Give me your best (oil)

[ahnuld]

Im building my portfolio from scratch investing in individual companies and not EFT funds. I know, but I do have a bit of experience managing my own money and have some time to do research. So right now im trying to pick an oil and gaz company, but I guess a utilities company will do too. Ive done a bit of work on the big guys (BP seems slightly cheaper than some) and some randoms like the china petroleum corp (SNP, kinda sketchy information, chinese bubble scares me), but id like to get your guys utlities investments or picks as a jump-off point.

[calmasahinducow]

Buy PetroChina and laugh all the way to the bank when the dollar collapses against the yuan.

[MrBlue]

In pretty much every country in south america:

Me: Quiero pagar en Dollars.
Them: No problema.

Me: Quiero pagar en Yuan.
Them: QUE?!?!?!


The dollar isn't going anywhere anytime soon. It might one day but I'd be surprise to see it happen within my life time.

[disjunction]

I own some DVN

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=DVN

On oil and gas, I'm not excited about owning companies that get oil from other countries. I worry too much about those countries finding a way to kick us out. Scenarios where the price of oil goes up (good for oil stocks) are often similar to scenarios where other countries shut us out (bad for oil stocks).

[dazraf69]

VLO, HAL, BJS (VLO will pull back a little in a month most likely but gain in summer)

[soliq]

BTE + divedends

[BeL0wMe]

CNQ

[mikeczyz]

somewhat related to the op, does anyone have an opinion of petrobras and lukoil?

I'm looking in to foreign oil for a class project.

[Tupacia]

Why are you looking at an oil and gas company? If you're thinking along the lines of "I need an oil and gas company to be diversified," I think you're making a mistake. If you are trying to play a sectoral trend, figure out which companies will benefit most from what you have identified. Note that you should have a pretty thorough understanding of the oil business before you invest (as you should with any industry) because simply saying "oil is going to go up" is insufficient. If you think that is the case, buy crude contracts. Regardless of which company you end up choosing, your returns are likely to be highly correlated to the price of oil. So either hedge that risk or have a good grasp of the fundamentals of the oil market.

[cbloom]

BP used to look pretty sweet until they discovered massive pipeline problems.