Sorry I missed this, but my friend Brian O’Keefe from Fortune checked in with Richard Rainwater (like I kept saying I would) last week, and it turns out Rainwater got back into oil stocks a little while back:
Back in May, when oil was at $129 per barrel and rising, billionaire investor Richard Rainwater did something as prescient as it was shocking: He sold off all the energy stocks he owned.
Now he’s making another bold move: He’s betting on oil again.
A few weeks ago, when the price of oil tested a low near $90 per barrel for the first time in many months, Rainwater decided that he had found the right reentry point. “I reinvested back in the oil business, and it’s worked out really well for me,” he told me the other day. “I bought Exxon (XOM) stock under $75. I bought ConocoPhillips (COP) under $68. I bought Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD) under $50. I bought BP (BP). I bought Statoil. I made a big bet on the sector. I bought a lot of stocks back.”
They’re obviously all cheaper now, but Rainwater never claimed to be much of a market timer. He does tend to be right over the long-run, though. Which makes this sort of a mixed message: Rainwater’s betting on oil companies because he’s a big believer that we’re at or near peak oil and thus prices will inevitably keep rising. But they won’t rise over the next couple of years if nobody can afford to drive their cars. So if Rainwater’s right, maybe it’s time to start shorting bike stocks.
