uh the great-

Thank you, it does appear that many oil companies have matched or exceeded the performance of the commodity.  Over the very long term, I would expect that commodity company stocks would be a leveraged bet on the commodity price, so they should do better than the commodity.  Over the last few days, that has not been true in spades.  I guess I wouldn't be that surprised that oil companies treaded water during periods of commodity price increase... merely indicates to me that the price increases may not stick... or at least that is what the stock market thinks.  The last few days, however, the stock prices are tumbling like they are predicting a commodity crash.

It could just be noise... or it could be like someone once said, the stock market has predicted 6 out of the last 2 recessions (the numbers are not right - I just guessed, but you get the point).  It could also be like one poster above suggested (and Cramer) that institutional investors are taking big negative bets on the whole market driving it down (with all boats sinking, even those that should be going up like oil and gas companies).  When you buy a bear market fund, that is also your "vote" in the market place.

All- 

Given this, I think that at some point you should see some bargains.  If you wanted to buy bulk shipper and haven't, they are getting cheaper.  If you wanted to buy Ag, it is getting cheaper.  If you wanted to buy energy, it is getting cheaper.  Everything is getting cheaper, value stocks like BAC that have gone down a lot are getting still cheaper.  Growth stocks like industrials are getting cheaper.  Alternative energy stocks are getting cheaper.  Chinese ADR's are getting cheaper.  Infrastructure is getting cheaper.  Everything is going down... there is no dobt that the bears are in control. 

Happy shopping!

erryl