Bakken investors: a rare post.

I normally don't do this, but for investors, here's one way of playing the Bakken.

Check out the Whiting USA Trust 1 (WHX). Its distribution is currently 15% on an annual basis, and had you bought shares in the trust just a few months ago, you would have doubled your money by now, in addition to collecting the distribution. Check out the Yahoo!Financial site for WHX and look at the interactive chart for the past year.

If you buy tomorrow (February 16, 2010) you might be able to collect this quarter's distribution; the distribution will go to those holders of the trust as of February 19, 2010. I don't know how many days it takes to record the transaction so I don't know if you buy tomorrow you will be recorded a record holder three days later. It will be close. The discussion groups will help you out if you are interested.

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UPDATES

Update, October 13, 2010: Update on when the trust will terminate. In case the link breaks, the trust will end somewhere between 2014 and 2017, and will probably pay out $10 - $11 per year until then.

Update, August 8, 2010: I could be wrong on this, but I believe this Whiting Trust was "opened" in 2007 and will "close" when 9 million barrels of oil have been pumped, now expected to be sometime in 2015.