Commodity Investing Lessons from 2 Oil & Gas IPOs

Commodity companies going public can say a lot about the state of the commodity market.

The Tulip Folly, Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1882, oil on canvas (Walters Art Museum)

(This post is coming slightly later than normal because the Boston Celtics are the 2024 NBA Champions. Go Cs).

I’ve been listening to a bit more sports media the past couple of weeks (again, go Cs). Former college phenom and WNBA player Caitlin Clark has been a bit of a lightning rod for sports pundits these past few weeks between her on-court play, other players giving her the “welcome to the league” treatment, and not getting named to Team USA. You name the angle, and someone has probably covered it that way.

Perhaps the most illuminating point I heard about the many conversations on the topic was from Bill Simmons: The angles sports journalism take on Clark says more about the state of sports journalism than about the actual subject.

When I saw a couple of oil and gas companies announce they intend to go public this week, I found some parallels to that statement. These types of IPOs likely tell us more about where we are in the commodity market cycle than about the merit of the IPO.

It sounds convoluted, and maybe it is. But here’s a look at why Tamboran Resources and LandBridge's IPOs are possible signals of where we are in the oil and gas commodity cycle.

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