Oil, Oil Everywhere

And not a drop to drink.

Wow, has oil dropped quickly. I was looking at PTEN, it is not a pretty chart over the last month:

Date	Open	High	Low	Close	Volume	Adj Close*
3-Jan-07	22.87	22.90	21.67	21.95	7,296,500	21.95
29-Dec-06	23.41	23.73	23.13	23.23	2,843,200	23.23
28-Dec-06	23.75	23.86	23.44	23.57	3,065,900	23.57
27-Dec-06	23.18	23.79	23.11	23.77	2,542,600	23.77
26-Dec-06	23.51	23.84	22.97	23.20	2,819,400	23.20
22-Dec-06	23.95	24.02	23.53	23.53	1,779,900	23.53
21-Dec-06	24.21	24.53	23.60	23.87	2,941,300	23.87
20-Dec-06	24.67	24.82	24.12	24.14	2,333,200	24.14
19-Dec-06	24.17	24.99	23.79	24.82	3,331,200	24.82
18-Dec-06	25.55	25.58	24.29	24.37	3,448,500	24.37
15-Dec-06	25.92	25.99	25.38	25.51	4,552,000	25.51
14-Dec-06	25.73	26.50	25.73	26.08	4,461,600	26.08
13-Dec-06	25.75	25.89	25.22	25.30	3,616,100	25.30
12-Dec-06	25.62	26.10	25.30	25.54	2,994,300	25.54
12-Dec-06	$ 0.08 Dividend
11-Dec-06	25.80	26.19	25.62	25.82	3,328,500	25.74
8-Dec-06	26.21	26.64	25.99	26.11	3,639,200	26.03
7-Dec-06	26.53	26.54	25.90	25.90	4,234,300	25.82
6-Dec-06	26.61	26.93	26.06	26.60	5,363,100	26.52
5-Dec-06	27.75	27.94	26.54	26.76	4,908,900	26.68
4-Dec-06	27.98	27.98	27.31	27.67	2,906,800	27.58
1-Dec-06	27.60	28.21	27.02	28.14	4,433,100	28.05

So from over $28 to under $22 in slightly more than a month. If I had any spare funds for my side car, I'd be looking hard at PTEN.

I had to laugh at MTEX today (Mannatech Expresses Optimism and Announces New US Patent). Take a look at this quote from the press release:

In remarks made at the Mannatech Presidential Associate Planning Summit, Mannatech's CEO and Chairman Sam Caster yesterday expressed optimism concerning the business trend of its recently completed fourth quarter of 2006. Although no specific results were cited for the period, Mr. Caster noted that the 2006 fourth quarter preliminary sales trends showed an uptick and that its annual results for 2006 are expected to show a "decent year in 2006."

Makes you scratch your head! "nothing specific", "decent year"... hard to get excited about comments like that. If you ran a company, would you issue a press release saying these non-commital statements? I understand, you can't make up your mind.

I see where RAIL announced a new CFO who will become CEO pretty soon (FreightCar America names new CEO). Can't say I know anything about this guy, but Terex is a well-run company in my opinion.

EZEN has been on a tear in the new year, up about 10% so far. With the shares I bought at $1.39 for my sidecar, I am now in the black on EZEN despite its huge tumble last year.

Not much else new, off to a decent start in 2007. Long way to go.