. The idea is straightforward enough. The short is designed to make money if a stock is declining in value. It involves borrowing shares, immediately selling them, and then later buying them back at market to return them.

The problem with shorts for the normal investor, and the reason I do not recommend them, is the risk. If you are wrong and the stock moves up, there is theoretically no limit to how much you can lose.

An ETF such as SCO mentioned above is a short fund. But you are buying and selling it as a normal stock. That insulates you from the dangers of a direct short, although an ETF also costs you some loss of proceeds in fees.

But back to the natural gas example.

A direct hedge using stock would involve holding both a gas producer and a utility employing gas as a fuel source for the generation of electricity. If the price of the gas goes up, the producer wins but the utility would decline, since it would experience a rise in generating costs. A decline in gas prices would tend to have the opposite effect.

You can readily see the same sort of dynamic in operation with respect to pipeline and other midstream services, refineries, and the relationship between equipment manufacturers and oil field service (OFS) providers.

A period of narrow price variations in the underlying raw material - in our case oil or gas - is a good opportunity to establish such a traditional hedge. That is because it will not subject you to much downside risk regardless of which way the market moves.

And that allows for some experimentation.

What I am going to start laying out in my next article involves a different hedging altogether. I will suggest hedging individual shares to reflect various segments of oil and gas. And the ultimate objective is to maximize an upward return rather than provide a standard insurance against volatility.

This will involve pairing shares rather than offsetting them.

Stay tuned. This is going to get interesting.

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About the Author

Dr. Kent Moors is an internationally recognized expert in oil and natural gas policy, risk assessment, and emerging market economic development. He serves as an advisor to many U.S. governors and foreign governments. Kent details his latest global travels in his free Oil & Energy Investor e-letter. He makes specific investment recommendations in his newsletter, the Energy Advantage. For more active investors, he issues shorter-term trades in his Energy Inner Circle.

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