You have to hand it to Stephen Colbert. He sure has a way of keeping things lively.
First, Colbert does a segment on his Comedy Central show on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia and the phenomenon of “wikiality” — the reality that exists if you make something up and enough people agree with you, it becomes reality.
Thousands of viewers then get online and storm Colbert’s Wikipedia entry and engage in widespread wikiality.
Hilarity ensues.
This Bloomberg article is reporting that former Nymex president and former El Paso Merchant Energy trading chief J. Robert “Bo” Collins sent investors in his hedge fund MotherRock L.P. a letter yesterday informing them that MotherRock is shutting down after betting big and losing on trades in the volatile natural gas market during June and July.
Collins formed MotherRock in early 2005. At its peak, the fund managed about $430 million in assets and reported net gains of 20% for 2005. Although its energy fund was up slightly as of the end of May, that MotherRock fund lost $230 million as investors fled and the natural gas prices moved contrary to MotherRock’s positions. After an unusally high draw in natural gas from storage last week and a a heat wave across much of the country, natural gas prices rose 17% during the week of July 24 and 14% this past Monday. Guess which way MotherRock was betting prices would go?
Anne Linehan and Kevin Whited, and Tory Gattis continue to do a good job of covering Houston Metro Rail’s ever-present expansion plans, which seem to be impervious to whether the expansion is actually needed. Previous posts on the boondoggle of rail systems in cities such as Houston are here.
Although not as slick as a trendy Metro economic report analyzing the projected benefits of an expansion of the light rail system in Houston, this Bill Schadewald/Houston Business Journal ($) op-ed describes his rather compelling analysis of Metro Rail’s ridership on one portion of the existing rail line:
As Yogi Berra once observed, sometimes you can see a lot just by looking. Neighborhoods can change character in a just a year.
Today I’m revisiting the outer Texas Medical Center area with a stroll down Fannin past Reliant Stadium along the light rail line.
It’s half-past five on a Tuesday afternoon. The walk from South Braeswood to the end of the line is about a mile, give or take. . . .
A Metro train passes, whistle wailing. The trains regularly come and go in opposite directions every few minutes.
I’m focused on heart rate and rock, not paying much attention to the rhythm of the rails. Then I happen to look over. Staring back is a single solitary face on an entire train.
The cell phone says a quarter to six. Just one rider? During rush hour? It doesn’t make sense.
The Wall Street Journal’s ($) Ann Davis reports from Houston on the funny money flowing into oil and gas investment opportunities, even those that do not own any oil and gas yet:
Barry Kostiner traded electricity and natural gas for eight years on Wall Street. Last fall, he reinvented himself — as a Texas oilman.
With no assets beyond plans to buy oil and gas fields, he set up shop as Platinum Energy Resources Inc. He had never worked in the oil industry or managed a company. Yet he carried out an initial public offering of stock and within two months persuaded several New York hedge funds to buy a large chunk of the shares, raising $115 million in all. . .
Energy-related endeavors of all kinds are a magnet for cash these days, thanks to the gravity-defying rise of oil prices and the recent boom in investment pools that cater to deep-pocketed institutions and the wealthy. Some energy investments, to be sure, are relatively low-risk and involve industry veterans. But private-equity firms, hedge funds and other professional speculators are also pouring billions into unconventional loans, management teams with limited track records and IPOs on lightly regulated stock markets.[. . .]
The fevered pitch reminds some of the Silicon Valley boom a few years back. “Energy’s about as hot right now as tech was in 2000,” says Ben Dell, an energy analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. [. . .]