Today, I'm going to cover an epic crisis.
It's an industry collapse that's producing plummeting stocks, mass layoffs, the worst news in the financial world, and a wave of bankruptcies.
I know... it sounds awful. It sounds like something you'd never want to invest in.
But here's the thing: The world's best investors and traders know that buying industries and regions in crisis can produce spectacular returns in a short time.
When an asset suffers through a crisis situation – whether it's the result of a scandal, a cyclical downturn, or a violent conflict – its price can fall well beyond reason. And folks who buy these out-of-favor assets
can make returns of 100%... 200%... even 500% as the market emerges from crisis.
My
Growth Stock Wire colleagues have already shown you
the crisis in corn(down 61%) and
the crisis in offshore drillers (down 33%-71%).
But neither comes close to the crisis I'll show you today...
U.S. coal producers are getting absolutely destroyed.
They're facing extraordinarily bad conditions... starting with a tough competitor. Lots of power plants that burn coal can easily switch to natural gas... When gas prices are low enough, they make the switch. And for most of the last three years, they've been plenty low.
The same technologies that have allowed us to produce
the most oil in nearly 30 years have also unlocked record levels of natural gas. That has pushed natural gas prices down from an average of $8.90 in 2008 to $3.96 today – a 55% drop. And so far this year, natural gas deliveries to electric-power consumers are up 18% versus 2008.
Even if natural gas prices hadn't fallen, politicians are making it more expensive to burn coal. The Environmental Protection Agency's "Clean Power Plan" proposal aims to reduce carbon pollution from the power sector 30% by 2030. Coal burners will likely have to install energy-efficient technologies, trade "carbon credits" (permits to emit a certain amount of carbon pollution), or find another way to decrease their pollution.
With the costs of using coal rising and with demand dropping, coal prices have fallen below the cost of production. My colleague Matt Badiali, who writes the excellent
S&AResource Report, covered the problem in June...
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https://www.growthstockwire.com/