Oil has long been a proxy of sorts for the market. When crude gets beaten down, the market usually follows like a shadow. When crude has a good day, the market is up. Opposite has been true of the dollar. And that's that.
Now, however, oil is down and nat gas is up in the teeth of a hater's market. Dow Jones is down 158, yet UNG is up 1.4%, WPRT is up 2.1%, CHK is up 2.1% and UPL is up 1.3%. Granted, nat gas was hammered in recent years and there is a reasonable argument to be made that the sector has been oversold. I look at the numbers, though, and see that just about all of these companies have underperformed — expectedly so in an anti-nat gas environment. Now that Obama has spoken the magic words — that the Fed will "embrace" clean energy like nat gas, it's a whole new world and these 15 and 19 and 7 percent gains in nat gas plays since Obama's speech at 2 pm Eastern on Wednesday ... may just be the beginning.
I'm not totally sold on nat gas. Apparently, there are serious byproduct issues and a groundswell of opposition. But nat gas is superior to coal at this point on balance, and certainly more golden than oil sands, which strip the environment and ecosystem. Whatever the case is, nat gas is the antidote to nasty crude oil swings, it appears.
Washington, D.C. in the house! Belfast, Ireland! Wow. Herndon, Va.!
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