On Energy

The price of oil is $104 this morning, as Obama prepares to give a speech on why the government should support renewable energy projects  in the US. My heavy holdings of renewables are down across the board about 40% on what I paid for them. Many of them are China based, and the investment community has been on a tear against all things Chinese lately, with assertions that they are dishonest. That's pretty funny, coming from our own investors, who generally oppose any legislation to make disclosure more open, or standards more enforceable. But I guess you suspect others of what you are up to yourself. I am not selling my Chinese renewables. I am not focussed enough to be a trader...there are more things than money to attend to in life! (Like cooking, knitting, chatting...)     

One of my major holldings is Cameco, whose CEO said on March 21 (10 days after the tsunami struck Japan and Fukushima Daishi) that while China has frozen approvals of all new nuclear power projects, he believes the country will still ramp up its nuclear output to at least 70 gigawatts from its current capacity of 11 gigawatts."I still don't see, even with a slight pause, why that wouldn't be achieved," Grandey said. "If they achieve by 2020 only 40 gigawatts, which is what's under construction and what's operating, they still would require 20 million pounds a year."
Current global uranium demand is about 180 million pounds a year, with mine output accounting for about 140 million pounds of that. The remainder comes from stockpiles and downgraded weapons-grade uranium.
Cameco, the world's No. 2 uranium producer, plans to double production to 40 million pounds a year by 2018. With contracts in place through 2017, the crisis will not have a material impact on the company's long-term outlook, Grandey said.
 Kazakhstan is the world's top uranium producer, and its output is forecast to grow 12 percent this year to 20,200 tonnes. On March 23, Japan's envoy to Kazakhstan, Yuzo Harada, said he doubts the tragic events in his country will affect nuclear cooperation or uranium supply pacts. Kazakhstan aims to capture 40 percent of the Japanese uranium market.
 
On both Cameco and Dennison mines, I am about breakeven on my holding, even after renewed fears from the radiation in Japan. Cameco pays a 1.3% dividend, pretty low, but better than nothing. I am unhappy with  myself for failing to monitor my portfolio while so many people were suffering dramatically on the news. They are still suffering, and indeed, the suffering is going on all around the world all the time. Mostly it doesn't make the news- like the hundreds of thousands of children dying of hunger annuallly. It doesn't do them any good if my emotions of solidarity prevent me from watching my portfolio and leads me to lose a lot of money.

In my version of the investing and philanthropy of Buffet and Soros, my philanthropy division is proud that I have just made my nineteenth micro-loan through Kiva: this one to a middle-aged bee-keeper in Central Asia!  

The investing world breathes easier

There is only so long that the investor class can hold onto a great fear. The fighting goes on in Lybia, and the Japanese continue to suffer from the tsunami/nuclear catastrophe, but it seems we have all got used to it. In retrospect I can see that I am unwilling to focus on whether and how much money I am winning or losing when I am watching people suffer.

Happily, one of our holdings has started to skyrocket. This is the Chinese company Telestone, which has lately been attacked by an "anonymous blogger" with the kind of accusations of fraudulence which are fashionable. Thirty percent of the stock is held by short sellers, but they are about to come out with earnings. Somebody knows whats going on, it seems, and the shorts are now scared. Hurray!

Generally, I hold a lot of Chinese stock, and it is not doing well at all. I plan to hold.

When things are not going the way I like, I stop looking

As we all watched the uprising in Lybia, followed by tsunami and nuclear fear from Japan, it seemed to me that only terrible things were happening in the world! I didn't do the obvious thing and sell my uranium miners. I've lost a bundle.

The lesson I've taken: when I don't like the way something is going, I blank it completely. This month I see that is not just in the world of investing: it's in my marriage, and everywhere else. Now, I'm catching myself every day as I react to the many things I don't approve of....and I see there is something very useful to learn here. There is a different way to be. All I have to do is be willing to experience pain when it's present. Simple, but not easy!

Now that I'm admitting to my recent losses, I am back in business. It seems we live in interesting times (reminded of the Hebrew saying "May you not live in interesting times")  It seems that things which have gone the same way forever, are shifting. I am not upset at the shift, but it's going to take some staying awake to steer through it! The US dollar will fall, unemployment will not abate, the large corporations will continue to generate profits, and the internet savvy young people of the world may just be able to shake up the status quo of endless wars and repression.

I think I have too many holdings. I'll be writing about them as I consider which ones to keep and which ones to sell. GE, for example, earns only 1% of its income from the nuclear business, but has been hit out of proportion to that. I'll keep it.

The perceived threat of  possible impending nuclear disaster has overshadowed the real disaster brought about by the earthquake and tsunami, and I am disgusted by that. Let's pray for the suffering people of Japan, and let's pray for the rest of us too. We are usually prepared to accept real death cause by burning coal, because it's slow, sneaky and familiar. It helps if somebody else has the chronic bronchitis and emphysema. I read somewhere that we are much more resigned to death and injury from falling tree limbs and "nature" than we are to the same injury afflicted on us by a human agent, and that makes a lot of sense.

I'm working on myself to let go of all this righteous disapproval! After all, most people don't have my perspective on life. Medical school surprised me in the first year, by being the study of death. We spent every Saturday in the dissecting room with our cadaver. Part of the traditional training is of course designed to desensitize us as a group, and  it is successful. I see there is a tepid backlash against the desensitization, but so far the forces of reaction appear to be winning.

What I'd really like to spread about before I die is an understanding that all of life is a risk, and that by contemplation we can sometimes limit the risks, but we can never eliminate them.  I love investing because it keep my nose pressed hard up against what's happening in the world  but in the past month, I just haven't wanted to know. Now, it's past time for me to go back to looking at those risks!

Revolution in the Arab world

One trouble with me as an investor is that I get distracted and forget all about managing my money. This has happened again. I have been so enthralled by events in Tunisia and Egypt, then so appalled by events in Lybia , that I forgot all about the effect of wars on oil prices, and the effect of oil prices on the stock market!
Oops...consequent losses.

Really, if some temporary paper losses
on my part are the price of a better world for those wonderful young people,I guess I'll put up with them.