Why did I not buy shares of Halliburton after the election? Because I’m an idiot.
Trading in November '04, just after the accounability moment, at $36.00/share. Closed today at $63.34. I should have listened to all the people screaming that the sole purpose of the Bush administration was to make money for Halliburton. Well, hell, I could have been Halliburton for all intents and purposes!!
Your not really pitting yourself here, are you?
Oh I dunno. I love a good Bush-bashing thread, but my only thought on reading the OP really was, damn I wish I’d seen that coming. moneymoneymoneymoneyMMMOOONNNEEEYYY :smack: :smack: :smack:
Soddit. Back to work tomorrow.
A little bit – I mean, come on, that was some easy money right there. And I could have given the profits to the Gore/Kerry '08 campaign! Or the Romney/McCain '08 campaign! Or Greenpeace! Or the Federalist Society! (But I probably would have just bought a new deck.)
I played it smart. I bought shares in a couple of American steel companies because:
- I’m cynical
- Bush had been harping on foreign steel and was talking about tariffs
I wish I had had more money to invest. The price of a couple of the stocks almost doubled.
Well hell, with that $36 and a bit more, you can buy your very own share of Berkshire-Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A). Good luck to you.
~Mang
PS: The rant was weak. Haliburton’s only up by 100%? With the war, it should be much, much, much more…
I’m assuming this rant is not really about a lost investment opportunity. But in the event that it is, here’s why you really should be kicking yourself..
I’m thinkin’ settlement of asbestos litigation by subsidiary Brown & Root had something to do with the climb, considering it’s what had dragged Halliburton’s share price down in the first place. Might be wrong but that was my understanding.
I started buying it a couple of years ago when it was at 18 but that was mainly because I get the… you know… employee discount. 
From Halliburton Watch, here’s a piece on how Halliburton is trying to distance itself from some of the moves Cheney made, namely involvement with KBR’s military contracts and pre-existing asbestos liability and return to what we’ve always been - a top notch oilfield services company.
That’s an interesting piece, lieu. As a Halliburton employee, would you say it was fairly accurate in its portrayal of Cheney’s bungles there?
When Google went public in the Summer of '04, I thought “$100 a share? Who would be stupid enough to buy those overvalued shares?”
It’s now trading at $445 per share.
Homebrew, someone with an MBA would be far more qualified to answer that than me simply because I work for another HAL subsidiary but, since you ask, yes, I think bringing into the fold a company burdened by hundreds of millions in still pending, potential liability was extremely ill advised.
Halliburton’s main competition is the French company Schlumberger. They both a couple of years ago adopted a strategy of being able to provide clients with every aspect needed in the development of energy reserves. They literally want to be able to provide resources that will assist from the conception of an idea to the final depositing of the resource in a consumer’s gas tank. This includes finding the deposits, drilling the well, cementing, logging, pipeline, rig, consulting services, etc. This was achieved by buying best of breed companies, my employer included, that complemented each other in this overall goal. KBR too was added as a piece of the puzzle. In what seemed obvious to some at the time and maybe so too in hindsight to Cheney, KBR was a really crappy fit.