by Jeff D. Opdyke
The Sovereign Investor
I spent the early days of my career at The Wall Street Journal — this is the mid to late ‘90s we’re talking about — in the paper’s Dallas bureau. It was there that I learned all I need to know about the oil market and how to make a small fortune.
My job back then was to effectively wander the state of Texas, writing a weekly investment column on the opportunities I came across in my travels and my interviews. It was on one of those wanderings that I came across an old oil hand in Houston who’d made a name for himself as one of the industry’s savviest investors.
His office, decorated with Western art and overlooking the Houston skyline from about 20 floors up, smelled of long-dead cigarettes.