Hi BBQ

My biggest concern is the overall state of the economy. Some say this is the tip of the iceberg, others say we've hit bottom. I have more relatives and acquaintances out of work than I care to think about. I have neighbors hanging onto jobs by a thread, with medical problems (health insurance needs) and families ... it's extremely distressing. Yet OPEC has demonstrated they'll back off of production enough to keep oil both affordable and profitable. So personally I'm not extremely concerned about treading water for a while, while others battle to feed their families.

Yes that's the trigger of all I think.Just heard yesterday on our news that Antwerp haven which is one of the biggest in Europe has lost a big portion of income most be less Chinese goods coming in etc..Last year unemployment rdaily rate for haven workers was around 300 workers average and now up to 1500 .It looks if you hearfrom talks now and then that opinions on economic rebound were delayed to previous thoughts.

If US $ drops again to other currencies then gold will go up and also the oil price but that's more an artificial look then a demand issue.Because MRC is an US company that will reflect on income transferred into cad $ .That's always problems with companies outside the own currency.Sometimes it bodes well but depends on situation in currency value .

Also here we hear not such a good news.Steel maker Arcelor plans to stop his oven in Luik .I said before the econmy before was based on overconsumption and not payed goods .To much credit.So in fact the money made was fake and banks all around played poker game with people's money.Now all around and on world top meeting they are making plans to avoid in the future such events but that means governments will look to banking actions and trades.Is that good?Probably well but I think the stock markets will not jump up in an amount we have seen last years .

Now for CLL.It looks Opec will try to reach an oil price so that companies can survive but also they will not kill the econmy.I've read that stockpile figures were manipulated again in the US?Anyone have read something about that?

I'm still not sure about that hedging strategy.Many big oil companies do business both in up and downstream but they use their own crude to refine etc.For CLL that's not the case and Great divide is an Canadian plants while MRC is in the US.

Suppose they do well on aspfalt but us $ weakens .CLL has to many issues to deal with .Parts of the holding is not in same country,currency differance and if oil is up good for pod 1 but not for MRC and vice versa.

Management is smart?Could be but though in 2008 they were many alarming bells goind that bank sector was in trouble they took the risk to get a financing deal to go ahead with Algar and putting great debt on their shoulders.Now by end 2008 they had to stop building ?