PWE - Penn West Petroleum

[Liberty]

21 hours ago, SharperDingaan said:

If this isn’t you, don’t try to clone us.
There are already way too many bitter waitresses in the world.

SD

No worries, I won't try to clone you.

[Spekulatius]

There has to be an easier way to make money in this market, than to trade a stock that loses 98% of it's value like a devil.

[Pelagic]

45 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

There has to be an easier way to make money in this market, than to trade a stock that loses 98% of it's value like a devil.

There's another thread right below this one on CLF, ironically started by Liberty, another company that at one point lost ~98% of its value, looks like it lost close to that much twice. And yet an investment at its 2016 lows with a new strong willed CEO produced quite the return if held to today.

Likewise, buying AMZN at its lows in 2001 after a ~90% drop worked out quite well.

GME lost ~95% from its 2013 highs to its pandemic lows and we all know how that's worked out.

No one is forcing anyone to buy OBE, or any other company, but its a bit shortsighted for a bunch of value investors to toss out stocks from consideration simply because of what their share price has done in the past.   

 

[Gregmal]

^^^Exactly. So its kinda rich to pick on people who post what they buy and sell, and additionally, generously share their insight/thought process/outlook. Whether its right or wrong or useful or not; this is kind of irrelevant and if not of value to folks, they are free to ignore it. Theres nothing wrong with calling bullshit...but...when the one calling bs, almost exclusively posts links and little else, to the same CNBC type headline articles that we all have access to, its hard to argue this provides value to anyone, period. Especially when there is often little other color and no mention of ones own positioning....Engagement, even if its wrong, can provide market insight. The later, provides nothing. 

I mean does anyone really give a shit want SD real returns are? Its an anonymous message board...if you blindly follow anyone based on what they claim(whether they are right or wrong) you are a fool. 

[KCLarkin]

2 hours ago, Gregmal said:

...but...when the one calling bs, almost exclusively posts links and little else, to the same CNBC type headline articles that we all have access to, its hard to argue this provides value to anyone, period. Especially when there is often little other color and no mention of ones own positioning....

This is a limp attack. I see, for example, that he both started and is the most active poster on the CSU.to thread -- 26% CAGR since he posted. Same with Heico -- 25% CAGR.

Looking for value in a stock down 98% is a noble pursuit. It is also devilishly difficult. Good luck all.

[Liberty]

4 hours ago, Pelagic said:

There's another thread right below this one on CLF, ironically started by Liberty, another company that at one point lost ~98% of its value, looks like it lost close to that much twice. And yet an investment at its 2016 lows with a new strong willed CEO produced quite the return if held to today.

Likewise, buying AMZN at its lows in 2001 after a ~90% drop worked out quite well.

GME lost ~95% from its 2013 highs to its pandemic lows and we all know how that's worked out.

No one is forcing anyone to buy OBE, or any other company, but its a bit shortsighted for a bunch of value investors to toss out stocks from consideration simply because of what their share price has done in the past.   

 

Yeah, I never owned CLF, and it was quite a waste of time to ever look at it. If you look at the dates, you'll notice that this was A DECADE AGO and that I've kind of evolved as an investor since.

I've made plenty of mistakes, many documented here. The point is not to never make mistakes, or pretend that you don't. It's to recognize when you do, to learn from them, as well as other people's mistakes, and to try to stop making them.

[Liberty]

3 hours ago, Gregmal said:

^^^Exactly. So its kinda rich to pick on people who post what they buy and sell, and additionally, generously share their insight/thought process/outlook. Whether its right or wrong or useful or not; this is kind of irrelevant and if not of value to folks, they are free to ignore it. Theres nothing wrong with calling bullshit...but...when the one calling bs, almost exclusively posts links and little else, to the same CNBC type headline articles that we all have access to, its hard to argue this provides value to anyone, period. Especially when there is often little other color and no mention of ones own positioning....Engagement, even if its wrong, can provide market insight. The later, provides nothing. 

I mean does anyone really give a shit want SD real returns are? Its an anonymous message board...if you blindly follow anyone based on what they claim(whether they are right or wrong) you are a fool. 

We can't all provide as much value as you do, Greg...

You'll notice that posting news items in threads is a good way to revive discussion in them and provides value for those who may have missed these things because various people have various amounts of time to invest in following companies. Plenty of dead threads have been kept alive that way.

[Liberty]

45 minutes ago, KCLarkin said:

This is a limp attack. I see, for example, that he both started and is the most active poster on the CSU.to thread -- 26% CAGR since he posted. Same with Heico -- 25% CAGR.

Looking for value in a stock down 98% is a noble pursuit. It is also devilishly difficult. Good luck all.

It's a weird metric anyway. The issue isn't "starting threads", it's riding stocks down over years while claiming all along that "now it's about to be different" over and over again, and to claim that through amazing trading you actually made money on it. If I had been posting in the CLF thread for 10 years trying to convince people that it was a buy all along, that'd be a different situation.

You know what they call a stock down 90%? A stock that was down 80%, and then that fell another 50%... I mean, against this kind of headwind, unless you are short, you aren't making money. 

[Gregmal]

All Im saying(sans KCLarkin once again missing 95% of the gist of not just my post but the one above it cuz...."he started a thread in 2015 and it went up!")...whats the need for continually going after other people for posting their 2c? Especially when they havent done anything to you individually? Same exact thing was done repeatedly to linealdin in the Altius thread. Guy was hands down the most informative poster on the company and repeatedly badgered about the same type of crap. Its one thing to provide pushback, its another to seemingly put more effort into going after other contributing members than you do your own investment ideas....If you can take the time to do one, I wouldnt think it that hard to do more than post twitter links and spam your own blog on the other?....

Not sure why this is so controversial. I mean you even snidely remarked about "I prefer my multi bagger returns"...to which I even threw you a softball in which you could have let us know where you are looking for your multi bagger returns, to which you predictably sidestepped the question about talked about your prior investments and not talking in the wrong thread(huh? Start another one then?)... and then proceed to again pointlessly go after SD with "dont worry I won't try to clone you"... I dont think the board needs Liberty to see that PWE or whatever its current entity is has been a total piece of shit. 

 

[KCLarkin]

I got your gist. And I probably even agree with it. So instead of attacking Liberty for posting links that many of us find valuable, go post on your own ideas? 

[SharperDingaan]

The fact is, cyberbullying is a reality, it is long running - and it has long existed on this thread.

More than a few folks have been run off this board because of it. We don't need the BS, and have deliberately refrained from ongoing posting in this thread, because of it. As has long been understood, bad behaviour drives out the good.

We don't give a sh1t what bullies think; we simply use the opportunity to trade against them. They are not worth the oxygen, and we have better things to do. The other person has issues, that are just not our problem.

We could easily just leave, and post elsewhere - we don't, because then the bullies win. 

Different strokes

SD

 

 

 

   

[Spekulatius]

3 hours ago, SharperDingaan said:

The fact is, cyberbullying is a reality, it is long running - and it has long existed on this thread.

More than a few folks have been run off this board because of it. We don't need the BS, and have deliberately refrained from ongoing posting in this thread, because of it. As has long been understood, bad behaviour drives out the good.

We don't give a sh1t what bullies think; we simply use the opportunity to trade against them. They are not worth the oxygen, and we have better things to do. The other person has issues, that are just not our problem.

We could easily just leave, and post elsewhere - we don't, because then the bullies win. 

Different strokes

SD

I don’t think that anything they has been said here can be called out as “cyberbullying”. I like to read both SD and Liberty’s posts. Different approaches for different people. Whatever works.

Edited April 1, 2021 by Spekulatius

[Gregmal]

Theres different levels of acceptability IMO depending upon what the content or purpose is. It was well known that in the politics section it was kind of anything goes and feelings were not to be spared. There often seemed to be quite a few sensitive souls who used every available instance to get riled up and complain. But generally if you went there you knew what you were getting into and those that didnt want a part of it avoided the area. With investing content its different. Theres a highly diverse group of participants here who frequent this place and even just in general, putting your thoughts out there is probably intimidating for some. Theres people here ranging from college kids to hedge fund managers to NEOs at public companies. Probably, outside of laziness, why theres some 3000 members and maybe 5 dozen people who actually contribute. 

 Even if its not intimidating, I dont see many hitting up an investment thread with the purpose of just wasting time. If someone posts something they are probably doing it for a reason and it is to be assumed that its a constructive one. Its neat seeing the different sides of the story and varying market participants. There's plenty of threads where there is good back and forth...both sides with a clear purpose. Sometimes pride gets involved, but the core of the issue always seems to be driven by the investment. The Seritage/SRG or Peloton/PTON threads are a good example of this. I am not quite sure I see what purpose personally attacking or belittling someone has on an investment thread(again, politics its fair game). Theres indisputably zero value to comments like "I won't try to clone you" or "I prefer my returns without the drop first". And its even more perplexing when there was zero done to provoke the individual making the attacks other than someone putting their timestamped thoughts and actions into the mix.

I mean for all the bitching and complaining about "dragging down the conversation" and "quality of content" from some folks, largely because they couldn't handle the politics section which was cordoned off and came with a warning, you'd think there'd be zero tolerance for stuff like this. Maybe having a political discussion in a section labelled politics turns people away, although I think thats pretty pitiful, but crapping on people who are trying to discuss an investment, in a totally nonconstructive way; I guarantee you has a significantly greater negative effect....or maybe a lotta folks just have double standards...I dont know. 

[Liberty]

On 3/31/2021 at 3:51 PM, Gregmal said:

All Im saying(sans KCLarkin once again missing 95% of the gist of not just my post but the one above it cuz...."he started a thread in 2015 and it went up!")...whats the need for continually going after other people for posting their 2c? Especially when they havent done anything to you individually? Same exact thing was done repeatedly to linealdin in the Altius thread. Guy was hands down the most informative poster on the company and repeatedly badgered about the same type of crap. Its one thing to provide pushback, its another to seemingly put more effort into going after other contributing members than you do your own investment ideas....If you can take the time to do one, I wouldnt think it that hard to do more than post twitter links and spam your own blog on the other?....

Not sure why this is so controversial. I mean you even snidely remarked about "I prefer my multi bagger returns"...to which I even threw you a softball in which you could have let us know where you are looking for your multi bagger returns, to which you predictably sidestepped the question about talked about your prior investments and not talking in the wrong thread(huh? Start another one then?)... and then proceed to again pointlessly go after SD with "dont worry I won't try to clone you"... I dont think the board needs Liberty to see that PWE or whatever its current entity is has been a total piece of shit. 

 

I didn't go after anyone. I just call some people on their claims when I think that they are wrong, or when facts show that they were wrong. I know you prefer one-sided love fests with no pushback, but I happen to like discussing things.

I did nothing wrong in the Altius thread, except challenge someone's claims. You can attempt to rewrite history however you want if it makes you feel better, but I'm not buying what you're selling.

Edited April 8, 2021 by Liberty

[Gregmal]

Well thank god for you Liberty. Calling people on their claims...what would everyone else do without you being the one to "call people on their claims"...its not like folks can read things on their own!

And yea, you know I prefer one sided love fests. with no pushback! Like the PTON, Tesla, SRG, GM, SPG, MDXG threads, just to name a few. Glad you like discussing things with one sentence third party links. 

And thanks for letting us know you're not buying what I'm selling(whatever you think that is. Its definitely not a blog or newsletter!)... Thats standard for you. In fact I cant recall the last time you let anyone know what you where buying or selling. 

[Liberty]

1 hour ago, Gregmal said:

Well thank god for you Liberty. Calling people on their claims...what would everyone else do without you being the one to "call people on their claims"...its not like folks can read things on their own!

And yea, you know I prefer one sided love fests. with no pushback! Like the PTON, Tesla, SRG, GM, SPG, MDXG threads, just to name a few. Glad you like discussing things with one sentence third party links. 

And thanks for letting us know you're not buying what I'm selling(whatever you think that is. Its definitely not a blog or newsletter!)... Thats standard for you. In fact I cant recall the last time you let anyone know what you where buying or selling. 

Oh no, not sarcasm! 

What have these threads to do with anything? I've been in the Tesla one a little, and there's plenty of diverging opinions there, but don't know about the others because I'm not really interested.

Do I even have to explain that posting news about companies isn't discussing them, but that it's possible to do both; that often discussion starts around news, or that threads being bumped up helps them be revived rather than have them sink 15 pages deep, and that I can discuss whatever I want, not just what you'd like me to, and I don't have to be in every thread just because I'm in some threads?

Do you think you own me or something? Do I need your permission? Not cool, man.

Seems obvious, but guess it has to be said for you.

And yes, I don't post my buy/sell decisions. Why does that matter to you? Do I owe you a view into my portfolio? I mostly don't do it to reduce consistency bias and because once you start, you have to post all of them otherwise it looks like you're being selective and only disclosing your good ones, and I don't want to be on that treadmill of having to remember to post everywhere every time and then have people ask me to justify every decision. Just don't see the upside to that, personally.

Anyway, your accusatory list is really hollow, have a good rest of the week.

[Gregmal]

Man! Those are a pretty pitiful bunch of excuses and arguments against being transparent. No one owes anyone anything, but if everyone took the same attitude there probably wouldnt be a purpose at all for much of the investment related discussion on COBF or elsewhere. I think there's other reasons at work there. Ive noticed a lot of people who sell newsletters or are more concerned with accumulating Twitter followers dont like being pinned down to a date and a price for their recommendations. Its why I asked you(you know, since you referred to multi baggers in your critique of SD) to name a few multi bagger picks you're willing to put your name behind, going forward. I didnt think you'd answer. But maybe thats not the case. Who knows?

And how do you "only disclose the good ones"....its pretty straight forward. On this date you said you bought ABC. Today its at "X" price. You are either up, or you are down and theres not much else to it. And its immortalized for everyone to see. Which is what SharperDingaan did. And everyone can see for themselves and extrapolate what may or may not have occurred. Its just rich seeing someone getting called out for posting their actionable opinion by someone who purposely doesnt. Its about credibility. Thats all. 

Edited April 8, 2021 by Gregmal

[Liberty]

1 hour ago, Gregmal said:

Man! Those are a pretty pitiful bunch of excuses and arguments against being transparent. No one owes anyone anything, but if everyone took the same attitude there probably wouldnt be a purpose at all for much of the investment related discussion on COBF or elsewhere. I think there's other reasons at work there. Ive noticed a lot of people who sell newsletters or are more concerned with accumulating Twitter followers dont like being pinned down to a date and a price for their recommendations. Its why I asked you(you know, since you referred to multi baggers in your critique of SD) to name a few multi bagger picks you're willing to put your name behind, going forward. I didnt think you'd answer. But maybe thats not the case. Who knows?

And how do you "only disclose the good ones"....its pretty straight forward. On this date you said you bought ABC. Today its at "X" price. You are either up, or you are down and theres not much else to it. And its immortalized for everyone to see. Which is what SharperDingaan did. And everyone can see for themselves and extrapolate what may or may not have occurred. Its just rich seeing someone getting called out for posting their actionable opinion by someone who purposely doesnt. Its about credibility. Thats all. 

Dude, you're projecting. Maybe that's how you think, but it's not how I think. 

And yes, it's all about credibility, I agree. My whole point is about credibility. Credibility is especially important in the Penn West thread, go read it from the start, I did.

Besides, are you stalking me or something? I've barely mention my little project on this forum -- it's mostly dad jokes and random thoughts anyway, not some kind of typical subscription financial newsletter (and it's 100% free too, btw, I've only opened up a tip jar in the last month but it has no paywall). Anyway, thanks for mentioning it and giving it attention ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Multi-baggers don't really matter in the end, all that matters is someone's whole portfolio CAGR over time. Some people have lots of churn so they don't get to multi-baggers, but they can still do just as well. Others tend to own things for a very long time and get more multibaggers. The context was that it's hard to make money on a stock down 95%+ over a few years, and then someone accused me of having started threads about things that went down and then multi-baggers were mentioned. 

But I'm not particularly aiming for them or anything, I just tend to hold things a fairly long time (let's see, right now I have 11 stocks that are at least up 100% in my portfolio, out of 21 positions (though the top 3 are about 50% of the capital, so it's not even weight). Based on what I post most about, you can know a lot of what I own. Here's 8 multi-baggers I own, for example: AMZN, V, SPGI, ROP, HEI, CSU, CHTR, MSFT).

I'm not in the business of recommending stocks, if you haven't noticed, so your little bit of reverse psychology is pointless.

You're the one trying to make this a pissing contest (and trying to make up standards that I'm not really seeing you adhere to anyway -- where do you forecasts your future multi-baggers?). I never ask anyone else about their returns or to make predictions or whatever. I just expressed skepticism at claims that someone traded this specific stock so well that they made a bunch of money, and you're pretending to be offended at that because you'll take up any excuse to try to argue with me and generally be unpleasant. 

Disclosing "good ones" is basically after the stock goes up, "ooh, good thing we bought more!". Then it goes down again and we don't hear too much, and then it goes up a bit and we hear again. That's what I meant.

Edited April 8, 2021 by Liberty

[Gregmal]

Well there we go. Good stuff. Nothing personal. Just pushing back a bit because I dont like seeing when people who bother to put in the effort here and are transparent(even if contradictory) get shit on by others. SharperDingaan definitely does this and provides a unique insight on various issues and has been a solid contributor over the years, that myself, and others as they've acknowledged...enjoy reading. 

Perhaps my attempt at pushback lacked context or just came off harsher or more personal than intended. My point was that SD really didnt do anything to you and you singled him out, on an investment you have no ownership or even interest in, for what was IMO no reason, so I can do it to you too. Everyone is capable of contributing in a positive way. Such as your post above this one. Solid all around stuff. All I was trying to say is that there's perhaps more productive ways to go about things.

Anyhow, back to PWE or OBE or whatever it is these days...

[SharperDingaan]

Some people just hold their disclosures to a higher standard. There is no cherry picking 'after the fact', and no abstention because you don't like the requirement; professionals disclose, others ...... not so much. The underlying thesis might have been entirely wrong, but as long as it was disclosed at the time, it is not on the professional. If a reader chose to buy/sell because of the post, the consequence is entirely on the reader.    

A great many other posters on this board, are investment professionals, with the same/similar professional obligations that I have. Insult me, you insult them as well. Your choice as to whether you let it go.

https://www.cfainstitute.org/en/ethics-standards/codes/standards-of-practice-guidance/standards-of-practice-V-A

SD

[Liberty]

15 hours ago, Gregmal said:

Well there we go. Good stuff. Nothing personal. Just pushing back a bit because I dont like seeing when people who bother to put in the effort here and are transparent(even if contradictory) get shit on by others. SharperDingaan definitely does this and provides a unique insight on various issues and has been a solid contributor over the years, that myself, and others as they've acknowledged...enjoy reading. 

Perhaps my attempt at pushback lacked context or just came off harsher or more personal than intended. My point was that SD really didnt do anything to you and you singled him out, on an investment you have no ownership or even interest in, for what was IMO no reason, so I can do it to you too. Everyone is capable of contributing in a positive way. Such as your post above this one. Solid all around stuff. All I was trying to say is that there's perhaps more productive ways to go about things.

Anyhow, back to PWE or OBE or whatever it is these days...

I'll take it.

To me it's a discussion of ideas, not people. I didn't attack SD, I challenged his claims and insinuations that this was somehow a successful investment and was turning out well, because reading this thread, what I've seen over and over again is people say "ok, the past doesn't count anymore, starting now it's going to do great" and then it falls another 50% and they go again "ok, but now they really cleaned up, things have changed, so the past doesn't matter" and it tanks some more.. And at some point you really do hit bottom and it goes back up, but you can't just count that last part. Your money doesn't have a memory, it doesn't care about arbitrary "restarts". Either you make money or you lose money, and I just find it hard to believe that people who have been posting in this thread for years about how they own this company and are buying more actually made money. You see this phenomenon with gamblers a lot, they talk about all the hands they win but not the ones they lost, and never disclose their total returns (or if they do, you probably should take it with a huge grain of salt). That's all I tried to convey. I'd have the same skepticism if someone had been posting for years in the SHLD thread and at the end was celebrating.

Same with the Altius thread. When people have been saying for a decade that it's creating a ton of value and compounding really fast and it's super cheap and it's a coiled spring about to explode any day now, but nothing happens, at some point maybe someone needs to ask if maybe the thesis was wrong and either it wasn't as cheap as claimed, or value isn't being created as fast as claimed, or the goalposts keep getting moved, or something else.

I get that people who are bullish on something will often see anything negative (or even neutral) as an attack on them, but it's certainly not my goal. I don't know you guys & gals, maybe you're great people, maybe not; all I can see is the ideas written about here, so it's what I discuss.

Anyway, have a good weekend, this was enough.

[Joe689]

Let's get back on topic.  Q1 ER this morning

This company has really undergone a massive transformation.  Between the new management team and commodity prices this company is all of sudden more than viable.  Profit going up, production going up, and debt being paid down. 

With the low share count, and Q2 breakup, massive debt will be paid down and force this equity to re-rate quick

They remain mostly unhedged as well.   If WTI continues its climb, (already Q2 $5+ above Q1 averages) , this continues to multi bag

[SharperDingaan]

Nice to see the transformation becoming more visible, and still very early in the process. For now, most would also expect WTI to rise quite a bit over summer, the magnitude of debt repayment to surprise, and a material EV re-rate of the ARO liability. All good.

At current prices we hold enough OBE to buy that NL house outright. Hopefully, a year from now - we will be able to buy the neighbors on either side as well. 

SD

Edited May 7, 2021 by SharperDingaan

[Joe689]

On 5/7/2021 at 3:48 PM, SharperDingaan said:

Nice to see the transformation becoming more visible, and still very early in the process. For now, most would also expect WTI to rise quite a bit over summer, the magnitude of debt repayment to surprise, and a material EV re-rate of the ARO liability. All good.

At current prices we hold enough OBE to buy that NL house outright. Hopefully, a year from now - we will be able to buy the neighbors on either side as well. 

SD

 

Looks like a year from now was too long.  You can buy that house now. Almost doubled again

[SharperDingaan]

Thinking a year from now, they will be part of someone else. At about 3-4x where they are today, net of the take-out premium on an all-stock transaction. Higher still, if elevated WTI prices allow them to dispose of PR. Along with most others, our preferance is for stock over cash.

 

In todays low emmissions environment,  PR's heavy cold flow, positive FCF, and the ability to ramp up production via SAGD, make it an attractive asset. We will all see just how much positive FCF, when OBE reports Q2 earnings.

 

All good.

 

SD