For Investor's Only: Seeking Alpha 10 Bakken Shale Stocks, 2010 Guide

I missed this article which was posted at Seeking Alpha back in August, 2010.  Better late, than never.

This is a nice list of ten Bakken shale stocks. I can't disagree with any of Hunter Austin's recommendations. He goes from big cap to speculative.

I don't know if his list is ordered in any way, but he lists Oasis as number one, then QEP, KOG, VYOG, WLL, EOG, XOM, CLR, MRO, COP, and AXAS.

I find it interesting that he includes XOM. XOM's position in Bakken is due to its purchase of XTO. It's hard to believe that the Bakken is even more than a single pixel on XOM's radar scope. It will be interesting to watch.

I don't have time to show all the calculations, but it might be fun to see where you would be if you had put together a market basket of Bakken stocks based on this list.

The story was published on August 6, 2010. Suppose you decided to study the list, make the decision to invest in those stocks, and raise the money. So, maybe about August 16th you would have gotten around to "pulling the trigger."  Had you placed $1,000 in each of those ten stocks on August 16, 2010,  for a total investment of $10,000, your portfolio would be worth $11,182 at the close of the market, Friday, October 29, 2010.  (These calculations were based on Yahoo!Financial interactive tables based on the closing price on those two dates.)

Almost all of the companies went up 10% in that period (about $100). KOG was an outlier, having gone up exactly $400 (on that initial $1,000 investment). OAS was second best with a $224 gain. VYOG was the only company to have gone down in share price, valued at $860 at the end of the period. EOG was up only $17.  Everyone else, about a $100 gain.