Equinox Partners, L.P. - Q1 2005 Letter
Dear Partners and Friends,
Central Banker Hand Wringing
At a recent Council on Foreign Relations luncheon, the head of the European Central Bank, Jean Claude Trichet, was asked “What about today’s global financial markets worries you most?” “The under pricing of risk” was first on his list of concerns.
It strikes us as odd that those charged with regulating the financial system fret while those who are being regulated remain so remarkably blasé. From our perspective, the excesses, the heroic global financial imbalances, are obvious, and the regulators’ concern is warranted. Take for instance, the recent explosive growth of interest-only mortgages. This is not a new product. What is new is its popularity. In the past, homebuyers felt that loans without gradual principal repayments were reckless and lenders thought they were risky. As the graph below makes abundantly clear, both borrowers and lenders have recently changed their minds about interest-only mortgages.
Throwing Caution to the Wind: Interest-Only Mortgages
Interest-only mortgages are just one of the many examples in today’s financial markets of under-priced risk. Extreme investor complacency is creating new shorting opportunities. Accordingly, over the past few quarters, Equinox has been adding to our short exposure.
Precious Petroleum
Our Canadian energy stocks are off 15-25% from their peaks in early March. Market pundits blame the decline in energy stocks on the falling spot price of light sweet crude oil. This fixation on the day-to-day movement of spot prices for petroleum is masking an important structural change in the price of oil for future delivery.
In mid-2004 as the spot price rose above $40/bbl., the price of oil for delivery in future months and years lagged behind. This produced what commodity traders call “backwardization,” i.e. spot prices above future prices. More recently, future prices for oil have risen dramatically to the point that future prices are now roughly in line with the spot price (see graph). This rise in the future prices of oil suggests that the market expects higher oil prices are here to stay.
The financial significance of this change should not be underestimated. This new reality, the opportunity to sell oil at close to $50/bbl for delivery during the rest of the decade, means that producers can lock-in high prices for the oil they are now producing as well as for prospective production that will result from new wells which they have yet to drill. Realizing today’s high prices for multiple years of production would result in a net present value for existing oil reserve assets that far exceeds the current stock market price for most oil companies, including those in Equinox’s portfolio. Ironically, oil stock prices have been falling just as their realizable intrinsic values have been rising.
Much of today’s investor skepticism about high oil prices derives from the historically low cost of replacing oil reserves. Economic theory suggests that sustained low reserve replacement costs will stimulate drilling, increase production and drive oil prices lower again. Low reserve replacement costs, however, have not been sustained. In fact, they have been rising rather sharply.
Reserve Replacement Costs in USD Per BOE
In the short term, spot and future oil prices may continue to decline. A further meaningful decline in petroleum prices would certainly reduce the intrinsic value of oil stocks, including ours. That said, the recent substantial increase in future oil prices has not yet been reflected in the price of Equinox’s energy stocks. Accordingly, we believe the energy companies we hold have a considerable margin of safety as well as a large potential upside.
Sincerely,
Sean Fieler
William W. Strong












