Meet Matt Simmons.

Mr. Simmons is an energy investment banker with his own firm in Houston, Simmons & Company International, and was one of the members of the infamous Cheney energy task force. He is also a believer in peak oil and has done a lot of study on the available data on Saudi Arabia's oil fields, which apparently left him a little queasy. [I am eagerly awaiting Matthew Simmon's new book "Twilight in the Desert", which covers his research and conclusions, see link in the sidebar.] In the meantime, check out the latest presentation [PDF format] he has available on his company's site. [There are older ones here, they are also very good.]

This is an interesting presentation, as it goes into details of investing in the energy sector. Among other thoughts, he points out something I have also noticed: A couple of big institutions have made big bets on energy.

The number 1 - Capital Research Management - appears near the top of every oil stock's holders list I check these days. If you aren't familiar with them, they run the huge American Funds mutual fund operation out of Los Angeles, CA. They are very low key versus the other two biggies, Fidelity and Vanguard, mainly because they have load funds and thus let the brokers do the selling for them. They run their funds with teams rather than individual managers, leading to less emphasis on 'stars', but they have generally very good to excellent performance records.

I feel less like a maverick now.