Here’s the monthly update for the BTI portfolio for July of 2012. The HELOC portfolio is basically a non-registered account with money borrowed from my home equity line of credit. I will use the bank’s ‘Performance’ tool for the monthly results when possible because it takes into account deposits and withdrawals. On to the results:
YTD Results from January 1 2012
TSX YTD performance:??-2.80%
BTI YTD performance:??-20.00%
Monthly Review
I can’t help but look back at the beginning of the year when I was at +20% rather than the -20%. At least the numbers slightly improved vs. last month at -20% rather than -26%. Until HYX and MQL recover, there is little hope of outperforming this year. The mistake I did was not to free up money from both stocks when I was able to in February or March which translates into lost opportunities when markets slide in the summer.
No more such mistakes next year, need to crank up the trading side of investing.
Having said that, HYX and MQL are in no danger of going under unless they totally botch up their execution or oil ends up at $40 again. They are both lead by experienced management and should recover as soon as market sentiment improves. HYX will be announcing their latest land capture this week and MQL’s production update will be coming later this month.
WIX has done nicely in a very short period of time, too bad I missed selling the run as I did not have an order in to capture a nice 25%. But when it comes to Winstar Resources, I am really not in a hurry to sell especially that their work program begins this month.
LEA has been a sleeper stock; the company needs to prove it’s getting its debt under control so this is another story measured in quarters. Q2 is naturally nothing to take home for services companies due to break up but it will be interesting to read their outlook. Right now I am loaded with coal tubing companies: LEA, ESN and XDC except I don’t expect to keep the whole gang since ESN and XDC pretty much cover the US &??Canadian??markets and a bit more (Saudi Arabia & Columbia).
In a slowing economy riddled with uncertainties (read Euro Zone roller coaster), this is the riskiest sector to be invested in, as such it’s normal to experience the wild swings I see in my O&G portfolio and I have the nerves for it as long as global demand for oil and gas is not heading to 0.
Finally, in today’s conference, ECB president Mario Draghi decided to drag things out to September before a concrete solution is implemented. This means the market will gradually slide for the next few weeks especially once Q2 earnings dry up. For now, the EU will have to make do with promises and words to stave off a meltdown.
How’s your portfolio doing? Have you bought or sold any stocks lately?
