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Strategies & Market Trends : Stock Attack II - A Complete Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Challo Jeregy who wrote (28193)	1/23/2002 1:27:00 PM
From: Challo Jeregy	Respond to of 52237

The Asbestos Hot List By James J. Cramer 01/23/2002 12:29 PM EST Asbestos litigation. Out of control. Beyond belief. Destroying everything it touches. A new company gets named every single day that we didn't know about before. It's an epidemic that seems never to end. Who knows how many companies might get sued? Aha, that's an answer I know -- and am about to share with you. The locus of most of the asbestos lawsuits is the great state of Mississippi. Those of us who have monitored renegade tort actions know that Mississippi is the worst state of the 50, the one that allows the most plaintiffs to come in, with the lowest standards and the largest jury verdicts. It is no wonder that the Mississippi state attorney general led the fight against tobacco companies; his state is the promised land of tort actions, a virtual Camelot for these guys. You don't have to be a citizen of Mississippi to sue in Mississippi. You don't have to have made the product in Mississippi to get sued in Mississippi. In fact, Mississippi makes a mockery of the whole judicial system. It is the most anti-capitalist state in the union. Which is why I sent a representative down to Mississippi's courthouses in the two counties where the biggest jury verdicts against American companies are rendered. I asked my agent to cull the names of all the publicly traded companies that are being sued specifically for asbestos-related diseases. I don't want to exaggerate, I don't want to cause more fears than there have been already, but any one of the following companies could face other asbestos litigation. It is a long, extensive list and represents all of the publicly-traded defendants that currently face asbestos litigation in the worst two counties in the worst state in the Union. Consider it the worst-case list. I think you will find it a virtual who's who of American business. The list has holes. Honeywell (HON:NYSE - news - commentary - research - analysis), you will notice, isn't on the list; neither is Halliburton (HAL:NYSE - news - commentary - research - analysis). That's because they are being sued under subsidiaries long since divested. The list can't, by nature, be exhaustive. There are tons of companies on my raw list that I am still trying to trace to parent companies, but it takes forever. This way, at least you can understand that being sued for asbestos has become almost like getting hit by a dart thrown by a plaintiff's lawyer. What matters is whether a named company has been paying. That's why I am not worried about Viacom (VIA.B:NYSE - news - commentary - research - analysis); it has paid out little and in small amounts. It is the reason I was worried about HAL; it has been ordered to pay huge judgments (although I now think these are priced into the stock). I don't know much about these individual cases -- there are too many of them. But do not consider this a list of automatic sells or buys. Just be aware that as these cases flow through, all of these companies are going to be considered tainted with asbestos by the public -- whether they should be or not. Most important, it is why we need federal tort reform law. Right now Harris County and Holmes County in Mississippi are the two most important counties in the country. What a joke.