Many drillers don't have their money in the stock market, but many of their customers do, Wayne Nash says
It's enough to make me wonder how this will affect the average driller. I don't have much money in the stock market - I like my investments to be close enough to put my hand on - but a lot of my customers do. They use their discretionary money from their mutual funds to buy things like irrigation wells. This will probably slack off some like it did last fall. The upside: since the market is down, people are looking for places to put their money. Housing starts are up and that's good for all of us who drill house wells. People will put money in improvements in their real estate, so that may offset some of the downturn. It seems like the key is to keep our productivity up and charge enough for our work to weather the slow times. There's nothing like a broken rig to ruin a schedule - when we should have been doing regular maintenance.