A recent run of cold weather across much of the U.S. and will likely keep natural gas prices up, according to Raymond James analysts.
Natural gas prices have risen 12 percent this month and have helped lift shares of some oil and gas companies. Range Resources, which specializes in natural gas exploration and production, has seen its stock surge 5 percent.
Ultra Petroleum Corp. has climbed 20 percent and EQT Corp., 6 percent. By comparison the Standard & Poor's 500 index has climbed 2.7 percent in March.
This winter was the 20th warmest on records going back to 1880, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But March may be different, at least compared to last year.
NOAA reported that the week ending March 15 was much cooler than the same week in 2012 and below the long-term average. "If you haven't noticed the weather outside, you may have noticed by the number of congested co-workers walking around the office ... the weather has gotten a little chilly the past few weeks," analysts led by J. Marshall Adkins said in their report.
The analysts said that with cold weather extending into early spring, demand for natural gas will likely stay strong.
The government said Thursday that the country's natural gas supplies shrank last week. The Energy Department's Energy Information Administration reported that natural gas in storage dropped by 62 billion cubic feet to 1.876 trillion cubic feet for the week ended March 15.That's 21 percent below last year's level of 2.3 trillion cubic feet, but 10 percent above the five-year average.
In Friday trading, natural gas fell about a penny to $3.93 per 1,000 cubic feet in New York. A year ago, natural gas prices were below $2.50.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cold-weather-likely-help-natural-195850050.html
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Jared Fliesler, who oversaw growth and user acquisition at Square, is crossing over to the venture side from the startup world and joining Matrix Partners as a general partner. A firm that has been around for more than 30 years, Matrix does Series A rounds in the enterprise and consumer space. It’s bi-coastal with offices in both Boston and Palo Alto. They are in companies like ZestFinance, Gilt Groupe, Polyvore, Zendesk and Zong. After working at Square, Google and Slide, Fliesler said that venture capital would give him the opportunity to work with many companies at this optimal period in their lives when they may have found product-market fit and are looking to scale. He said he likes this six-month to two-year period in which companies can afford to grow aggressively in both their customer base and employee headcount. While he was at Square, the company grew from $2 billion processed per year to more than $10 billion and from 800,000 activated accounts to more than 3 million. He had to balance organic growth with other customer acquisition strategies like buying TV and search advertising and cutting deals to put Square readers in 40,000 locations. ?Companies outgrow the early-stage period where you’re really shaking things up — my favorite part,? he said. Being a VC will let him be a ?part-time employee for many companies in that stage and gives me a great vantage point to help them.” Matrix’s general partner Dana Stalder said the firm had a stealth courting period with Fliesler for more than a year. He says he asked friends for a list of the top five operators they knew under the age of 35. Fliesler’s name came up and they had conversations for months where Matrix would ask for his opinion on possible investments. “We were vetting him without telling him,” Stalder said. He added, “Our job is to help founders go from ideas to building category-leading companies. These are seven to nine-year relationships. We needed somebody who had the skill set or background to go through a company’s full life cycle. Jared is passionate about doing exactly that.” Fliesler will be the eighth general partner based out of Palo Alto and he’ll be looking at early-stage investments. He’s the third Square executive of late who has crossed over to the venture side. Square’s Director of Product Megan Quinn went to Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
Quick! Name the next big frontier for tech giants Apple and Google! If you said music subscription services like Pandora, Rdio and Spotify, you?d be right.
