Cenovus Energy (CVE.TO)

(A Top Pick Oct 17/13. Down 13.47%.) It has been a pretty good performer in an oil environment. They have good production, refining capacity as well as some oil sands. Has a great management discipline of returning money to shareholders, and is reasonably diversified.

Sold his holdings in September. This is highly dependent on the oil prices in the very short term. A little bit on the quasi-integrated with some heavy oil. If oil were to go down to $60, this will probably go down less, but also has less upside. You can Hold if you own it, but it depends on your outlook for the price of oil. Thinks it will lag some of the others for upside when oil does recover.

You have to look at great companies because we don’t know where oil will go. This is one of them. They will have to rationalize their businesses and cut costs. This may involve cutting the dividend.

Even with WTI as $75 and natural gas at $3.50, he still models a payout ratio of about 132%, 2015 estimates. This is not a safe dividend.

Assuming that you don't own this and you are looking at where oil is and looking at the whole realm of oil companies out there, we don't really know where oil is going here. You don't want to buy something that has a lot of risks This is a good buy for the long-term. An ultraconservative way to play the oil market in these times, which are uneasy when it comes to oil.

What has scared him from owning this is the rising cost structure of the Christina Lake and Foster Creek oil sands projects as they got into the later stages of their life spans. Steam/oil ratios have gone up. Third-quarter earnings came out and were a big beat on expectations, in spite of some down time. This was a modest positive for the story. He is most interested in seeing, in the coming quarters, what their plan is for their fee simple lands. He is looking for $3 billion of value to be realized in a transaction similar to Encana (ECA-T) spinning out of Prairie Sky royalties.

Sold his holdings. This is a well-run company. The last little fall has been really because of the price of oil. Have some very good assets and thinks they will continue to do well.

(A Top Pick Oct 22/13. Down 5.81%.) Still likes this. It has a long-term production profile that is going to increase going forward. Extremely well managed and well financed. This would be a Buy at these levels.

Oil Sands producer. These companies can have really, really long lives. Once they get going, they produce. The question really is, getting going. There is a lot of cost inflation that could affect the company. Once they get the projects on stream, they tend to work and tend to be good producing long-life assets. They are affected by the price of oil, so the price of oil coming down makes the economics a little harder. Until you are very, very constructive on the price of oil, there are better producers out there that don’t have those long, long life assets, that don’t have the exposure to the price of oil.

A couple of bad years in terms of an oil sands asset to be developed over decades are okay. They doubled production since being spun out of ECA-T. The company is going in the right direction, but the stock price has not followed. Their commitment to their dividend is superior.

Thinks there is good long term value in this stock but their “steam to oil” ratio has been moving higher, which is not good. Expects this to peak in Q3 and fall to more normalized levels, which should help the stock. Ultimately he would be using weakness to be buying. Good balance sheet and debt to cash flow at about 1 times. Trades in line with its peers. Nice safe dividend.

Oil has come down, but take the exchange rate into account and these guys are going to make money. Prefers CNQ-T and SU-T however.

Will it spin off its royalty assets? A number of companies have done so and the market is prepared to pay up. This company could do so. This has quite a good growth profile. He would prefer Suncor (SU-T) and Canadian Natural Resources (CNQ-T).

This is more the oil side of the old Encana (ENC-T). Good company. Hasn’t done much because of the commodity price. She is getting a little more interested in Canadian Natural Resources (CNQ-T).

(A Top Pick Aug 15/13. Up 20.54%.) The catalyst for them was bringing production on. There was a bit of concern on their steam/oil ratio which spiked up, but has now flattened out. It will take a little while for it to go back down, but it is under control now. Getting great cash flow from their refinery on the joint venture.