Australian markets also got affected according to Dow Jones Newswires. The Newcastle spot coal price, where the world’s biggest thermal coal shipping port is located - fell sharply, following on from a 20% drop in spot thermal coal prices in Europe overnight. However, despite this latest pullback in coal prices, analysts say - that a sharp pullback in benchmark Australian thermal coal prices is only natural correction after a recent surge.

The obvious start to any green portfolio is the green energy options, some of which I laid out in my Beginner's Guide to Green Investing on Seeking Alpha. However, green energy is just a piece of the overall puzzle, albeit it an important one. The best way to start expanding the notion of a total green portfolio is to redefine asset allocation categories - instead of Small Cap, Mid Cap, Large Cap, and Bonds, Smug Investments' allocation classes look like this:

However, now that the original up and down shares have terminated MacroShares has launched a new series with a higher termination trigger. The up shares (UOY) and down shares (DOY) just started trading yesterday and surprisingly the volume is fairly low compared to their recently expired siblings. I guess all the gamblers who were betting on oil going down have lost all of their money at this point. Also surprising is the fact that the down shares are not trading at much of a premium to NAV. In fact, yesterday the down shares closed at a 1.4% discount to NAV, which just doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't make sense because these shares are basically LEAPS and LEAPS are worth more than intrinsic value, or NAV in this case.

Petrohawk Energy (HK) and Chesapeake Energy (CHK) both are ripping up 9-11% in early action - right now anything associated with the Haynesville Shale is gold in this sector - not that the other natural gas players aren't doing great as well. [Jun 18: Will Encore Acquisition (EAC) be Bought Out?] Another name I've seen continuously on my top weekly performer list for 2 months now but have not been pulling the trigger (waiting the never surfacing "pullback") is Goodrich Petroleum (GDP). Chesapeake announced a new partnership and Petrohawk has a nice upgrade.

• Shares of Petrohawk Energy Corp. advanced in premarket trading on Wednesday after an analyst hiked his price target on the oil and gas producer, saying its oil fields are increasingly more valuable.
• Friedman, Billings, Ramsey analyst Rehan Rashid raised his price target on Petrohawk to $60 from $45 in a note to investors early Wednesday. The new target represents a 25 percent rate of return on the stock over Tuesday's close of $48.
• Rashid said the recent purchase by Plains Exploration & Production Co. of a portion of land owned by Chesapeake Energy Corp. in northwest Louisiana implies Petrohawk's portion of the same oil field is more valuable than originally expected.
• Late Tuesday, Chesapeake said Plains agreed to buy 110,000 acres of its Haynesville Shale tract in northwest Louisiana. By Rashid's calculation, that purchase came to a price tag of $25,600 per acre.
• Based on the transaction, he says Petrohawk's own share of Haynesville Shale can now be assumed to be worth $7.4 billion, which in turn makes Petrohawk stock significantly more valuable.
• Rashid said many oil companies with a presence at Haynesville Shale have seen their shares climb sharply in recent months as companies seek to buy up the land, and reiterated his "Outperform" rating on Houston-based Petrohawk.

• It seems that not a day goes by without some news out of the smoking-hot Haynesville shale. The news flow is downright torrid for such an early-stage natural gas play. Of course, few investors had heard of companies like Goodrich Petroleum (NYSE: GDP) or GMX Resources (Nasdaq: GMXR) before Chesapeake Energy (NYSE: CHK) blew the story wide open back in March. You can hardly blame these companies for flaunting their stuff.
• On Monday, Petrohawk Energy (NYSE: HK) also updated its ever-growing leasehold. Land that's prospective for the Haynesville/Bossier (two gas-rich shale layers stacked on top of one another in the same region) now stands at a hearty 275,000 net acres. This renders Petrohawk highly levered to the Haynesville -- much more than larger companies like Chesapeake or Hunt-happy XTO Energy (NYSE: XTO). This looks like a positive thing, judging by the company's latest well result.
• Petrohawk just completed and production-tested its very first horizontal Haynesville well. With a horizontal well, you drill horizontally to hit the gas contained in a laterally extensive formation. Petrohawk drilled this particular well down 11,000 feet, and then nearly 4,000 feet laterally. To better coax the gas out of the rock, the company also induced fractures at eleven separate intervals.

Many conservatives and pro-business commentators are aghast at the thought of taxing excess profits. Big Oil companies have increased their public relations campaign against any windfall taxes. Their supporters point out the following:

It should also be noted that the $250/t raw material surcharge, or as MT likes to call it “cost recovery program,” was implemented for their fixed price contracts which represent less than 50% of shipments and not for MT’s spot market shipments. The firm views the program as a success by achieving a 50% success rate given this unprecedented move in altering fixed price contracts.

By Brad Zigler

Pundits and oil analysts were collectively off the mark on this week's big number: crude inventories. Stocks, which had been projected to rise by some 100,000 barrels last week, instead tumbled 2 million barrels to stay below trend line averages.

August crude oil opened 18 cents a barrel higher on NYMEX this morning after rising slightly higher overnight. Oil closed Tuesday's floor session 97 cents higher at $140.97 after profit-taking cooled the market's early advance. The United States Oil Fund (AMEX: USO) finished Tuesday 93 cents higher at $114.59 a share. For the week ended Tuesday, NYMEX crude futures gained nearly $4 a barrel, or 2.9%. USO picked up $3.65 per share, or 3.3%, for the week. Bloomberg's survey of two dozen oil analysts and traders was split in their forecasts of this week's futures market. Nine respondents, or 38%, said prices were likely to rise, while, 11, or 46%, were banking on prices declining. The remaining four respondents were neutral.

Please bear with me, I don't mean to be facetious here. Now that oil is over $140/barrel and everyone has a theory about why the price is so high, I thought I'd join the party and throw in my two cents as well.

Swift beat Wall Street estimates in each of the last four quarters by an average of 8.29%. Even though the stock has surged this year, Swift is trading at only 6.97 times its forward earnings.

The MacroShares Oil Up and Oil Down funds have been resurrected ... sort of.

To meet U.S. electricity needs, alternative fuels will likely play a greater role in the years to come, either through mandates or increasingly competitive pricing, S &P says. “Nevertheless, more often than not, it is substantial federal financial support that makes these changes happen.”

CONVENTIONAL WISDOM. If something is appears too good to be true, it generally is. Eventually solar panels will become a commodity (think computer chips - Intel / AMD) and prices will find their equillibrium (think calculators, cell phones, VCRs) levels.

On Wednesday morning, shares in Hydrogenics were up almost 30% to C$2.37. Since June 13, when shares closed at C$0.79, the stock has risen everyday but one. 

The dramatic abandonment of gas guzzlers by American consumers continues, with last month's sales of domestically manufactured light trucks (which includes the once almighty SUV category) down 28% from June 2007.

That's right, folks. Forget all those pesky little digits. Nobody likes math anyway. It's better to base your financial decisions on vague, unsupported opinions from people who, for all you know, have a vested interest in your agreement.

So what does this have to do with batteries? I believe quite a lot... It would appear the next natural progression in the auto industry will be the development and sale of plug-in hybrids [PHEV]. Thus far, production of PHEVs has been extremely limited, mostly due to battery related issues. However, given the current record oil prices and recent advancements in battery technology it is likely this market will show significant growth over the next several years.