What's your feeling on oil and gas royalty trusts. They give you commodity exposure and income which seems like the best of both worlds.
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arbaway |
royalty trusts |
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What's your feeling on oil and gas royalty trusts. They give you commodity exposure and income which seems like the best of both worlds.
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Less Antman |
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There are many companies whose holdings of oil and gas might make them seem like the "best of both worlds", but I have two major concerns:
(1) The primary reason to include commodity futures in a portfolio is the negative correlation it has had over multi-year periods in the past (and, if we're lucky, the future). Many studies have made clear that holding commodity-based operating companies is NOT a reasonable substitute, and that the performance of these companies has had a positive correlation with stocks in general, because it is affected by both changes in the price of the commodity and all of the various factors affecting businesses, such as changes in their various costs of operations and changes in demand that are a direct result of the price change in the commodity. (2) Broad commodity futures indexes include energy, agricultural, and metal futures, and a thoroughly diversified commodity component would include all these categories. I'd be surprised if oil and gas royalty trusts didn't provide SOME diversification benefit relative to stocks, but I've seen no long-term studies offering a reason to use them instead of or in addition to broad commodity futures, and once specific company risk is added to the mix, I'm inclined to wait for some serious research that offers evidence of a unique diversification benefit. If you choose to use them anyway, limit your exposure so that you won't be badly hurt by either the failure of the company or adverse tax law changes (a MAJOR risk right now with these trusts with respect to both depletion allowances and pass-through tax laws). |
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arbaway |
royalty trusts | ||
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Then could you use them as part of your equity allocation?
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Less Antman |
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Sure, as part of a diversified portfolio.
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