Natural Gas Prices Have Exploded Higher Signaling The End Of An Era

(Travis’s Note:  This article was originally authored on November 10th, 2018, and I am posting it here for the archives).

  • Natural gas prices have been in a nearly decade long bear market.
  • Natural gas equities have fared even worse.
  • Lower for longer was the prevailing mantra, but the nearly universal believe in lower for longer has potentially brought its demise.

Natural gas prices (UNG) had an incredible week, surging 13.3% to new multi-year highs, already eclipsing their 2017/2018 winter peak levels.

What is behind this surge in natural gas prices?

Simply put, structural demand drivers that were created by the universal belief in lower natural gas prices for longer have caused demand to exceed supply.

This has manifested itself in a natural gas inventory level that is below the five-year minimum.

Working Gas in Underground Storage Compared with Five-Year Range

Natural gas bears have blamed the recent favorable weather for the price action in natural gas, but these same bears, who estimate that weather has drawn down inventories by an additional 300-500 BCF during calendar 2018, conveniently forget that the historically warm winters of 2015/2016 & 2016/2017 torpedoed a burgeoning bull market in natural gas, and natural gas equities, when there was a structural supply/demand deficit, by adding roughly 2,000 BCF in unused supply to storage across the two historically warm, back-to-back winters.

The pendulum swings both ways, though, and one extreme is about to lead to another, and everything that you think you know about natural gas is going to be challenged, absent another historically warm winter.

The nearly decade long bear market in natural gas prices has created a potentially very profitable opportunity in a select group of natural gas producers, which despite residing in perhaps the most prolific energy basin in the United States, and having more favorable fundamentals than their richly valued Permian cousins, remains undervalued and under-owned.

We have been evaluating this opportunity for several years at The Contrarian, with a series of exclusive articles.  Here is a sampling of these articles, just the headlines.

Natural Gas Bullish Thesis Continues To Play Out – 11/9/2018 Update

Natural Gas Bullish Thesis Continues To Play Out – 9/21/2018 Update

Natural Gas Bullish Thesis Continues To Play Out – 7/22/2018 Update

Natural Gas Has A Supply Problem – Part III – May 16th, 2018 Update

Natural Gas Has A Supply Problem – Part II – March 7th, 2018 Update

Natural Gas Has A Supply Problem – Part I – August 6th, 2017 Update

Appalachia Natural Gas Producer Valuations – March 10th, 2018 Update

Top Idea – A Diamond In The Rough – Southwestern Energy – May 21st, 2018 Deep-Dive Research Paper

To read these exclusive member articles, please consider a subscription to The Contrarian, where we now have a free two-week trial open.

I am biased, of course, but I think we have the best group of investors and traders anywhere, seasoned by nearly three years of experience together, positive and negative, and commentary for some members, with many members actively contributing their unique perspectives to a robust Live Chat discussion on a daily basis, particularly when volatility surfaces.

We are always looking for new members that can add profitable ideas, or challenge existing ones.

From my perspective, as I said in my blog posts the past three weeks, it would be worth taking a look, simply to view the Live Chat dialogue.

I do recognize that the price point of The Contrarian is a little steep, coming in as one of the more expensive services in SA’s Marketplace.

Over the years, I have had quite a few requests for a lower-priced, more streamlined research product, and over the last several months, I have slowly put together a more traditional research newsletter.

To celebrate this official soft launch, which includes a deep-dive research report on what I believe is an extremely timely equity (delivered via email upon membership), I am offering a limited time $299 annual membership for the first 100 members. To get this discounted price, simply use the coupon code “first100”. (WTK’s Note: There are a few slots left remaining at this introductory price).

Ultimately, I think we are now at a major inflection point in the financial markets, highlighted by the price action in October of 2018, which has been ongoing in slow motion for three years, but which could suddenly accelerate. Being different, being contrarian, has been extremely painful for a long time now, however, resilience and persistence, two necessary qualities for success in contrarian investing and in life in general, in my opinion, are leading to what I believe is an upcoming golden age for active investors.

If you have any questions, send me a direct message at any time,

William “Travis” Koldus

Disclosure: I am/we are long the companies in the contrarian portfolios.

Additional disclosure: Every investor’s situation is different. Positions can change at any time without warning. Please do your own due diligence and consult with your financial advisor, if you have one, before making any investment decisions. The author is not acting in an investment adviser capacity. The author’s opinions expressed herein address only select aspects of potential investment in securities of the companies mentioned and cannot be a substitute for comprehensive investment analysis. The author recommends that potential and existing investors conduct thorough investment research of their own, including detailed review of the companies’ SEC filings. Any opinions or estimates constitute the author’s best judgment as of the date of publication, and are subject to change without notice.

Inflection Point & Opportunity

  • Growth investing has dominated value investing for the past decade.
  • The pendulum has swung to a rarely reached extreme.
  • As it swings back the other way, which I believe it has started to do with the price action in October, there should be significant opportunity.

There is an old saying that a picture says a thousand words, so with that in mind, take a look at these two charts, the first from Ned Davis Research, and the second from Chuck Mikolajczak, by way of  Alastair Williamson.

Looking at the charts, two conclusions should be abundantly clear.

1.  The U.S. equity market has been in a bubble, and this bubble has exceeded the epic 1999/early 2000 peak valuations in certain areas.

2.  Growth companies, led by the infamous quintet of Facebook (FB), Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Netflix (NFLX), and Alphabet (GOOGL), and carried along by many others, including NVIDIA (NVDA), and more recently, before its even more recent decline, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), have been in-favor to the extreme excesses of the late 1990’s, while value stocks have rarely been this out-of-favor historically, on a relative basis.

The price action in October was a wake-up call, with AMZN, perhaps the leading flag carrier for the markets broader price action the past decade, down -20.2%, and cast aside, forgotten companies like Southwestern Energy (SWN), which is one of my favorite buy-and-hold investments today for the  next decade, up 4.5% for the month, even with the S&P 500 Index (SPY), which is dominated by the large-cap technology growth stocks, down -6.9% for the month.

In an irony of ironies, Southwestern Energy was actually the worst performing S&P 500 Index component from the U.S. equity bull market starting point of March 9th, 2009, through its exclusion from the venerable index in 2017, due to its lower market capitalization, which was caused by its share price decline and severe under-performance.

I would bet almost anything, that Southwestern Energy, which has undergone a very dramatic transformation the past three years that we cover in depth in The Contrarian, outperforms the S&P 500 Index over the next decade.

There are whole studies that cover how unpopular companies outperform, particularly those booted from popular indices like the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA), and that is the place to look for opportunity today, in my opinion.

After all, there is a reason that Ibbotson data, now part of Morningstar (MORN), shows small-cap value as the best performing asset class in the market over the long-term.

Sure, this has not been the case for the past decade, but as we showed above, the U.S. equity market has been in a historic bubble, and value equities have been historically out-of-favor.

For a first-look at the forgotten companies that I will be covering in-depth, and have been covering in-depth, please consider joining The Contrarian, which is my premium research service platform on Seeking Alpha.

I am biased, of course, but I think we have the best group of investors and traders anywhere, seasoned by nearly three years of experience together, positive and negative, and commentary for some members, with many members actively contributing their unique perspectives to a robust Live Chat discussion on a daily basis, particularly when volatility surfaces.

Right now, we have an open free trial at The Contrarian, so if you have ever had an interest in test driving our group, now is a good time.

From my perspective, as I said in my blog posts the past two weeks, it would be worth taking a look, simply to view the Live Chat dialogue.

I do recognize that the price point of The Contrarian is a little steep, coming in as one of the more expensive services in SA’s Marketplace.

Over the years, I have had quite a few requests for a lower-priced, more streamlined research product, and over the last several months, I have slowly put together a more traditional research newsletter.

To celebrate this official soft launch, which includes a deep-dive research report on what I believe is an extremely timely equity (delivered via email upon membership), I am offering a limited time $299 annual membershipfor the first 100 members. To get this discounted price, simply use the coupon code “first100”.  (WTK’s Note: There are a few slots left remaining at this introductory price).

Ultimately, I think we are now at a major inflection point in the financial markets, highlighted by the price action in October of 2018, which has been ongoing in slow motion for three years, but which could suddenly accelerate. Being different, being contrarian, has been extremely painful for a long time now, however, resilience and persistence, two necessary qualities for success in contrarian investing, in my opinion, are leading to what I believe is an upcoming golden age for active investors.

If you have any questions, send me a direct message at any time,

William “Travis” Koldus

Disclosure: I am/we are long SWN and short SPY as a market hedge.

Additional disclosure: Every investor’s situation is different. Positions can change at any time without warning. Please do your own due diligence and consult with your financial advisor, if you have one, before making any investment decisions. The author is not acting in an investment adviser capacity. The author’s opinions expressed herein address only select aspects of potential investment in securities of the companies mentioned and cannot be a substitute for comprehensive investment analysis. The author recommends that potential and existing investors conduct thorough investment research of their own, including detailed review of the companies’ SEC filings. Any opinions or estimates constitute the author’s best judgment as of the date of publication, and are subject to change without notice.

An Ode To Indiana & An Introduction To The Forgotten Equities Series

  • Passive index investing has dominated fund flows for a long time, accelerating over the past decade.
  • Once vaunted value investors have been left behind, as have a whole group of out-of-favor, forgotten equities.
  • The pendulum has swung too far to one extreme, and appears to be starting its move in the other direction, offering historic opportunity for forgotten equities.

I grew up, and have spent almost all my life in the great state of Indiana, though I have traveled across the United States, and a little bit of the world (I want to travel more) in my career, and for pleasure.

Growing up in Northwest Indiana, which was really an extended connection to Chicago, referred affectionately to those from this area as “The Region” (I actually used to tell people that it was really like growing up on the South Side of Chicago, but true South Siders take offense to that), I went to college for undergrad studies at Ball State, in Muncie, Indiana, then moved to various suburbs around Indianapolis, working first in a suburb, then in downtown Indianapolis, then in a suburb again, before starting my own boutique investment research firm.

More recently, my life, which is a story on its own accord, for a book that would make interesting, perhaps even good reading, even for those not financially inclined, and my career to an extent, has taken me to various small towns across Indiana (and some of the bigger cities too…which outside of Indianapolis are really pretty small on a national scale, with the possible exception of Ft. Wayne), and even though I love geography, and enjoy driving, it is amazing to me the number of different small towns that I was unaware of, and stories behind them, which I am sure is true in a number of states, however, I have not traveled them nearly as much.

Many of these small towns, dotted in-between the never ending corn and soybean fields, which can be a beautiful backdrop driving, especially in the changing seasons, are forgotten by those in the bigger cities in Indiana, which really, again, there are not many of, let alone on a national scale.  Summarizing, I have spent virtually my whole life in Indiana, and I come across new towns and places on a regular occasion, with their own interesting backstory and history.

Building on the narrative, even though Indiana is home to a number of Fortune 500 companies, including Eli Lilly (LLY), Cummins (CMI), Steel Dynamics (STLD), Zimmer Biomet Holdings (ZBH), Berry Global Group (BERY), which honestly I had not heard of before today and I have spent my past 25 years actively research and investing, and Simon Property Group (SPG), and a number of S&P 500 Index (SPY) companies have significant operations located in Indiana, which is a list too big to show in its entirety, including somewhat surprisingly Salesforce.com (CRM), on this note Indianapolis is also a finalist for Amazon’s (AMZN) second headquarters search, and a number of global industry leading companies have significant operations in Indiana including ArcelorMittal (MT), and Roche Holding Ltd (OTCQX:RHHBY), (OTCQX:RHHBF), Indiana is an overlooked state, in my opinion, on a national profile.

Sure, we in Indiana have globally recognized institutions with significant fan followings, including Notre Dame football in South Bend, Indiana basketball in Bloomington (though they have been in a down cycle, they are still a sleeping giant with a level of national success that only a few other programs can match), heck even the much maligned NCAA headquarters is located in Indianapolis.

The college programs and towns in Indiana are terrific from Purdue in West Lafayette, to Indiana University in Bloomington, to Notre Dame in South Bend, to Butler and IUPUI, both in Indianapolis, to Indiana State in Terre Haute, and Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute (Rose-Hulman, which I go to on a regular basis, and Purdue are two of the finest engineering schools in the country), and right on down through the smaller colleges such as the University of Indianapolis, DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, (the only time I ever ran of gas driving, which occurred recently, was near Greencastle, where a nice man, resembling a younger version of my deceased for seven year father, and having his same first name, picked me up and helped me on my way), and Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana.

Speaking of my deceased father, who I wrote about more here, we used to travel the state together for a couple reasons.  First, he was an athletic director, and coached a bunch of sports, so by default their was regional and statewide traveling.  Second, we both loved Indiana high school basketball, particularly before the winner-take-all tournament was changed, and third, my dad had a love for track-and-field, which he coached at the high school level too, and followed with interest around the state.

Interestingly, the professional sports teams in Indiana, including the Indiana Pacers, which I had tickets too for some time, including when they collided with the Miami Heat team four consecutive finals team, led by LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, and the Indianapolis Colts, probably have less state and national followings that Notre Dame football or Indiana basketball.

In summary, Indiana offers a rich fabric of nationally recognized colleges, and internationally recognized companies, yet while parts of Indiana thrive, there has certainly been a number of small towns, companies, and industries that have been left behind.

On this note, both of my parents were raised in Gary, Indiana, which was once, long ago, one of the most thriving cities in America, yet today, the southern Lake Michigan industrial coast line, from East Chicago to Hammond to Gary, is a shell of its former glory.

Companies, like U.S. Steel (X), who has significant operations in Northwest Indiana, and which I feel is one of the more undervalued equities in the market today, and Cleveland-Cliffs (CLF), another Great Lakes dominant business, which I believe is materially undervalued, went through a long dry spell, as the industrialized heartland of the United States saw production outsourced to cheaper locales, led by China and Mexico.

Jobs were cut, and industrial production centers centered in the Midwestern United States lost their place in the global supply chains.

Even though the fortunes of many of these companies have been revitalized since commodity prices bottomed early in 2016 (alongside a bottom in global growth), followed by a bottom in sovereign bond yields (with a corresponding  top in bond prices), the broader U.S. equity market, which has been dominated by a handful of winning companies, and winning sectors since the current bull market began in March of 2009, has overlooked a small, but significant group of companies, overrun by the passive flow driven rally.

Additionally, many stock markets outside the United States, and associated targeted companies have been left behind too, as global capital fund flows have been recycled to the United States this past decade, driving up the U.S. Dollar Index, and combining with domestic fund flows to passive and ETF passive strategies, to narrow the global equity bull market, led by U.S. equities, to a significantly smaller group of winning companies that one would expect, given the magnitude of the equity rally.

Collectively, the left behind companies and their associated equities, both domestically, and internationally, where there is a greater number of these mis-priced companies, in my opinion, are the forgotten companies.

This is a term, the forgotten companies, that I am going to use over-and-over in the next several weeks and months, to describe the group of undervalued companies that offer rare opportunity, in their equity prices.

For a first-look at the forgotten companies that I will be covering in-depth, and have been covering in-depth, please consider joining The Contrarian, which is my premium research service platform on Seeking Alpha.

I am biased, of course, but I think we have the best group of investors and traders anywhere, seasoned by nearly three years of experience together, positive and negative, and commentary for some members, with many members actively contributing their unique perspectives to a robust Live Chat discussion on a daily basis, particularly when volatility surfaces.

Right now, we have an open free trial at The Contrarian, so if you have ever had an interest in test driving our group, now is a good time.

From my perspective, as I said in my blog posts the past week, it would be worth taking a look, simply to view the Live Chat dialogue.

The price point of The Contrarian is a little steep, coming in as one of the more expensive services in SA’s Marketplace.

Over the years, I have had quite a few requests for a lower-priced, more streamlined research product, and over the last several months, I have slowly put together a more traditional research newsletter.

Ultimately, I think we are now at a major inflection point in the financial markets, which has been ongoing in slow motion for three years, but which could suddenly accelerate. Being different, being contrarian, has been extremely painful for a long time now, however, resilience and persistence, two necessary qualities for success in contrarian investing, in my opinion, are leading to what I believe is an upcoming golden age for active investors.

Disclosure: I am/we are long CLF, MT, X, and short SPY as a market hedge.

Additional disclosure: Every investor’s situation is different. Positions can change at any time without warning. Please do your own due diligence and consult with your financial advisor, if you have one, before making any investment decisions. The author is not acting in an investment adviser capacity. The author’s opinions expressed herein address only select aspects of potential investment in securities of the companies mentioned and cannot be a substitute for comprehensive investment analysis. The author recommends that potential and existing investors conduct thorough investment research of their own, including detailed review of the companies’ SEC filings. Any opinions or estimates constitute the author’s best judgment as of the date of publication, and are subject to change without notice.

Buffett & Pain & Suffering

(Travis’s Note: I originally wrote this full post on February 2nd, 2017, and I wanted to use/emphasize this excerpt as a reminder of the difficulties that value investors have to endure to see a thesis out).

This correction has been trying on investor’s patience, and it reminded me of a paraphrased quote from an article by Charlie Bilello that our esteemed Contrarian Member from New Zealand, “Motu”, provided a link to earlier in “Live Chat”, essentially saying that, “to be a good investor; you have to be good at suffering”.

In the article, Bilello referenced the famous under-performance of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A), (NYSE:BRK.B), whose shares declined roughly 50% from June of 1998 to March of 2000, while the Nasdaq 100 rose 270%. Here is the chart of Berkshire’s under-performance, replicated from the article, over that time-frame.

I was an active market participant during this time frame, and made a small fortune from 1995-1999, but as a value investor, I have my painful war stories from this era, which hurt many legendary value oriented investors, including Buffett, Grantham, whose firm GMO lost roughly two-thirds of their clients, and Julian Robertson, who closed his famous Tiger Fund.

My personal learning experience from the late 1990’s including shorting stocks like Intraware and Digital Island too early (November of 1999), and missing out on the downside, while losing significantly, as these aforementioned stocks, and others, doubled in mere days, sometimes in a single day, before ultimately crashing to nothing. This was a painful experience to participate in, and learn from, as my research analysis proved to be right, but my timing and implementation proved to be wrong.

Ultimately, value stocks, particularly small-cap value stocks, and REITs (which ironically are overvalued today), significantly outperformed in the ensuing 2000-2002 bear market. Not surprisingly, Buffett materially outperformed, recapturing the performance gap, and enhancing his already considerable reputation as a legendary value investor.

Wrapping up this opening missive, as a veteran, contrarian, value investor, I can attest to the veracity of the statement that to outperform, you must be good at suffering.

While the most difficult suffering, in my opinion, is waiting for the inflection point in a market, particularly if you are early, there also can be significant suffering once the turn arrives, and a bull market is in bloom.

Building on this narrative, ironically, some of the worst suffering happens during pullbacks in bull markets, as the bull markets want to throw investors off the market, and out of their positions.

Fortunately, bull markets have a way of resolving to the upside after they try to throw the most investors they can off the bull market.

Resilience

  • Spanish football giant Barcelona has an famous youth academy, called La Masia de Can Planes.
  • This academy is widely regarded as the best in the world.
  • Through training hundreds of players, they have found that the number one predictor of success is resilience.  I believe the same thing is true for investing and speculating.

Life Aint Fair(Picture above drawn by my daughter after she was put in timeout)

About a month ago, I was listening to a podcast with Bill Simmons and Steve Nash, and something they were discussing caught my attention.

Specifically, around the 28 minute mark (I would encourage everyone to listen because it really is a good conversation), Steve Nash was talking about the predictors of success in player development, and he referenced the youth academy of soccer giant Barcelona, known as La Masia de Can Planes, often shortened to La Masia.

Per Wikipedia,

“La Masia de Can Planes, usually shortened to La Masia (Catalan pronunciation: [lə məˈzi.ə]; English: “The Farmhouse”),[1] is often used to generically describe the Barcelona youth academy. This academy holds more than 300 young players, and has been praised since 2002 as the best in the world, being a significant factor in FC Barcelona’s European success.”

Nash said that La Masia had found, in its training of the most world class soccer players by any youth academy, that the number one predictor of success was resilience.

Think about that for a second, for developing youth soccer players, the number one predictor of success in the youth academy was not height, strength, speed, coordination, or athleticism, but rather it was resilience.

During the conversation, Nash said that resilience is not really taught, which should be addressed differently.

Nash and Simmons went back and forth ib whether was resilience was something you have inherently, or if it could be trained, or taught.

This observation about the importance of resilience got me thinking about investing, and speculating, and from my personal experiences, my biggest successes usually have occurred after periods of prolonged pain & suffering, or said another way, trials and tribulations.  In short, my biggest triumphs investing and speculating almost always required resilience.

Looking at it from another perspective, sometimes investing, or speculating, (or even life) goes against you, maybe even in a big way, and when this happens, it is crucial, in my opinion that you have resilience too.

Not giving up, keeping at something, this persistence & resilience is not common if something not going a persons way.  Often times, it can lead to success.

One caveat with investing and speculating though, and I suppose this is true in life too, is that I have learned persistence and resilience, or not giving up in the wrong situation, can lead to less than ideal outcome or even catastrophic losses.

So, I suppose the lesson is to be resilient at all times, through successes and failures, and be persistent/resilient if you have reason to believe that failures will eventually pay dividends.

In summary, do not discount the importance of resilience in investing and speculating, or in life,

WTK

P.S. The attached picture above is drawn by one of my daughter’s, composed after she was put in “timeout” that she felt was undeserved, and thus she wrote, “Life Ain’t Fair”.  That is certainly true, and I would add the markets are not fair either, however, it is the job of a successful investor or speculator to have resilience, and take advantage of the price dislocations.

Dollar Divergence

  • The U.S. Dollar Index has rallied this year.
  • However, the Dollar Index has not made new highs on its recent rally.
  • Additionally, the Dollar Index remains materially below its 2015-2017 highs.  What does this mean?

The U.S. Dollar (UUP) has rallied in 2018.

However, if you look at the chart above, it is interesting that the U.S. Dollar Index has not made a new high this year, even with all of the recent tailwinds, including a sharp downturn in U.S. equities, shown by the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) below.

Additionally, looking at the bigger picture, the U.S. Dollar Index, even with its recent rally, remains substantially below its 2015-2017 highs, as the longer-term chart shows in the following frame.

Interesting, to say the least.

If the Dollar cannot make new 2018 highs with all the recent tailwinds, and remains materially below its 2015-2017 highs, what does that mean?

Is this a positive leading indicator for equities that would rally on Dollar weakness, including emerging market equities (EEM), developed international equities (EFA), international financials (EUFN), commodities, and commodity equities?