Energy Prospectus

During Saturday morning's "Live Chat With Dan" I will be taking a quick look at all of the Sweet 16. We start at 10AM CT, so get your passcode from Sabrina (energyprospectus@gmail.com) if you want to join us. This is for EPG Members Only.

The Sweet 16 was flat on the week, which is somewhat surprising considering that oil prices were up. Plus, the threat from Big Bad Obama who is now hell bent on raining cruise missiles on Syria.

3rd quarter production will be up and selling at higher prices. Q3 results should be very strong across the board.

GPOR is now up 415% since being added to the portfolio on 1-1-2010.

This year's leaders are:
GPOR up 54.3%
XEC up 45.1%
BCEI up 42.8%
SM up 30.9%

Sweet 16 are up 20.4% compared to the S&P 500 Index, which is up 14.5%

Sweet 16 is still trading 41.3% below my Fair Value Estimate.

If you do not own SM Energy I urge you to read our profile carefully. This year's growth is coming from the Eagle Ford and Bakken, but it has two new plays that could layer on a lot more production in 2014.

In the next couple weeks I will me taking hard looks at CRZO and GTE, which may need to be promoted back to the Sweet 16.

We'll also be publishing profiles on MHR, SN and HK in September.

By ALAN R. ELLIOTT, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Oil prices in the past week briefly touched their highest level since May 2012 without anyone being precisely sure why.

After piking 5%, oil ended the week up less than 1% at $107.65 a barrel. Natural gas rose 3% to $3.58 per million British thermal units.

Concerns about U.S. military action against Syria, an inconsequential oil producer, were the most widely discussed cause.

Some respected industry analysts cited as the driving force labor protests in Libya that prevented nearly 1 million barrels of oil per day from reaching global markets.

A separate report noted speculators in net long positions held contracts equivalent to about 95% of U.S. crude inventories (down from 100% in the week ended Aug. 2), suggesting industry supply and demand had little to do with the price changes.

That could explain why energy-related stocks had such a mild reaction to the price stab.

Other than Apache (APA), which gained 8% Friday on news that it sold one-third of its Egypt-based operations to China's Sinopec (SHI) for $1.3 billion, gas and oil stocks ended the week narrowly mixed.

Five of the 10 oil- and gas-related industry groups tracked by IBD gained for the week.

Only one of those, U.S. Explorers and Producers, ranked among the top 50 industries.

In that group, New Orleans-based EPL Oil & Gas (EPL) rose 6%. EPL recently bounced off its 50-day line. Meanwhile, Cimarex Energy (XEC) and PDC Energy (PDCE) climbed more than 3% each.

The international explorers and producers group posted the week's biggest advance in the oil patch, primarily due to Apache.

Another strong move came from Calgary, Alberta-based Gran Tierra Energy (GTE), which jumped 6%.