Yes, CHK has a very high debt-to-cap ratio which has increased from 47% at the end of last year to now 57% as of Q2. The latest sale of the Woodford Property to BP for $1.8 Billion ( closed today ) and should help them lower their ratio. Meanwhile, DVN just used proceeds from the sale of their African properties ( about $2.1 Billion ) to pay down some of their debt. As a result, they are at the lowest net debt/cap ratio in a decade . . . 11%. DVN is the top acreage holder in the Haynesville shale and has drilled 14 vertical wells so far, with the first horizontal well expected this quarter. ECA and CHK are the next two largest acreage holders in Haynesville, purported to be the 4th largest nat-gas field in the World!
Getting extremely bulled up in Natural today, we kissed 2 major moving avg's this morning on the WEEKLY continuation- 100 $8.074, 200 $8.094. Couple this with 4 global models now predicting a hurricane in the gulf late next week on top of a market that has shed 42% of price in 6 weeks without a correction and KA-BOOM!!! If you don't trade futures, I would suggest ATM calls on UNG.
Pretty volatile day today, eh Papa? Looks like no one here on ET even cares about the Drillers . . . http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/index.shtml Probably a GREAT sign!
I have been buying up Chk, Xto, Apa, Dvn, Rdc, Apc. I hedge them short a few names that are overvalued like Rrc or Esv, they are my bread and butter for intraday scalping. I also have been watching the hurricane forecasts closely, also looking for colder weather to drive prices up, see what the inventory numbers look like tomorrow, last few have been pretty bearish, also looking at some of the refiners as the crack spreads come in.
Time to retrace the past several days gains with NG getting clobbered to the tune of 5% and new lows for the move.
Could very well be completing 5 waves down in Crude Oil off of the contract highs. Nat-Gas traded 7.96 intra-day but just came back into green territory at 8.17 Time to do some "nibbling" in the drilling sector. ie.) DVN just finished a 4 handle "measured-move" down off of $99.04 at 92.76 this morning.
did you see that move in APC today?? it ripped off it's lows when nat gas started rallying. Nibbled at some Xto this morning as well as took some profits in that Apc.
Yep . . . And APA went on a bit of a tear as well, up to 107.75 before falling back to 106.00 Incredible trading stocks, but you've got to have the BIGGEST BALLS this side of Chuck Norris!