Investing in energy

[Melisande]

As oil prices were so low this year, I decided to invest all of my 2016 Roth IRA contribution in Vanguard's energy fund, VENGX. I am glad I did. If I had been smart, I would have done this back in February when oil was at $25, but instead I bought into the fund at the end of March when it was in the high 30's. Still, in about 5 weeks, this fund has gone up 11% and I have made an (unrealized) gain of $678.

A few questions:

Has anyone else here invested in energy this year?

How long are you going to stay in before you sell and reinvest in some loss volatile fund?

This is the first time I've done considerable market research and invested my Roth IRA $$ in something more specific than broad-based high risk or low risk funds. Has anyone else on here done really well in the past by investing in more targeted funds or even individual stocks? If so, how much and what kind of research did you do before you made this decision?

Just curious.

[Seppia]

I assume you mean VGENX?
I bought it on the way down and had it at an average of around $40, then I had to move back to Europe, so I was obliged to liquidate the fund end of January, and took a minor loss.
Good thing is I really believed energy was undervalued so with the proceeds I bought some more Royal Dutch (one of the very few individual stocks I own), and have been happy with the results.

I have owned RDS.A since 2008 and as with almost the entirety* of my investments I never plan to sell any.

I did not do any specific research on energy stocks prior to buying VGENX, all I needed to know was "HISTORIC LOWS!!!" for an entire sector that's not going to disappear overnight.


*only stock I sold was Amazon that I bought at $320 on average and sold for $580 on average just a little more than a year later.

[Melisande]

Thanks. Yes, I did mean VGENX.

[ecomic]

just a quick thought. Oil price is recovering after 18 months of consecutive drops. Energy coming from fossil fuels might get expensive in the next months. I would look around renewable energies.

[WranglerBowman]

Backdoored some $ into a RothIRA and split it 50/50 (VGENX/VGHCX) on 2/2/1016.  Currently up 24.26% on the VGENX!  I just rolled some more into it yesterday and plan to consistently for the next year or so since the energy sector as a hole is pretty darn cheap right now.

[signhere]

yup, same. Back in January dumped the full $5500 into VGENX for my IRA. Up to ~7k already!

[brotatochip]

Bought the etf VDE in February...what a sale!  I'm up 21% already

[mrpercentage]

As oil prices were so low this year, I decided to invest all of my 2016 Roth IRA contribution in Vanguard's energy fund, VENGX. I am glad I did. If I had been smart, I would have done this back in February when oil was at $25, but instead I bought into the fund at the end of March when it was in the high 30's. Still, in about 5 weeks, this fund has gone up 11% and I have made an (unrealized) gain of $678.

A few questions:

Has anyone else here invested in energy this year?

How long are you going to stay in before you sell and reinvest in some loss volatile fund?

This is the first time I've done considerable market research and invested my Roth IRA $$ in something more specific than broad-based high risk or low risk funds. Has anyone else on here done really well in the past by investing in more targeted funds or even individual stocks? If so, how much and what kind of research did you do before you made this decision?

Just curious.

Yes I have invested in energy.

I don't plan on selling my stuff.

I invested in Exxon, Kinder Morgan, and Conoco through direct stock purchases.

Exxon's average price was $77.35 with a yield on cost of 3.88% currently-- I thinks its $88 now
Conoco was a rough ride and I stopped investing shortly after the dividend cut-- average price of $44.94 with a yoc of 2.23%-- its $47.67 now
Kinder Morgan was one lump sum at $15.55 and yoc is 3.24% its now $17.66
and more loosely to energy Pinnacle West Capital (Arizona Electric Utilities) average cost $66.45 and a yoc of 3.76% its $71.85 now

Only Kinder was market timed. The rest were built into. I invested in Exxon biweekly for a while and Conoco all over the place. Pinnacle I invested whenever I felt like it-- truly

I really didn't do any James Bond investigation. I knew energy was down big. I knew its a silly thing to bet against. I threw a lot at it. It paid off for now but it was a rough ride and I suspect it will continue to be a rough ride. Even my utility is in danger of a serious hit if the market really rallies hard.

In all cases I don't care. My direct stocks in total have a 4.35% yield. I knew Conoco had high odds of a cut but took the bet for the long. I knew Kinder was going to cut it almost for sure but they cut further than I thought. Im still happy with all my purchases.

Reasearch was Mcgraw Hill S&P reports and a macro view of oil will go up and I can wait a few years.

Oh and the only one that has any fees was Kinder. The rest charge nothing at all to direct stock purchase

[doggyfizzle]

I own Exxon and Southern Company.  I buy stock in each every month, and have through the commodities price downturn.  I never lost any sleep because both companies are "best of breed" in their industry and operate with a multi-decade timeset and are able to pay dividends to shareholders from earnings based on a return ON capital rather than simply returning capital.

[alsoknownasDean]

I bought into an oil ETF mid last year (oops), and bought some more in late January.

Currently I'm still about $700 in the hole on it (I bought about $5300 worth). It was $1500 a while ago though :)

I have considered buying more, but at the moment I'm just sitting tight. I'll probably sell it around midyear if it's above breakeven.

Although if I'd bought in mid Feb I'd be doing pretty well out of it :)