I'll start a position in BTU.
Peabody Coal is the world's largest publicly-held coal company. Company has been around for more than 100 years, and has gone through many ownership changes.
Here are some negatives (excluding coal itself, not a "fun" product or discussion topic -g-)
1. Latest corporate restructuring in '98 means it's hard to get a good handle on company's long-term performance.
2. Most (?) new generating plants are being designed for natural gas, not coal.
3. Company is VERY diversified in energy-related businesses, including (ugh) trading.
4. Company is intending to build generating plants at some of its coal sites (to avoid shipping coal to distant plants). May be a profitable opportunity, but surely a large company capital investment.
5. Earnings estimates for this year look like they've been lowered.
OTOH, for some reason, 8 of 8 analysts rate this thing as buy or strong buy, according to Yahoo.
Selling near it's annual low, at 1.2X book value, being dominant in its industry, with the possibility that political/social views might favor USA's coal as a strong part of "energy-independence", I'll take some BTU now and will try to hold for 12 months to see if there's a turnaround in the stock.
Paul Senior |
