For a little post-Yule reading, try thumbing through the Energy Investment Handbook. But don’t spill coffee on this baby, because each word is edged in gilt.

At $800-plus a copy, you’d expect no less.

To be sold by subscription for $10,000 a year, the monthly Handbook will debut after Christmas.

Each issue will contain more gold than Sutter’s Mill: detailed “momentum indicators” for TSE energy stocks, technical details of petroleum plays from Sable Island to East Lost Hills, and dozens of other features.

Despite the price tag, it seems destined to find favour with investment industry insiders.

A new joint venture from Ross Smith Energy Group and ARC Financial Corp, the data in the Energy Investment Handbook will be assembled by the stealthiest, snoopiest sleuths since Sherlock Holmes tumbled down that waterfall. ARC Financial, you know about. Their in-house researchers compile some of the most rock-solid oil and gas analyses in the business. But you may need an introduction to the other guys — Alias Ross and Smith. Two ex-investment brokers, Allan Ross and Michael Smith hung out their shingle two years ago, feeling it was time to go to bat for the “buy” side of the street.

To put it indelicately, the partners utilize the skills of about 100 corporate crap-cutters to gather precise data for 50-odd Ross Smith clients.

These clients are investment counsellors, or managers of mutual and pension funds. Institutional investors pay as much as $150,000 a year for Ross Smith’s unbiased assessments of public energy companies, before they decide whether to buy in.

“Through the ’90s, there was a tremendous amount of capital raised on behalf of various oil and gas companies,” said Smith as he explained company origins.

“But quite a few didn’t work out too well,” he continued, citing fallen stars such as Merit Energy Ltd. and Blue Range Resource Corp.

Though touted by industry hype-meisters as killer investments, these juniors didn’t thrive, lacking the reserves and production volumes to justify the initial noise.

In the end, only the investor got killed.

“Investors were getting jaded, because they always seemed to be last to find out,” Smith shrugged.

“But you never saw brokerage firms come out with ‘sell’ reports, when the companies started to erode,” he noted slyly.

However, a small army of skilled technical wizards in Calgary did sense the erosion. But their information wasn’t finding its way to the financial decision-makers.

So Ross and Smith tapped into their expertise.

Now, they’re selling it.

Understandably, some public companies — Canadian 88 and Renaissance Energy come to mind — haven’t appreciated going under the microscope.

“Some companies thought we were too negative,” Smith conceded.

But it doesn’t really matter whether an evaluation is positive or negative. Accuracy alone counts.

And the partners’ roster of experts is as deep as it gets. To evaluate a firm’s reserves, they’ll bring in major-leaguers such as McDaniel Engineering Services or Gilbert Laustsen Jung. Ernst and Young, or KPMG, are hired to probe accounting questions.

Private investigators dig into the background of company managers. Or Sayer Securities may be asked to determine whether the president is buying or selling stock.

If a need arises, Ross and Smith will scour the globe for a specialist.

Like who? Well, a former Canadian ambassador to the United Arab Emirates was hired to supply geo-political background on Canadian-owned African oil fields.

“We try to get our experts to ask themselves: ‘If I were going to invest in an oil and gas company, what questions would I ask management about their reserves?’ ” said Ross.

“So what comes out of our reports is maybe 20 to 25 questions which portfolio managers can put to company management. Then our clients draw their own conclusions.”

In a real sense, guys like Ross and Smith serve as a front line of defence for us lowly, working stiffs.

Most ordinary investors buy into mutual funds somewhat blindly, on the advice of their own brokers.

Nodding obediently, they place their hard-won bucks in the hands of a fund manager, whose name they may not even know.

They can only hope these managers have access to the kind of dope Ross and Smith are dishing out.

And the Energy Investment Handbook? Maybe it’s time your neighbourhood energy fund manager considered a subscription.