Yahoo!Finance graph only goes back to 1985, but the line was fairly flat and unchanging for the previous decades also. The challenge: coming up with an explanation for the dramatic "change" -- marked by the red line, from 1993 to 2001:
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Random Update On WTI Futures
This past week, very quietly, it appears WTI hit bottom and turned. It's up almost another dollar today, coming off its lows of $93 earlier this week to solidly above $95 at the moment. Operators who had contracts for $100 oil this past week did very, very well.
Whiting surges. EPD continues its move. CLR is up over 1%. The EPD, CLR stories are interesting. I'm not sure what to make of WLL. Are KOG investors moving to WLL? KOG continues to report great wells.
The Fed quantitative easing and zero interest rates and baby boomers reaching top earning levels - needing to invest.
ReplyDeleteThat explains things now, but I don't recall quantitative easing and zero interest rate during the period of time where I put the "red line": 1993 - 2001.
DeleteTechnological revolution. Microsoft, Apple, fax machines, cell phones we suddenly became much much more productive. In 88 I was responsible for building 15 division boxes on the Shaw Baldwin Lateral west of Vale SD. That represented 30 concrete placements to complete the project. For each placement I would drive to Vale, call the batch plant from a pay phone telling them we were anticipating being ready around a certain time and would redi mix trucks be available around then. I would drive back to the job site, work with the crew until I know we would be 100% formed and inspected by the time concrete arrived I drove back to Vale and ordered the concrete. 60 trips, each one 1/2 hour long, my crew was without guidance. Today I could stand there, direct people working and set up, then order concrete using my cell phone. So and so forth. There is story after story I could tell you how technology has made my job much much easier. Recently Central High School Renovations and additions was a project I was Project Manger on. $23 million cost using design team, suppliers, sub contractors many from out of state. All the submittals, RFIs, RFPs, etc was handled electronically through a service called Submittal Exchange. PDF documents posted to a server that would generate email notices to a whole range of various interested individuals that could review what ever information made available in a matter of seconds. In the old days (80s) I would type countless letters, make countless photo copies, then mail to various locations then wait for days to hopefully get a response. Some times when you would call and ask what was going on you would find out that the correspondence was noted in the mail room but didn't make it to the reviewers desk. So you would make new copies and mail again. So on So on etc!!!
ReplyDeleteExcellent comment. I had completely forgotten about that. I talked about the tech revolution with my dad, others, along the very same line. In the old days, a salesman would have to physically come back to NYC or Chicago or wherever to pitch a project; back about that time things did take off, technologically -- sales and projects were moving much more quickly; money was moving through the economy much more quickly. I had completely forgotten about that. The efficiencies brought on by those technologically advances explains much of that jump one sees in the stock market.
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