The benefits are obvious, but some risks are not widely appreciated. The Utilities Sector shows a disturbing trend for the 12 months ended May 2008. The Gas Utilities Industry has fared a little better than its peers during this period. The crude oil outlook is unclear. That is why opinion is divided on how gas prices may fare in future.

This small-capital stock from Fort Worth, TX has a clear location advantage. The home base is front and center of one of the most exciting natural gas fields in all of North America. The management has been sanguine in leveraging a spatial advantage fully. It has been pro-active in securing gathering and processing rights to top natural gas resources in its neighborhood.

Stock investors wary of how the markets have behaved during June 2008 will be relieved to know that this stock

According to ShortSqueeze.com, 277,600 shares of HYBR have been shorted. This is a 27.11% increase over the previous number of reported shorted shares and a 588% increase over the figure reported on February 15, 2008.

For those who are not familiar with shorting, it is the opposite of buying. Instead of buying and then selling at a later date, a trader sells shares he doesn’t have and then later on buys them back from the broker. This puts him in a risky situation, however, since a substantial material event from the company would attract great buying pressure and spike the price per share, causing him to lose on the trade. In this situation, he would feel pressured to cover his shares, further strengthening the bull run.

As you can see, a very large short position (such as the one in HYBR) could create a massive run if covered. This

We have heard alot of discussion lately in regards to why the miners could possibly be doing so horribly, when history has shown us that mining stocks should be skyrocketing given the last 8 year bull run in precious metals.

Two words: Naked Shorting

Jim Sinclair has created a movement lately asking to enlist over 200,000 investors, and thousands of mining companies, to put a stop to the criminal activity of Naked Shorting that literally steals money from investors.  You can see more information on Jim Sinclairs initiative here.

One of the best detailed audio explanations of how Naked Shorting works, listen to this audio program.

Hopefully when this all starts coming to light, the brokers who have engaged in this criminal activity will be spending a long time in a cold cell with a large room-mate named Bubba who finds ex-stock brokers attractive.