For Goldman, the energy shortage will include a four-stage oil price.

This is further evidence of the sentiment now spreading through investment banks - global recovery will stimulate asset prices.

The sub-message is: asset prices must have been at their bottom or remain at "near-to-bottom" levels.

Given the nature of the absolute historic bottoms, it leads us to ask where is the opportunity?

At the highest level, the opportunity is in the trend. News channels now talk of economic recovery rather than a global meltdown.

Locally, we can also add in the Hong Kong equity market surge. Local brokerages are currently experiencing euphoria with the recent market surges. Start adding in the green shoots of property recovery globally, and there seems to be a sense of widespread cautious optimism. Yet for those still suffering from the memory of equity-price crashes, the scars will take time to heal. The quickest way to recuperate and benefit from the opportunities is to diversify.

This takes us to Goldman's piece and the "energy opportunity." The paper is a revision of Goldman's previous guesstimates.

In essence, it believes "the recent [oil price] rally was driven by credit normalization, the market has not yet priced in an economic recovery."

Goldman believes that as the recovery unfolds, four stages of an oil price rally will become evident.

We are into the first stage: "West Texas Intermediate prices rallied to our end-of-year target of US$65 (HK$507) per barrel by the end of May."

Goldman expects the next stage to be in the second half of 2009, and that it will feature a cyclical bull market and stabilization with an end-of-year price of around US$85 per barrel.

Stage three will be in the first half of 2010, featuring a "structural bull market as long dated prices rise to motivate renewed non-Opec production capacity investment while Opec spare capacity returns to the market in an attempt to bridge the gap."

Goldman's forecast for this period is US$90 per barrel. Stage four is in the second half of 2010 featuring a "likely return to energy shortages" because ultimately the economic recovery and associated recovery of demand will not have been factored into the production side fast enough.

This accounts for Goldman's forecast of US$95 per barrel.

Investing into an oil price rise is one logical "opportunity" arising from Goldman's research, but there is some concern arising from its view that the global economy has been tainted by two crises, not just one - the obvious "financial crisis" and the "energy crisis."

With the financial crisis it was possible to get further into debt. With the energy crisis, as the paper says, "you can't consume what you don't have." The challenge for the "energy crisis" lies in how to deal with the imbalance between demand and supply. While that imbalance persists there will be an impact on world economic growth and it will remain fairly difficult to predict the effect future oil price rises will have on the new global economy. We need to remember that we are not out of the woods yet and could possibly be moving further into the forest.

Alex Walker is director - wealth management, at Financial Partners

E-mail: alex.walker@financial-partners.biz