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Thursday, June 10, 2010

BP oil spill: Don't sell shares in a panic

BP oil spill - cleaning up pelicans

A dying seagull off the Gulf of Mexico

BP oil spill, dead pelicans, fat Floridans unable to swim. Yes it's awful and should have been cleaned up by now.

The ecological price that the planet is paying for the price of BP being unprepared is enormous. I'm not decrying that, before some left-wing eco-warriors start hunting me down and throwing organic fava beans at me.

I know that, together with that Icelandic volcano still chunking out ash, we're having a grand old time of cleaning up the water and the atmosphere and it looks like we're fighting a losing battle - the more we clean up the Gulf Oil spill and the ash cloud, the fact remains that China and India are blowing out carbon and polluting the Yellow River until it runs green with toxic waste.


Gulf of Mexico seen from the air


But I'm not here to preach a green message - go to The Ecologist for that. This is mostly a financial blog. So pay heed: despite worries of a slide in the FTSE on the back of uncertainty over BP, there is no need to panic.

Don't be a nancy and start fire-selling your shares in petroleum. Take out some options or covered warrants in BP to provide yourself a cushion on the downside, and ride out the storm. Remember - long-term prospects for oil:

Lack of supply (even less, now) = more demand.
More demand = higher share prices.

4 comments:

Gorilla Bananas said...

You're right, Mermaid, but the biggest Nancy Boys are hording their savings in cash earning paltry interest rates. Have you checked the dividend yields available on UK stocks such as Vodafone and Aviva?

Electro-Kevin said...

It all depends on whether or not you can afford to hold on to them. If you won't be getting dividends ...

Anonymous said...

I see that, as at December 2009, 40% of BP was in UK hands and 39% was in American hands.

Clearly Obama thinks that American shareholders aren't likely to vote for him in the future.

Mermaid of Moorgate said...

I agree with everything that Leanne and Huntb said, unless it's rude, in which case, I wholly disagree.