Reader Notes

Thanks to all who wished me well over the last couple of days.  I am about back to 90% right now. Just about anytime the grandkids show up and bring their daycare and school germs we pay a price for it.

A reader asks who we follow on Seeking Alpha–only 2 really.  Brad Thomas on REIT’s and BDC Buzz on BDC’s.  We can depend on a reasonable opinion from these 2 and we will never know a fraction of what they know–so let them do our work for us.

A reader asks about Gastar–yes we are still going to write–soon.  We ususally spend 3-4 hours reading 10q’s and 10k’s–looking at company presentations (propaganda) each time we write a bit in depth so the flu kind of slowed us down.  But in the next couple days we hope we hit it. On the surface we like GST. Remember a couple years ago they were a pure natural gas company and damned near went bust–their shares traded for pennies–they successfully turned into a crude e&p and seem to have a savvy management.

A Reader asks about Escalera Resources common.  We are not a fan of the common–while penny stocks can certainly turn into 5 baggers that is beyond our risk tolerance.  We don’t advocate even the preferreds EXCEPT by those that understand the risks.  Remember we were watching people (and are watching) Goodrich Petroleum preferreds and preferreds of the lowest tiers of MLP’s and other E&P’s because they are a “bargain” and our comments are actually comparing Escalera preferreds to those low tier companies.  At least Escalera covers their financing costs–can’t be said by most of the lower tier MLP’s. Some of the MLP’s will not be around next year, but we believe Escalera will be here.

A reader asks about a crude oil ETF–yes there lots of them and they can provide the thrills you need–big moves.  Here is a list.  We don’t deal in those types of investments ourselves.