Warren Stephens, the billionaire CEO of investment bank Stephens Inc., is optimistic about the outlook for the natural gas and newspaper industries.

Some investment gurus have soured on those sectors with natural gas prices at a 10-year low and newspapers getting decimated by the Internet. But Stephens feels differently. His firm has private equity investments in both sectors

“We still like natural gas, and we still like the energy business a lot,” Stephens tells Steve Forbes, chairman of Forbes Media. “I think over time we will come to realize the true wealth that natural gas is for this country and what it can mean to us.”

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Stephens says natural gas should be used to power automobiles and to generate more electricity.

“The trucking industry would love if today there was an option for them to run their fleets on natural gas,” he says.

As for newspapers, “I’m not one of those who thinks newspapers are going away,” Stephens says. “I think at some point in time there’s going to be a realization that the professionalism of the reporters, the editors . . . is actually worth something.”

On the natural gas front, there’s no reason to worry about a lack of supply anytime soon. U.S. gas production soared to a record high last year.

And Michael Zenker, a natural gas analyst at Barclays Capital, anticipates a “moderate” increase in production for 2012, according to the Financial Times.

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