How Vale spent $18 billion and shot itself in the foot
I always wonder what’s up when I see a normally quiet company begin tooting its own horn in ads. It’s almost never a good sign. Today’s (March 16) Financial Times has a full page ad from Vale (VALE) headlined “Vale also transforms minerals into awards.” The text notes...Update Goldcorp (GG)
After the market close yesterday, March 11, Goldcorp (GG) reported fourth quarter 2009 earnings of 25 cents a share (excluding one-time items). That was in line with the Wall Street consensus. Revenue climbed by 27.8% to $778 million. That was substantially above the...Oil drilling failure rate surges at the Western majors
It’s not a factor now in the climbing price of oil but the trend certainly doesn’t portend cheaper oil down the road. Or a rosy future for the Western oil giants. In 2009 Chevron’s (CVX) drilling failure rate climbed to 35%. More than one-third of exploratory wells...Update Goldcorp (GG)
What you want in a gold stock is a company with rising reserves and falling costs. Goldcorp’s (GG) end of 2009 report on reserves shows that it’s still delivering rising reserves. We’ll see how the company is doing on costs when it reports after the market closes on...Update Vale (VALE)
I think we’ve just seen the end of the fixed long-term contract pricing system for iron ore. That pricing system may not know it’s dead yet. But right now it’s dead system walking. Brazil’s Vale (VALE) has told domestic customers that it will raise iron ore prices by...Update Potash of Saskatchewan (POT)
Potash of Saskatchewan (POT) has been doing a lot of talking recently at private dinners with Wall Street analysts and Wall Street conference calls. The picture that emerges is of a company a lot more confident that it can see the turn in the fertilizer market. In a...Update Thompson Creek Metals (TC)
Thompson Creek Metals (TC) announced earnings of 15 cents a share for the fourth quarter last night (February 25) after the market close. Revenue for the quarter came to $106 million. Both beat Wall Street projections for 8 cents a share in earnings and $94 million in...Euro rally a one day wonder? (Maybe three?)
Today’s rally in oil and other commodities that pushed the entire stock market higher was built on a weak dollar and a stronger Euro. Right now this looks like just a euro bounce. A one (or at most a few days) wonder. The Euro is still well below its 200-day moving...Update Yara International (YARIY.PK)
Norwegian fertilizer maker Yara International (YARIY.PK), already the biggest publicly-listed fertilizer maker in the world, just bought itself a big hunk of the North American market. In an all-cash deal Yara agreed yesterday, February 15, to buy Terra Industries...Update Thompson Creek Metals (TC)
Today Thompson Creek Metals (TC) confirmed what the market had long expected: that when the company reports its fiscal 2009 financial results in February, it will switch to U.S. GAAP from Canadian accounting rules. The big impact will be that the company has to mark...Russia buys Canadian dollars–shouldn't you?
So what took them so long? On January 20, Russia’s central bank announced that it had started buying Canadian dollars and Canadian-dollar-denominated bonds to diversify its foreign exchange reserves. We’re not talking about a huge allocation to...Update BHP Billiton
On January 20 BHP Billiton (BHP) announced that second-quarter iron ore output rose 11% to a new record on heavy demand from China. The company also reported increased production of petroleum, zinc, diamonds, and nickel. Production of coking coal, uranium, and copper...Update Bunge (BG)
Brazilian iron ore giant Vale (VALE) said on January 15 that it’s in talks with Bunge (BG) to buy that company’s fertilizer assets in Brazil. The deal, for as much as $3.8 billion, would relieve Bunge of a unit that showed a loss of $127 million in the third quarter,...China isn't an asset bubble waiting to burst–it's worse
I think investors are worried about the wrong kind of crisis in China. Worry seems to focus on the possibility of an asset bubble and the change that it will burst sometime in the next two to three months. I’m more concerned about a slide into a crisis that will be an...Now it's coal that's on fire–because of the snow
Bad idea to run out of coal during a cold spell. But that’s exactly what’s happened to China’s utilities. Near panic spot buying has sent the price of thermal coal above $100 a metric ton for the first time in a year. China imported about 50 million metric tons of...Iron ore wars get nasty: Higher ore prices–and more acquisitions by China–ahead
The war of words—and sometimes deeds—continues between China and the world’s biggest iron ore producers, BHP Billiton (BHP), Rio Tinto (RTP), Vale (VALE). The producers seem intent on freezing China out of the annual negotiations that set iron ore prices for the year...Alcoa delivers bad news for global profits
After the close on Monday January 11, Alcoa (AA) reported a loss of $277 million for the fourth quarter of 2009. Excluding special items, Alcoa earned a penny a share. The company turned free cash flow positive for the first time since June 2008 Evidence that the...Can commodities do it again in 2010? I'd say the odds are against it
Stock markets staged a strong rally yesterday, January 4, boosted by strength in commodities and commodity stocks. The Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index climbed 1.6% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 1.5%. Oil (West Texas Intermediate) climbed $2.15 a...Oil to stay stuck at $70-$80 a barrel in 2010
So who ya’ gonna’ believe on oil prices in 2010? The economists at the International Energy Agency predict that oil demand will pick up sharply in 2010, rising about 1.5 million barrels a day from 2009 levels. Big oil traders, who handle about 15% of the world’s oil...And now for something shocking: The dollar and stocks start to move up in tandem
I’m seeing the first signs of a new relationship between stocks and the U.S. dollar. Ever since Lehman Bros went into bankruptcy in the fall of 2008, the dollar and stocks have been negatively connected. When the dollar went up, stocks went down, as investors saw any...Greece is the word in today's selling
This shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but apparently enough investors were still not expecting it so that Standard & Poor’s downgrade of its credit rating on Greece has pushed down global stock markets. Today, December 17, S&P cut Greece’s credit rating one...ExxonMobil buys U.S. natural gas for $31 billion–I told you this was a big trend
ExxonMobil (XOM) will buy XTO Energy (XTO) for $31 billion in stock. (ExxonMobil will also assume $10 billion in XTO Energy debt.) This acquisition is just the latest example of a shift among the international energy majors from exploration and development for oil in...Sell Natural Resource Partners (NRP)
I’m going to move to reduce the exposure of my Dividend Income Portfolio (https://jubakpicks.com/jubak-dividend-income-portfolio/ ) to the natural resources sector by selling coal-mining master limited partnership Natural Resource Partners (NRP) out of the portfolio....Good news on jobs hurts Treasuries, oil, stocks; crushes gold
All it took was an unexpectedly strong unemployment report. Following the Bureau of Labor Statistics release of numbers showing the economy lost just 11,000 jobs in November rather than the expected 125,000, the Dollar Index broke above its 2009 trend line and the...Sell Deere (DE)
Sometimes the words are worse than the numbers. And that’s the case with Deere’s (DE) November 25 guidance for fiscal 2010, which began on November 1, 2009. The company said fiscal 2010 earnings would come in at $2.12 a share on a 1% decline in sales. First quarter...Natural gas prices to stay low into 2010: good news for consumers; bad news for producers
Just when you think it can’t get any worse in the natural gas industry, it does. A glut of gas in the United States as a result of lower demand because of the Great Recession and greater than projected production from the gas shales of Texas and Oklahoma has driven...Sell Lynas (LYSCY.PK)
Lynas (LYSCY.PK) isn’t set to produce revenues from its rare earth mine at Mount Weld in Western Australia and from its Advanced Materials Plant in Malaysia until the fiscal year that ends in June 2011. And even then the Wall Street consensus calls for revenue of just...Update Thompson Creek Metals (TC)
On November 5 Thompson Creek Metals (TC) reported third quarter earnings of 14 cents a share, 3 cents a share above the Wall Street consensus, and revenue of $114 million, well above analyst projections of $90 million. The upside came from lower costs at just $5.67...Update Yara International (YARIY.PK)
Yara International (YARIY.PK) reported stinko revenue and earnings numbers for the third quarter of 2009 on October 21. Net income per share, for example, fell by a little more than 88% from the third quarter of 2008. So this was exactly the kind of kitchen sink...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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