[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by REWahoo I’m not talking about a huge investment, maybe something in the range of 2-3% of my portfolio – enough to feel like I’m at least partially insuring against another big hit. I know I have energy stocks in the Wellesley, Wellington funds I own, but the impact of increases in energy prices gets easily diluted by other market movements. Plus, I want to be able to harvest some of the gains to help pay for increased fuel costs and I do not want to sell my core funds for this purpose.

I don't know anything about gas prices or driving long distances, but is there a different perpective? I know the prices jumps were impressive in both percentage and $$/gallon terms, but how much higher were the total expenses? $500? $1000? How much per year would you expect to have to raise your fuel/travel/entertainment budget?

If you were trying to totally offset the higher costs, then you'd want to determine how much USO (or whichever ETF) you'd have to buy to cover the after-tax difference in fuel costs, assuming that its share price rises directly in proportion to gasoline prices. I wonder how much of a portfolio % that'd work out to be.

Then if oil hits $150/barrel again, would you yell "Yee-haw!", tank up the Class "A", and hit the road knowing that your trip was paid for by your profits? When would you sell the shares?

If oil stays below $60/barrel or if you lose money on USO, would you stay home?

I hesitate to apply an analogy to this thinking, but it seems like buying stock in restaurants or grocery stores or retailers or RV manufacturers to offset lifestyle/entertainment expenses. We buy a pizza at Costco every week and have probably spent over $3000 in that pursuit over the last five years, making us hostages to the mozzarella futures market, but we don't own stock in the store...