I lost half my shirt in the last big economic crunch by thinking i would be smart and buy buy buy oil.......ouch!!!
would i buy right now? not a chance...
i dont have the link in front of me, and not the time to find it , but...
i saw a interview a couple months ago with a Saudi oil reps and OPEC rep that said..
Our systems of oil extraction have been paid millions of times over , we can take oil out of the ground for $8.xx a barrel... so they can still make huge money at $50.xx a barrel.
Oil can still FALL along ways..... Don,t touch it.
Buy Bank stocks !
Saudi Arabia is pumping every drop for a number of reasons:
1. Iran - Saudi Arabia knew that the Western Nations (USA) would cave on sanctions. Saudi Arabia wants Iran to be too poor to fund a religious war against them.
2. Shale Oil and Gas - The USA and Canada are capable of not needing Saudi Oil, keeping the price down means that they slow down the development of Shale Oil.
3. China - China is buying Oil and Gas from nations that compete with Saudi Arabia, keeping the price down means that they slow down development of new oil fields and speed up the depletion of existing oil fields.
4. Internal Strife - the Saudi royal family has been buying off the religious fanatics for years. There was a "deal" where the fanatics could operate anywhere but inside Saudi Arabia. The Saudi royal family is expecting to have to go into exile in the next few years and they want to deplete their own oil fields as much as possible before they leave.
I think that Western Banks have lent too much money to too many people that can't pay their debts when interest rates go up. I can't agree that Bank Stocks are a good long term bet. All of the Western Nations are effectively bankrupt and are playing a ponzi scheme. It's not possible to know when people will decide that Western Nation's currency has no value, but it's something to keep in mind.
Western based Multi-national Corporations are storing over a Trillion dollars in offshore accounts. They are making a pretty big bet on Western economies not doing very well in the near future. If the Multi-nationals stockholders felt that management is wrong, there would be pressure to repatriate that money and put it too work.