Crude Observations

Are you ready for it? Because I sure am! Brace yourselves dear readers – it is that time of year where I lay myself bare to all of your collective scorn and ridicule and put out the one and only Fearless Forecast that you absolutely must read, right now, before the market opportunity escapes you! Read it! And sorry, it is long.   Anyhoo, step right up and let me tell you about the prognostications that will amplify and electrify your portfolios. The stock picks and the macro directions that will set you on the […]

OK folks, that’s a wrap. The year is over. Finally. And what a year it has been, particularly for the energy sector. And by that I mean it hasn’t been a particularly great year. In fact, I feel it has been a bit of a lousy year. A forgettable year. A dumpster fire of a disaster year. Even with prices staging a super-excited late year rally, the sector is still stuck in the weeds, trying to figure out its way.   Here in Alberta, it’s even worse than elsewhere. For the umpteenth year in a […]

Well here it is, Christmas Eve, the shopping is finally stopping and the family is sitting around being uber-lazy and getting ready for the big day. While I rarely veer off my scheduled Friday blog, it has become somewhat of a tradition to do one last post before Christmas and after subjecting everyone to movie lists, Advent calendars and all that jazz, it’s nice to do a quick best wishes for the holidays missive.   It is worthy of note that unlike last year, where we careened into the new year on a wave of […]

Well what an eventful week or so it has been. We had Andrew Scheer step down as leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, Boris Johnson winning an unprecedented and bizarre mandate to wreck the United Kingdom via Brexit and good old Donald Trump getting the bad news that he is only the third president in the long and illustrious history of the United States to be impeached (I’m not orange, I’m peach!). Topping it all off was the Alberta War Room getting caught red-handed in a case of amateur hour logo theft. Ouch!   […]

So anything interesting happen this week? Any leaders of political parties facing headwinds? Any movement in commodity prices of note? It’s weird, isn’t it how so much news rushes up to swamp us in the run-up to the Christmas holidays and the new year? It’s like people want to get a whole mess of news out of the way so they can start the new year with a fresh slate. Who knows, maybe they are trying to clear the board in time before Christmas so that the big guy can move them from one list […]

Well folks, here we are entering the home stretch of the year, a time where many people wind down their work activity to accommodate as much holiday celebration as possible. At least that’s what I do because let’s face it, there are no new deals going into the market in December and transactions that close on December 31 are typically mostly wrapped up by mid month. That’s just how it rolls in the M&A world.   On the other hand, the end of the year is also an opportune time to cram in a bunch […]

Well, as our friends down South finally get around to celebrating Thanksgiving, I think it is safe to say that we have finally hit the holiday season. I don’t know what gave it away – the endless deluge of Christmas ditties while standing uncommunicative in the grocery store check out line, the Valentine’s display at Costco, the endless snowfalls we’ve endured, the annual Hallmark channel assault of Christmas movies or the lights and the trees that have sprung up on pretty much every house in the neighbourhood (except mine). Any one of those factors could […]

Well I hope everyone is relieved. We appear to have made it through an entire week without any major scandal or government edict causing chaos locally, regionally, nationally or globally. OK, so that’s not even remotely true, but it does feel like this week was less eventful than the week before, at least here in Canada. OK, not in Canada, maybe in Alberta. Well except for all the stuff that went on here too. Fine, I give up. It’s been another week of random chaos, government bills run amok, new cabinets (more on that next […]

Alright folks, I’m mad as hell this week and I just can’t take it anymore. No, really, I’m hot under the collar mad. So mad my head is about to explode. I am mad and aggrieved and can’t believe all these things are happening to me, caused by forces outside of my control and for reasons I don’t understand. I’m so mad in fact that you could call me outraged, triggered, enraged, berserk, fuming, livid, beside myself, positively fuming… You get the picture.   What is making me so mad you may ask? I DON’T […]

As I sat ruminating on what exactly this week’s blog was going to be about I did a little soul-searching about the last few months, which have, admittedly and of necessity, been consumed by all things politic all the time, culminating in a post election free for all and Halloween jaunt. But it’s over now, I think. The interesting thing about elections and politics is that you can write endless articles about them and all the attendant issues and then after the election you find yourself writing even more about the results of the election […]

Wow, is it November 1st already? Where has 2019 gone, it seems like only 10 months ago were celebrating New Years! At any rate, here we are, the day after Halloween, unless you are in Quebec, in which case it is Halloween. Or Chicago, where it’s the day before Halloween. Confused? Yeah, so am I. Blame the fossil fuel industry and climate change. On the other hand, we had snow yesterday morning and our typically frigid Trick or Treat fest, with the only timing issues being whether we started the journey at 6 PM or […]

Well folks, there you have it. Canada has held a federal election and the results are in. An official Justin Trudeau led Liberal minority government. I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so. And with this election, Canada has now officially joined the goat rodeo that seems to be sweeping across liberal democracies around the world, with the highlight being crazed partisan and regional rivalries.   Whether it’s Brexit nonsense in the United Kingdom, the usual multi-party gong show that is Italy or the swamp and spirit draining fiasco that […]

  So if last week was a time for giving thanks, this week is shaping up to be something completely different.  That’s right. It’s Debbie-downer time, otherwise known as time for my bold and completely detached from reality Canadian election prediction.   That’s right. The Canadian federal election campaign is finally coming to an end and, as the self-proclaimed “most important election in history”, it deserves a fitting send off. Given that, I think we can all agree that there is nothing more fitting than this esteemed blog and blogger passing judgment on the campaign […]

Here I sit on yet another Friday, albeit quite a bit later than I normally do to write this missive but there are extenuating circumstances – I’m looking at you Air Canada and YYC airport ground crews! So yes, it is late (kind of deliberately so actually, as you will see later) and for that I am mildly apologetic, but everything worked out in the end and Air Canada and a very chatty and surprisingly well-informed cab ride later we are safely ensconced in a Phoenix cocoon and I am soon out the door to […]

Wow – three quarters of the way through the year and there is still a full three months to go. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am about ready to pull the pin on 2019 and start 2020 right away, if only to get away from this gad-awful Canadian election and the ongoing Trump-impeachment circus.   And as we all know, quarter end is when I look back at my Fearless (Foolish?) Forecast and grade myself on the various qualitative and quantitative calls I made. I haven’t yet looked at my […]

Sorry for the late blog this week, I was out participating in a day of action for the environment, otherwise known as the Global Climate Strike. Okay, you got me, no I wasn’t. I was actually out of town briefly to celebrate my 20th wedding anniversary.  Doesn’t mean I wasn’t thinking about the environment though – or climate, as I prepare for the annual Alberta September Snowmageddon (ASS) this weekend with up to 50 cm of snow expected in some parts of Southern Alberta over the weekend.   You see, during the drive out and […]

Well I sure blew the timing on that one, didn’t I.   If only I had waited a week for my election cheat sheet I would have so much… umm… more… to say. As the expression goes, a week is a lifetime in politics, although this past week has been more like 1001 Arabian nights.   But what do I really want to say? Do I actually want to wade into the latest iteration of the chaotic fever swamp that is Canadian politics? Is it really that important to discuss what I understand to be […]

Well it sure has been a busy week here in Albertaland and Canada. It seems that it has been a week full of launches, with new initiatives popping up all over the place, previously announced undertakings finally taking shape and getting underway and, finally, inevitabilities finally being unleashed.   What do I mean by all this? Simple. In Alberta we had the official launch of the House Committee on Unalbertan Activities which is the inquisition into foreign funds messing around with our livelihood, closely followed up by the UCP announcing an official inquisition into the […]

Does anyone remember last August 30th? I sure do. That was the day that the Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) came down with their judgement that the Federal Government had failed in its duty to consult with Indigenous communities on the Trans Mountain Expansion project and that the NEB and the Cabinet had inappropriately not considered the environmental impact of shipping related to the project nor its impact on the Southern Resident Killer whales.   Remember now? Remember how mad everyone was that that had happened? That we had somehow checked every box there was […]

Ah Labour Day. That annual celebration of the righteousness of the downtrodden worker, the brave collectives, putting it all on the line day after day in order to enrich the greedy capitalist fat cats who live for exploiting the masses.   And which union am I talking about most specifically here? Why none other than the NFLPA (NFL Players Association) and their hardworking members as they head into what is the 100th season of NFL football.   As most of you know, I am a huge NFL fan. And earlier this month I promised an […]

Can you hear that sound? It’s the sound of a giant sigh of relief. It’s also the sound of a ceremonial shovel in the ground courtesy of the Federal government as opposed to the knife in the back that we seem to repeatedly get here in oilpatchland.   Yes, after more than a billion years of litigation, delays, cancellations, purchases, sales, false starts, protests, threats, deadlines, judges, lawyers, mobilizations, demobilizations, stays, rallies, the TransMountain Pipeline Expansion, otherwise known as the Pierre Elliott Trudeau SNC Memorial Pipeline is under way and has received the green light […]

So here I am, back in the office for a spell and still ruminating on my epic Vegas trip. Did I mention I made $124.50 off my $20 investment in a slot machine? That’s a 600% return. I have never had a six-bagger in the stock market, unless you are talking about an investment that is now worth 1/6th what I paid for it and now I am stuck with a dog in my portfolio that I have to hold for the next decade as it slowly climbs back to some reasonable approximation of what […]

As promised, this week’s blog is going to continue the midsummer tradition of being shorter than normal, because for every writer like me who needs a vacation from blogs there is an equally deserving reader who needs a vacation from my blather.   As luck would have it, I am in Las Vegas this week doing a bit of a family thing. It’s a great trip and we are doing many fun things but my ability to channel my inner Hunter S. Thomson and find the down and dirty of the Strip both physically and […]

Well good morning everyone. I hope that August is treating you well. This is going to be the first of two abbreviated blogs because I am currently on summer vacation with my family and they are scowling at me as I write.   Some of you will no doubt be wondering why you are receiving not only an abbreviated blog, but also a tardy one. Laziness is most likely your first reaction and in that you would be partially correct. I say partially because one of the reasons it’s late is that I recently returned […]

Alright. Well then. Ahem. I guess last week’s blog was deemed by some to be a bit, shall we say, unsettling given the political conclusions, forecasts, predictions that I laid out. I think it’s fair to say that the audience this blog reaches is diverse and politically astute. Many were in agreement with the conclusions I made, many were not. Some were distressed to see it in writing, especially during summer vacation.   So if I upset anyone, I apologize. That wasn’t (entirely) my intent. It was more of a wake-up call.  A “folks, this […]

Wow, midsummer already. Where does the time go when you are having so much fun? Although to be truthful, with the rainy July we have been having it really doesn’t seem too summery to me yet. Never mind the fact that vacation time is still weeks away and I have so far been work slave, which is actually a good thing – money and all, but still, patios need some love as well.   One of the hallmarks of this period for me is the true funk I fall into as a blogger. This isn’t […]

One of the both great and (occasionally) annoying things about living and working in Calgary is navigating the annual all-consuming celebration of fun and cowboy hats that is the Calgary Stampede. Whether it’s surviving double-deep-fried scorpions coated in Oreo batter, boiled corn rolled in ground-up spicy Cheetos, mainlining mini-donuts or running the gauntlet of corporate gatherings, Stampede is a unique event in our city.   How unique? Well it’s got its own verb and language – that’s pretty unique.   “Have you been stampeding yet?”  “Sure have, we were at the chucks the other day […]

Is it the end of Q2 already? All I can say is thank god! It has been a long one what with elections and pipelines and sanctions and all things Trump. And it is that blessed time of year here in Calgary called Stampede and if you are wondering why this blog is a day late and a dollar short, you can blame my buddy Kim and his First Friday party which happened to coincide with my usual blog posting time. Beer, party, blog. Blog, party, beer.  Party, beer, blog. Pretty easy call actually. I […]

It’s time for my annual celebration of all things canucklehead, what with Canada’s National Holiday, the NHL season opener, just around the corner. What’s that? Oh, oops, sorry. What with Canada Day, just around the corner. Canada Day being the day that we discovered we could appropriate the practice developed by first nations of tapping into the sweet spring sap of maple trees and making a syrup out of it, or, put another way, drinking tree blood. What? Wrong again? Egads. OK. One last try. Canada Day, the day our nation was founded, after  24 […]

Where does the time go? Why it seems like just last week everyone was all in a lather about US production being up another 100,000 barrels and storage in Cushing being up 2 million barrels or some such number with the net result being that the world was awash in oil and we were in an age of peaceful plenty. Then some guy in Iran goes and drops a US drone into the strait of Hormuz and reality hits home. Yeah, I guess that there oil supply chain can get pretty dicey at times what […]