There are still some very weird things going on at the Dubai Stock Market or rather, among the brokerages there. I have been exposed to stock markets worldwide but what we get here from time to time, should be on the front pages of all …
Seven Things You Should Know Before Investing in Coalbed Methane
More investors are now inquiring about Coalbed Methane exploration companies. Just as uranium miners were flying well below the radar screen in early 2004, coalbed methane exploration may very well be the next very hot sector later this year and next. Historically, coalbed methane gas endangered coal miners, resulting in alarming fatalities early in the previous century. This is the fate suffered today by many Chinese coal miners in the smaller, private coal mines. Typically, the methane gas trapped in coal seams was flared out, before underground mining began, in order to prevent those explosions. Rising natural gas prices have long since ended that practice.
Today, coalbed methane companies are turning a centuries-long nuisance and byproduct into a valuable resource. About 9 percent of total US natural gas production comes from the natural gas found in coal seams. Because natural gas prices have soared, along with the bull markets found in uranium, oil, and precious and base metals, coalbed methane has come into play. It is after all a natural gas. But because it is outside the realm of the petroleum industry, coalbed methane, or CBM as many industry insiders call it, is called the unconventional gas. It may be unconventional today, but as the industry continue to grow by leaps and bounds, on a global scale, CBM may soon achieve some respect. Please remember that a few years ago, there was very little cheerleading about nuclear energy. Today, positive news items are running far better than ten to one in favor of that power source.
CBM is the natural gas contained in coal. It consists primarily of methane, the gas we use for home heating, gas-fired electrical generation, and industrial fuel. The energy source within natural gas is methane (chemically, it is CH4), whether it comes from the oil industry or from coal beds.
CBM has several strong points in its favor. The gases produced from CBM fields are often nearly 90 percent methane. Which type of gas has more impurities? No, it isn’t the natural, or conventional, gas you thought it might be. Frequently, CBM gas has fewer impurities than the “natural gas” produced from conventional wells. CBM exploration is done at a more shallow level, between 250 and 1000 meters, than conventional gas wells, which sometimes are drilled below 5,000 meters. CBM wells can last a long time - some could produce for 40 years or longer.
Natural gas is created by the compression of underground organic matter combined with the earth’s high temperatures thousands of meters below surface. Conventional gas fills the spaces between the porous reservoir rocks. The coalification process is similar but the result is different: both the coalbed and the methane gas are trapped in the coal seams. Instead of filling the tiny spaces between the rocks, the coal gas is within the coal seams.
One of the past problems associated with CBM exploration was the reliance upon expensive horizontal drilling techniques to extract the methane gas from the coal seams. Advanced fracturing techniques and breakthrough horizontal drilling techniques have increased CBM success ratios. As a result, a growing number of exploration companies are pursuing the early bull market in CBM. Market capitalizations for many of these companies mirror similar “early plays” we mentioned during our mid 2004 uranium coverage (June through October, 2004). Industry experts told us there would be a uranium bull market. Now, we are hearing the same forecasts about CBM.
SEVEN TIPS BY DR. DAVID MARCHIONI
We asked Dr. David Marchioni to provide our subscribers with his 7 Tips to help investors better understand what to look for, before investing in a CBM play. Dr. Marchioni helped co-author the CBM textbook, An Assessment of Coalbed Methane Exploration Projects in Canada, published by the Geological Survey of Canada. He is also president of Petro-Logic Services in Calgary, whose clients have included the Canadian divisions of Apache, BP, BHP, Burlington, Devon, El Paso Energy, and Phillips Petroleum, among others. He is also a director of Pacific Asia China Energy and is overseeing the company’s CBM exploration program in China.
Our series of telephone and email interviews began while Dr. Marchioni sat on a drill rig in Alberta’s foothills, the Manville region, until he finished outlining his top 7 tips, or advices, on how to think like a CBM professional.
1) COAL SEAM THICKNESS
Is there a reasonable thickness of coal? You should find out how thick the coal seams are. With thickness, you get the regional extent of the resource. For example, there must be a minimum thickness into which one can drill a horizontal well.
2) GAS CONTENT
Typically, gas content is expressed as cubic feet of gas per ton of coal. Find how thick it is and how far it is spread. Then, you have a measure of unit gas content. Between coal seam thickness and gas content, you can determine the size of the resource. You have to look at both thickness and gas content. It’s of no use to have high gas content if you don’t have very much coal. The industry looks at resource per unit area. In other words, how much gas is in place per acre, hectare, or square mile? In the early stage of the CBM exploration, this really all you have to work with in evaluating its potential.
3) MATURITY LEVEL OF THE COAL
This is the measure of the stage the coal has reached between the mineral’s inception as peat. Peat matures to become lignite. Later, it develops into bituminous coal, then semi-anthracite and finally anthracite.
There is a progressive maturation of coal as a geological time continuum and the earth’s temperature, depending upon depth. By measuring certain parameters, you can determine where it is in the chemical process. For instance, the chemistry of lignite is different from that of anthracite. This phrasing is called “coal rank” in coal industry terminology.
4) PERMEABILITY
When you are beginning to think about CBM production, this and the next item must be evaluated. How permeable is the CBM property? You want permeability, otherwise the gas can’t flow. If the coal isn’t permeable at all, you can never generate gas. The gas has to be able to flow. If it is extremely permeable, then you can perhaps never pump enough water. The water just keeps getting replaced from the large area surrounding the well bore. The water will just keep coming, and you will never lower the pressure so the gas can be released.
5) WATER
In a very high proportion of CBM plays, the coal contains quite a lot of water. You have to pump the water off in order to reduce the pressure in the coal bed. Gas is held in coal by pressure. The deeper you go, typically the more gas you get, because the pressure is higher. The way to induce the gas to start flowing is to pump the water out of the coal and lower the “water head” of pressure. How much water are we going to produce? Are we going to have to dispose of it? If it’s fresh, then there may be problems with regulatory agencies. In Alberta, the government has restrictions on extracting fresh water because others might want to use it. One could be tapping into a zone that people use as water wells for farms and rural communities. Both water quality and water volume matter. For example, Manville water is very salient so nobody wants to put it into a river; this water is pushed back down into existing oil and gas wells in permeable zones (but which are also not connected to the coal).
6) FUNDING
To be able to access land and do some initial drilling, i.e. the first round of financing, it would cost a minimum of C$4 million. This would include some geological work and drilling at least five or six wells. In Horseshoe, that would cost around C$4 million (say 1st round of finance); in Manville, about C$9 million. This is under the assumption that the company doesn’t buy the land. The land in western Canada is very expensive and tightly held. Much of the work is done as a “farm in” drilling on land held by another for a percentage of the play. (Editor’s note: During a previous interview, Dr. Marchioni commented about his preference for Pacific Asia China Energy’s land position in China because comparable land in western Canada would have cost “$100 million or more.”
7) INFRASTRUCTURE
The geology only tells you what’s there, and what the chances of success are. You then have to pursue it. Can we sell it? Gas prices are “local,” meaning they vary from country to country, depending whether it is locally produced and in what abundance (or lack thereof). How much can we extract? How much is it going to cost us to get it out of the ground? Are there readily available services for this property? Will you have to helicopter a rig onto the property at some incredible price just to drill it? Will you have to build a pipeline to transport the gas? Or, in China as an example, are there established convoys for trucking LNG across hundreds of kilometers?
One addition, which we have mentioned in previous articles, and especially in the Market Outlook Journal, “Quality of Management Attracts PR,” it is important that the CBM company have experienced management. This would mean a management team that includes those who have gotten results, not only a veteran exploration geologist but a team that can sell the story and bring in the mandatory financing to move the project into production.
There are two primary reasons why many of these coalbed methane plays are being taken seriously. First, the macroeconomic reason is that rising energy costs have driven companies in the energy fields to pursue any economic projects to help fill the energy gap. Coalbed methane has a more than two decades of proof in the United States. The excitement has spread to Canada, China and India, where CBM exploration is beginning to take off. Second, the fundamental reason is that exploration work has already been done in delineating coal deposits. There are, perhaps, 800 coal basins globally, with less than 50 CBM producing basins. In other words, there is the potential for growth in this sector.
James Finch contributes to StockInterview.com and to other publications. His archived work can be found at www.stockinterview.com. Feedback is encouraged and James Finch can be contacted by email at jfinch@stockinterview.com.
Online Trading Education >> STOCK MARKET TIPS … Trading Technology Stocks .- BY http://www.ProfitableStockMarket.com
The stock market can present you with a lot of hot stocks every day. Many of them are new technology stocks that come from the nanotech, biotech, voip, healthcare, homeland defense or internet sectors.
Most of them may seem promising, but the truth is that a good number of these trading & investing opportunities are extremely risky, while others are not as good as they seem. That’s why it’s very important to know how to choose the best especially if you want to day trade them.
When you know how to pick and approach the best hot stock trading opportuntites, you are able to generate a consistent and respectable amount of money in a very short period of time.
Experienced day traders recognize that trading hot stocks on momentum can be the fastest way to make money in the stock market.
You don’t necessarily have to trade momentum hot stocks all the time. But you can learn how to take advantage of them when you encounter the best opportunities for going long or for shorting them to make money when they are poised to fall down.
If you want to learn how to trade and pick hot momentum stocks in a simple yet effective way every week, just log on to http://www.ProfitableStockMarket.com right now and discover what youve been missing.
Take a Look at The Valuable Strategies and Bonuses that You can access today:
+ $ Trading Psychology. Realistic mindset of experienced momentum traders. The ones who make more money look at every opportunity in certain ways.
+ $ Short Selling Opportunities. Focus on these strategic scenarios and short stocks like a pro over and over without getting confused. The other side of the golden coin: Shorting to profit when the stock goes down.
+ $ How to pick momentum stocks every day in an easy and fast way. Pure gold over and over.
+ $ What kind of stocks to look for and how to classify the opportunities for greater trading profits. Come and get a truckload of $$$$$ from now on.
+ $ Profitable momentum trading without technical analysis.
+ $ What kind of stocks and “opportunities” to avoid and why. Save thousands in losses from trades gone bad in the future.
+ $ The “little details” you should look for before you consider a momentum daytrade.
+ $ Things to consider when trading low float momentum stocks
+ $ Buying micro cap and small cap stocks with momentum.
+ $ Trading NASDAQ stocks or OTCBB - OTC stocks ?
+ $ Getting ready for the trading breakout. Position your self for success.
+ $ Will my market rally last more than 5 minutes or less? What to do
+ $ It’s all about the stock rally. The rest is just a bunch of elegant B.S. Learn to focus on what matters.
+ $ How to lock in profits on the way up
+ $ Should I hold overnight trading positions for a possible gap up ?
+ $ What to do if the stock rally stops moving. Cash in your pocket !
+ $ Level 2 trading ( L 2 ) strategies for momentum stocks.
+ $ Time frames for trading stocks with momentum, Pros and Cons
+ $ Premarket stock trading strategies and tips.
+ $ Trading momentum stock opportunities during market hours. $$$$
+ $ Trading at the open or waiting till the dust settles to make your move. It depends. This can make a big difference in your results.
+ $ Stocktrading during lunch hour ?
+ $ After hours trading tactics and tips. Super value, yours included !
+ $ Become an expert of your hotstock watch list.
+ $ You don’t need to watch the stock market all day. Profitable stock traders have a better way.
+ $ Stock trading is not a job. Save money and don’t make it another rat race.
+ $ Watching charts and stocktrading all day ? Overtrading is not the way to go. Learn why !
+ $ Testing the high probability trading plan
+ $ Stress free day trading tips and strategies for beginners and experienced stock traders. Your time is here!
+ $ Real examples of recent on-line trading opportunities. Learn in a practical way.
+ $ Powerful stock market resources and tools for day trading with our strategy. Discover momentum stocks in a snap and choose only the best every day. No waisting time. Its all about results !
Just picture your self waking up EVERY morning fresh and confident knowing you can identify, validate and take advantage of great momentum trading opportunities that are capable of generating you very profitable results.
For more information visit us today at Profitable Stock Market http://www.ProfitableStockMarket.com
Profitable Stock Market helps day traders and investors pick hot stock trading opportunities every day at http://www.ProfitableStockMarket.com
I find the stories about the California Gold Rush era fascinating because at few other times across the course of human history, could a person of modest means potentially achieve great wealth. Though the quest for gold was not always easy for the 49ers, and not all of them achieved wealth, once they literally “staked their claims,” each person had the same opportunity to achieve instant riches as the next. The Gold Rush was the great equalizer.
Finding great stock trading opportunities is, in a way, like the 49ers’ quest for gold, in that anybody– whether young or old, rich or of modest means, male or female– has a chance to create wealth for him or herself. But finding a shinny nugget at the bottom of your pan is one thing, while finding those select stocks that have the most explosive upside potential is quite another.
Today, I know why trading a stock just as it breaks out can lead to explosive gains, and I know the thrill of watching a quality stock quickly swell my portfolio, but this was not always the case. In fact, I tried out just about every other stock trading strategy first, because I found studying stock charts tedious and confusing. Which stocks should I concentrate on? What should a stock’s chart look like? What moving averages should I use? Which oscillators are the best?
You would think that as an executive at a financial television channel, I’d have the inside track on slick ways to trade the market, wouldn’t you? After all, I regularly rubbed elbows with some of the most influential stock market gurus on the financial seminar circuit. There was only one thing. Each individual was busy selling his or her own unique stock trading strategy. As I bounced from trying one trading strategy to the next, I began to realize that many of these techniques did not work as predictably as I had expected.
At one point, I even turned to penny stocks thinking they were the way to make big money in the market. After all, 5,000 shares of a stock made you feel like a pretty big investor. But in the end, even a $1.50 stock could become a .75 stock overnight, on some little ripple in the company’s game plan, and poof! Half your grubstake…gone! And, since penny stocks are usually so thinly traded, it took a “month of Sundays” just to execute a sell order. Meanwhile you watched as your sell order single-handedly brought the stock’s value down far below what you were hoping to get for it.
The shortcomings of many of the stock trading strategies I tried only made me more determined to find a more predictable way to make money in the stock market. My epiphany came while turning the first few pages of a book on stock charts that had been sent to our television station by the publisher. The book had been sitting on a bookshelf in a corner of my office for some time collecting dust. The book? Analyzing Bar Charts For Profit by John Magee.
Magee was talking about how the field of technical analysis developed, beginning with the early moving averages developed by Charles Dow dating all the way back in 1884. As I read, three things occurred to me.
1. First, some very smart people had been hot on the trail of finding a system of using charts to anticipate stocks’ movements for a very long time.
2. Second, charts represented the only visual, factual record of a stock’s movement that was not filtered through some financial news analyst or stock market guru.
3. Third, and most important, it actually seemed plausible to make reasonable assumptions, based upon certain charts, as to when a stock was nearing its greatest potential. Could I have finally found the “holy grail” to stock profits I had been searching for?
Of course, nothing is ever as simple as it seems at the outset, and quite frankly, the study of charts took me far deeper into technical analysis than I ever had intended to go. Yet somehow the quest for a more definitive way of knowing when to buy high-potential stocks had grabbed hold of me, and wouldn’t let go until I had some hard and fast answers.
I read every book on charting techniques I could lay my hands on. At night, armed with my charting software, I’d download a list of stocks and stare at their charts trying to discern what they were telling me. William O’Neil’s “How To Make Money In Stocks” helped me to better understand the relationship between a stock’s daily price action and its volume. Slowly, after what seemed an eternity, I began to spot the chart patterns.
Of course gaining knowledge about technical analysis is one thing, and putting this knowledge into practice is quite another. Here again, there was no shortcut. No abbreviated course. No quick cure. I had to rigorously trade stocks based upon my assumptions about a stock’s chart. I’d hear seasoned traders say this is a process that takes about four years of frustration, elation and often, disillusionment. They weren’t kidding. Once I emerged from this “birth of fire,” I had a newfound respect for the market forces. Gone was any pretense of cockiness or self-pride. I felt almost as if I had achieved a kind of “warrior status.”
In the end, I learned that trading stocks just as they broke out was simply the most dependable way to make money I had ever been exposed to. There wasn’t any guarantee, there were still surprises, and not everything worked out exactly as planned, but when a stock’s time had come to break out, there just was no quicker way to make money.
These days, I usually begin my search for stock market gold by scrutinizing a company’s fundamentals and choosing the best of the best. Why? Because a leading company has an established track record for executing a successful game plan, and is less likely to surprise you with negative news. Believe me, with all the varying factors that you have to contend with in trading stocks, you at least want to have your best players on the field. Why would you want anything less than your top quarterback in the Superbowl? The same thing applies to stocks. Does the company have successive quarters of earnings increases? How does the company stack up to others in terms of its “relative strength,” or price stability? Is the company in a strong industry group? Is the stock under accumulation by mutual fund companies?
Then I look at the stock’s chart. Here’s where things start to get exciting, because breakout stocks form certain time-tested patterns just before breaking out. “Time-tested” does not mean foolproof, but from a cup-with-handle, double-bottom, flat base, or other types of chart patterns, you can begin to discern the telltale signs of pent up demand. The stock may drift sideways, or slightly downward as if it is disinterested in going any higher. Meanwhile, it’s daily volume drops to a whisper. It’s almost as if the stock is sleepwalking. A lot of traders take this to mean there is no interest in the stock. Nothing could be further from the truth.
One day, the stock seems to turn on the afterburners, and you see this explosive burst of volume that exceeds anything the stock recently seemed capable of. You silently watch in awe as this stock breaks through its resistance/buy point and then heads skyward. Then, as you watch your profits mount, you sit back in your chair and allow yourself a brief moment to reflect on the thrill that the 49ers must have felt, because in your own way, you’ve just hit paydirt. For more information visit www.StockConfidential.com
Copyright ? 2005, Paul Johnson
Paul Johnson’s knowledge of technical analysis has been honed through thousands of hours of studying stock chart patterns and rigorous daily trading.
In addition to being the publisher of Stock Confidential, Paul has authored a number of stock trading e-books. For more information, visit www.StockConfidential.com .
Online Trading Education >> Day Trading Strategy … Buying & Selling Stocks .- BY http://www.ProfitableStockMarket.com
The stock market can present you with a lot of hot stocks every day. Many of them are new technology stocks that come from the nanotech, biotech, voip, healthcare, homeland defense or internet sectors.
Most of them may seem promising, but the truth is that a good number of these trading & investing opportunities are extremely risky, while others are not as good as they seem. That’s why it’s very important to know how to choose the best especially if you want to day trade them.
When you know how to pick and approach the best hot stock trading opportuntites, you are able to generate a consistent and respectable amount of money in a very short period of time.
Experienced day traders recognize that trading hot stocks on momentum can be the fastest way to make money in the stock market.
You don’t necessarily have to trade momentum hot stocks all the time. But you can learn how to take advantage of them when you encounter the best opportunities for going long or for shorting them to make money when they are poised to fall down.
If you want to learn how to trade and pick hot momentum stocks in a simple yet effective way every week, just log on to StressFreeTraders.com right now and discover what youve been missing.
Take a Look at The Valuable Strategies and Bonuses that You can access today:
+ $ Trading Psychology. Realistic mindset of experienced momentum traders. The ones who make more money look at every opportunity in certain ways.
+ $ Short Selling Opportunities. Focus on these strategic scenarios and short stocks like a pro over and over without getting confused. The other side of the golden coin: Shorting to profit when the stock goes down.
+ $ How to pick momentum stocks every day in an easy and fast way. Pure gold over and over.
+ $ What kind of stocks to look for and how to classify the opportunities for greater trading profits. Come and get a truckload of $$$$$ from now on.
+ $ Profitable momentum trading without technical analysis.
+ $ What kind of stocks and “opportunities” to avoid and why. Save thousands in losses from trades gone bad in the future.
+ $ The “little details” you should look for before you consider a momentum daytrade.
+ $ Things to consider when trading low float momentum stocks
+ $ Buying micro cap and small cap stocks with momentum.
+ $ Trading NASDAQ stocks or OTCBB - OTC stocks ?
+ $ Getting ready for the trading breakout. Position your self for success.
+ $ Will my market rally last more than 5 minutes or less? What to do
+ $ It’s all about the stock rally. The rest is just a bunch of elegant B.S. Learn to focus on what matters.
+ $ How to lock in profits on the way up
+ $ Should I hold overnight trading positions for a possible gap up ?
+ $ What to do if the stock rally stops moving. Cash in your pocket !
+ $ Level 2 trading ( L 2 ) strategies for momentum stocks.
+ $ Time frames for trading stocks with momentum, Pros and Cons
+ $ Premarket stock trading strategies and tips.
+ $ Trading momentum stock opportunities during market hours. $$$$
+ $ Trading at the open or waiting till the dust settles to make your move. It depends. This can make a big difference in your results.
+ $ Stocktrading during lunch hour ?
+ $ After hours trading tactics and tips. Super value, yours included !
+ $ Become an expert of your hotstock watch list.
+ $ You don’t need to watch the stock market all day. Profitable stock traders have a better way.
+ $ Stock trading is not a job. Save money and don’t make it another rat race.
+ $ Watching charts and stocktrading all day ? Overtrading is not the way to go. Learn why !
+ $ Testing the high probability trading plan
+ $ Stress free day trading tips and strategies for beginners and experienced stock traders. Your time is here!
+ $ Real examples of recent on-line trading opportunities. Learn in a practical way.
+ $ Powerful stock market resources and tools for day trading with our strategy. Discover momentum stocks in a snap and choose only the best every day. No waisting time. Its all about results !
Just picture your self waking up EVERY morning fresh and confident knowing you can identify, validate and take advantage of great momentum trading opportunities that are capable of generating you very profitable results.
For more information visit us today at Profitable Stock Market http://www.ProfitableStockMarket.com
Profitable Stock Market helps day traders and investors pick hot stock trading opportunities every day at http://www.ProfitableStockMarket.com