Remember ‘peak oil’?

Hint…Saudi Arabia had clean sheets. Venezuela had swaggar. Putin was riding ‘unicorns’ not three legged horses.

I remember ‘peak oil’. Google search does (thousands of pages). Here is a definition from Wikipedia (Britannica will crush them)

The only people that forget ‘Peak Oil’ are Wall Street banks and CNBC. The banks used the ‘peak oil’ mantra to create sure thing MLP’s so you could gather appreciation from rising oil prices and earn earn massive income. Those MLP’s are down 25-50 percent this year and some are starting to cut dividends.

It’s too easy to find the panic they embraced thanks to the web. Here is some ‘Dr.’ who went on and on about $400 oil talking over a woman who was trying to make a case that $50 oil was as likely as $140 oil at the time.

People are mostly sheep. They feel comfortable in the herd. I believe in the herd and the crowd, but it is important to know the makeup of the herd, why they are herding and what they are herding over.

Everything you read has a bias…either the person or the firm…the goal is to find people that manage them best and point you in the right direction with ideas that make sense. I learned to trade and invest in an era where the sales people and the research people were paid by the same boss. Amazingly that still exists. One simple rule I have is to ignore any research from firms that do this. I vote with my attention and dollars.

Another bad source for research – cover stories!

Good research requires imagination and a respect for financials, people and technology. I get almost all my big ideas from people that have no interest in stocks and trading.

Of course any style can work as long as you apply a consistent risk management approach.

I will leave you with an idea I have been layering into around the mess in MLP’s, oil, commodity crash, emerging market meltdown and the strong dollar (weak Aussie and Canadian Dollar). My interest truly was peaked when I saw this one chart a few weeks back:

$SPX, $SPY, $USDX, $CRB – Whoa. Stocks vs. Commodities

— StockTwits (@StockTwits) Dec. 6 at 08:14 PM

I expect to put 10-15 percent of cash to work over the next 90 days and manage accordingly.

I will zig while everyone is zagging on this one into the new year and first half of 2016.