Ospraie Management has apparently told investors that its investment in XTO Energy contributed to its losses over the last few months (see Bloomberg article). While this is not surprising given that energy stocks have been down and have contributed to losses in numerous hedge funds, the XTO position of $128 million in shares was the largest position for the Ospraie fund, and does once again highlight the problems with having a fund be too concentrated in just a few positions. Such a concentration can cause the types of losses Ospraie incurred, including a 26.7 percent loss in just one month (see previous article and previous post).

Fund manager Dwight Anderson was quoted as once saying that: "The fact that I had a horrible quarter is a statistical probability, and we had always told people there is that possibility.'' Yes, and when you are overweight a volatile stock in a volatile industry, you can expect that statistics will line up less and less on your side. In fact, this is a common problem in a portfolio when a certain position does well. Before long a hot stock can become a major portfolio position, and one that may now be larger than your portfolio guidelines allow. Nonetheless, even though you are now overweight the position beyond allowable levels, and even though VaR measures are screaming at you, it is hard to scale back the a security that is outperforming and in a sector that is on a roll. That is until of course everything changes, and the industry or sector corrects dramatically, as we have seen with energy stocks.

Sure, these are unusual moves, but they are also precisely the types of moves you should be trying to protect yourself against. Anderson went on to say in an interview last year that: "We do everything that we can to manage the risk, and I think we're better at it today than we were a year ago.'' Apparently, everything was not enough, and everything did not include consistently updating VaR measures, or simple looking at portfolio weights. Scaling back risk is a difficult, but necessary part of any fund management, even if it involves giving up a little return in order to play another day.

As a result of high prices, new reserve finds, and better technology, natural gas production in the US is up 8% this year, with growth expected to continue as new wells come on-line in Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana, and new reserves are scheduled to be taped in Appalachia and Canada (see WSJ article). Unfortunately for the natural gas companies, demand is not growing as fast, up only 5.5% - the Pickens Plan notwithstanding. US LGN import have already been down given the higher prices paid in Asia and Europe which have caused shipments to be diverted (see previous post). As long as production in the US stays high, with reduced avenues for exports and steady demand at home, prices will be pressured to fall. Then again, we may be getting near a tipping point as prices approach $8 per million BTU, a point that analysts believe producers will cut production, with the tighter supply driving prices back up in a form of a self-correcting mechanism.

Even with short-term corrections, longer-term price pressure will most likely come from new discoveries of shale, the dense rock formations that have been known to hold natural gas, but for which production had been impractical due to the rock not being porous enough for gas flow. However, technology came to the rescue in the form of using pressurized water to crack the shale and release the gas. The technique is working in the Barnett Shale in Texas and can be used in the Haynesville Shale in Louisiana and Texas, as well as the Marcellus Shale in Appalachia. Altogether, US shale could hold as much as 840 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Astonishingly, this estimate is equivalent to 140 billion barrels of oil, or more than half the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia. While none of this natural gas will be coming on-line overnight, it certainly seems promising for helping supply some of the clean energy needs of the US going forward. Unfortunately, unless the natural gas companies, T. Boone Pickens, and others can convince Congress of this benefit, it may be a while before demand catches up to production. As a result, Chesapeake Energy (CHK), XTO Energy (XTO), and EOG Resouces (EOG) may have to wait for real price appreciation, or to see the benefits of the massive investments each has been making to tap into the shale reserves.