value and opportunity

Disclaimer: This is not investment advice. Never trust any anonymous dude on the internet. PLEASE DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH !!! 

Panic Update:

As to be expected, my last “panic post” marked more or less the (short term) peak in Natural Gas and Electricity prices in Europe. Since then, prices have gone down more than -50% from the peak. Nevertheless, prices are far from normal and sustainable. Governments have already proposed action in the form of intercepting the markets.

In the recent days, I have seen more and more “models” that seem to tell us that Germany/Europe is fine for this Winter and after that everything will be smooth sailing (LNG terminals, French deliveries etc.), despite the Russian completely halting NS1 deliveries last week and not reinstating them based on phony reasons.

I actually started to build a model myself but then decided to focus on the big picture instead. As I argued on Twitter, the one big variable that will determine how Europe is doing will be the temperature.

However, independent how this winter will be, Natural Gas will be a scarce resource in Europe for some years to come. Even in the (low probability) case that there will be a quick end of the Ukraine conflict, Europe will not and cannot go back into the Russian dependency. On the other hand, switching to LNG at acceptable prices will take a few years until enough liquification, gasification and transportation capacity is available.

This recent article in the FT quotes the boss of Shell:

“It may well be that we have a number of winters where we have to somehow find solutions through efficiency savings, through rationing and a very, very quick buildout of alternatives,” he said. “That this is going to be somehow easy, or over, I think is a fantasy that we should put aside.”

Another German language article quotes several Oil and Gas executives that it takes at least 3-4 years until Russian Gas can be fully replaced.

So my base case for the coming 3-5 years will be:  There is not enough Natural Gas (ex Russia) available in Europe and Gas and electricity will remain very expensive in Europe.

The only real option: Decrease Demand

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Background:

Play Magnus is a stock some of my readers my remember. I initially invested (speculated) in October 2020 at 16,5 NOK per share, but sold quickly after my initial timing was really bad with a loss of around -20%.

I then bought again in November 2020 at a higher price (~17 NOKs) . I then managed to sell around 1/3 of the position close to the high at 38 NOKs per share. This year, i sold the remainder of the position shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine to manage portfolio volatility. Overall, I made 0,5% on the whole trade (pre taxes, pre costs) which clearly shows that my trading skills are not very good.

I still followed the stock as I liked the business, the management team and thought that at some point in time this could be interesting. Actually I just talked this Monday with a friend that at prices below 10 NOK, the stock looks interesting.

The stock chart shows how volatile the ride from Play Magnus was since its IPO:

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