Invest Naked

Invest Naked

Invest naked keeps harping how good a long term value Shaw Group is. Te just reported earning for Q2 2008 fiscal earnings. Earnings were up sharply from the same quarter last year, but fell short of analysys expectations due to a couple one-time charges - a non-cash foreign exchange lossand higher than expected taxes.

Recently they have won contracts to rebuild the levy system in New Orleans, a dredging contract for the Hudson River, and a plethora or Military contracts. But Nuclear power plant contracts are growing their order backlog of $14.2 billion (up 26 percent from a year ago) faster than any other category. The company said it expected $5.6 billion of the backlog to be converted to revenue during the next 12 months.

Nuclear power is one of America’s safest sources of energy, all without producing a single pound of air pollution and greenhouse gases.

Westinghouse (20% of which is owned by Shaw Group) and Shaw Group, Inc. clinched a $6.9 Billion order to build the first nuclear power plants since the Three Mile Island Incident (1979) in Florida. They are also in the running for 2 more reactors in Texas worth another $8 Billion, and are in the running for two more orders in South Carolina. The Westinghouse/Shaw Consortium is also in the process of building 4 more reactors in China, 4 in Korea, and bidding on 2 more reactors in Africa.

Sectors in Play

A new quarter, a fresh review of our core holdings. Raytheon, Shaw Group and Corning all revised future earnings upward. Caterpillar and Superior Energy didn't revise numbers yet, but their stocks did increase in value.

Raytheon is Invest Naked's military play. How can we go wrong while the country is still in combat in the middle east. Raytheon is also getting contracts from foreign governments.

Shaw Group has their Q2/08 earnings call April 9, the first of our core holdings. Shaw has kept busy acquiring new contracts with the US Military and large projects in Asian nations. The big profits are on the horizon as some of those large projects get ramped up this year. I still look to '09 to be their big year with the giant backlog of orders starting to churn profits.

Caterpillar stock has been doing the slow crawl up in stock price. Farm prices are skyrocketing, and as farmers make more they are putting the profits back into their investment through CAT machines. Farms prices will not drop with the dollar still trading as low as it is against forign currencies, and Ethanol taking food from our mouths and putting it into our cars.

Superior Energy is still working on big decommissioning contracts. They have some oil reserves, but the money is with them decommissioning old and damaged oil platforms.

Corning is unaffected by the US economic downturn with respect to LCD sales. This summer will spur LCD sales worldwide from people wanting to watch the Olympics in Hi-Def. Verizon contracted with Corning to provide the new bendable fiber as they roll FIOS services to customers.