Shiv Kapoor

Tuesday Outlook: Commodities, Global Markets

This is in response to your observation "Industry? What Industry?". To date this quarter, 453 companies of the SP500 have reported earnings. Of these 63 are Discretionary, 32 are Staples, 40 are Energy, 79 are Financial, 50 are Healthcare, 56 are Industrials, 61 are IT, 28 are Materials, 9 are Telecom and 35 are Utilities. Over 12% of the total 453 SP500 companies which have reported are industrials. Many of these industrials are global leaders in their field; industry in US is far from dead - the collapse of GM (which was always included in discretionary anyway) has made Americans lose sight of the fact that it has a very powerful industrial sector anyway. In my view The tickers are:
MMM, AVY, BA, BNI, CHRW, CAT, CTAS, CBE, CSX, CMI, DHR, RRD, DOV, DNB, ETN, EMR, EFX, EXPD, FAST, FDX, FLS, FLR
GD, GE, GR, GWW, HON, ITW, IR, IRM, ITT, JEC, LLL, LMT, MTW
MAS, MWW, NSC, NOC, PCAR, PH, PBI, PCP, RTN, RSG, RHI
ROK, COL, R, LUV, SRCL,TXT, UNP, UPS, UTX, WMI.

Wednesday Outlook: Commodities, Global Markets

Been watching your comments on GS. Dunno why I have a bad feeling about this. Cant see anyone, be it a person or a program beating the markets in perpetuity; buy and hold person like Buffet perhaps, trader unlikely. Am hoping GS is not Enron II in the making. In the meantime, I do hope the auditors are exercising extra due diligence.

Wednesday Outlook: Commodities, Emerging Markets

Dave - this is Brilliant; my all time favorite post on any blog. The pictures tell an interesting tale. Loved the walk through Sam Stovall's economic cycle. What is going on in the financial services sector is history in the making. If United States is unable to quickly start the healing process, there is no secular force in the world which can withstand this crisis. I can sing on about the China secular story, or the Indian one, or even Russia and Brazil for that matter; but to survive and prosper, the United States financial crisis must first start the healing process.

Can you do a piece about which sectors out-performed after the LTCM collapse, the Asia Contagion & the oil shock? I believe there are interesting parallels to learn from in all these historic events. Of course this situation is absolutely unique and its outcome will depend on governmental action and how the public reacts; but the prior events do provide an interesting indication of how people might respond. Could be a flight to staples, health-care and utilities. I still think there are compelling catalysts for global growth (Materials, Industrials & Energy), but this overhang is huge, because to grow one must first have access to capital - which seems to have evaporated from the system.

Commodities Should Profit from the Bailout Plan

There is much more to the basic materials sector than its role as a hedge against inflation. In global terms, India shall soon enter into a major upswing for basic materials as she tries to develop infrastructure in advance of the Commonwealth Games. Beyond the immediate cyclical trend, India is now preparing to build her infrastructure. The demand for India to do this will be unprecedented, even more than the demand during China's industrialization because China started with a far better infrastructure compared with that available in India.

My view:

Trading positions (few weeks) carry risks. Short term (few months) positions carry risk. Long term (1 year plus) risks are low. On a secular basis (next several years), the risk is low and the potential rewards high. Have a look at more information on my blog.
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