StreetAuthority | Apr 17, 2012 08:33AM ET
People often ask me about my most profitable investment.
It was an investment I made in October 1999. Today, it pays me a yield equivalent to 26%, and it has forever changed how I look for income opportunities.
In 1999, I was speaking at an economic conference in New York. During one of the breaks, I struck up a conversation with two gentlemen who happened to work in the oil and gas business. At the time, I was doing some consulting work for a lawsuit involving a number of large oil companies and had been knee-deep in oil price and production data.
Oil and natural gas prices had been on a steady 20-year decline following the "oil shock" of 1979. By the time 1999 rolled around, analysts had universally soured on the sector. Prices were going lower, they said. In March 1999, The Economist devoted a whole issue to the glut of world oil.
Discussing the future price for oil, The Economist said, "$10 [per barrel] might actually be too optimistic. We may be heading for $5."
In October 1999, I didn't agree with the analysts or the common view that oil prices were going to sink lower. As it turns out, neither did my newfound friends at the conference. Over the course of the meeting, we exchanged information and data to back up our thesis.
Immediately following that conference, I made an investment in Burlington Resources, an oil and gas company that was later bought by ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP).
You can see what has happened to oil prices since then...
by Amy Calistri
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