As a contrarian, when I see a chart that is so different from decades of precedent -- declining oil prices and skyrocketing silver prices -- I'm inclined to buy XOM...

Our family assets evolved from a petroleum refining base, where both of our paychecks were from. It has always been a rollercoaster wrt profitability. Given what we have seen industry wide in the past 4 decades, we admittedly have a bias against investing in it, and frankly the only non-ETF held stock we hold comes from not selling stock given in bonuses and remaining stock options which are quite worthless at this time.

In order to grab that XOM or other refiner stock that you are tempted by, we would have to define a likely catalyst that would change the share price dramatically for the better. Currently I am seeing negative drags, not positive. It seems to me as though while the need for oil will be unlikely to totally evaporate, the alternatives we see evolving will continue to suppress it's value. That said, we have seen and been impacted by some incredibly stupid decisions made by this industry, and have little respect for it. It seems to me that with the cyclical nature of the industry, it's better for a trading mentality than our buy and hold type personality. YMMV.

IP