Massey Energy Company (MEE) has fully acquired 15 million tons of coal reserves in West Virginia from rival Appalachian Fuels LLC, which went bankrupt recently, for over $6 million. Massey has also acquired permits needed to develop infrastructure and plans to begin production at the Dante Coal Reserves site. The transaction was completed on November 13, 2009. Massey secured rights to the reserves through an auction in the bankruptcy of Appalachian Fuels. The acquisition was announced last month and completed on Nov. 13. The company expects the value of the reserves to increase significantly as conditions in the metallurgical coal market improve. The acquisition is Massey's second from Appalachian. In September, Massey bought 23 million tons of reserves and other assets in West Virginia's Fayette County from Appalachian for $5.1 million. Massey Energy is the fourth largest coal company in the US and the largest in ...

The commodities market is a popular place these days. For investors not ready to leap into an “optimized” play, the ETF market is filled with opportunities.

If you are in the metals market, your eyes are certainly watching the action out of China. The more the country builds and expands, the higher its demand for anything that is pulled from the ground.

If you have been paying attention, you already know copper prices reached their highest prices since last October early yesterday. Buyers had to shell out $6,258 for a metric ton of the vital base metal.

While it is disappointing to see prices slipping today, it is no surprise. The commodities markets have often moved in lock step with the global equities market. And with mixed economic data coming from Beijing today, it is surprising prices are not down even further today.

Even with a few nuggets of less-than-expected data, China’s economy

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Capitol Hill is moving faster than ever. We will get a Cap-and-Trade vote on Friday. The market has already cast its vote, making now a great time to make some smart investments. The Obama administration must be getting some schooling from Dealin’ Dave’s Used Car Sales.

Can’t you hear Nancy Pelosi saying to some farm-belt democrat, “What’s it going to take to get you into this climate bill tonight?”

One of the easiest “outs” for a potential car buyer is to say, “I like it, but let me go home and talk to my wife.”

It is no different with shoddy legislation. “I like it,” say our fence-sitting lawmakers, “but let me go home and talk to my constituents.”

Knowing if a customer leaves the lot, he may never come back, House leaders are working overtime to ensure the latest nefarious piece of legislation to come off of Capitol Hill gets a vote before

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Coal was one of our best performing sector groups in latter 2007 through summer 2008. While much of the focus of late has been on natural gas, the coal stocks have been ripping in even larger magnitude. I was a bull on coal over natural gas (although the market in its student body left trading simply moves all commodities together) because of the portability of coal over natural gas. We were early on this theme as the market was so focused on oil stocks at the time, and made a lot of money [Dec 6, 2007: Coal Stocks Quietly in Bull Market] I wrote a bevy of pieces about this 1.5 years ago… but again, the market is not very granular nowadays; it likes big sweeping themes that are simple: i.e. commodities good.

I have a litany of posts on just about

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If you have been paying attention, you know today’s surge from the coal industry is no big surprise. As much as he may want to, even Obama can’t slow the dirty fuel’s international growth.

It turns out I was not alone when I discussed my bullish outlook for the nation’s coal producers last week. Earlier today, a Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) analyst gave a similar opinion.

The only difference between my article and his note to clients? His sent the industry soaring.

As I wrote Friday, my favorite coal producer, James River Coal (NASDAQ:JRCC), used strong contract prices to beat its Q1 estimates and send shares surging. The momentum from last week’s announcement has continued through today. Over the last five trading sessions, shares of the company have jumped by more than 55%.

There is a bull on the loose, for sure.

Thanks to the analyst’s positive note, James River is

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Massey's (MEE) fundamentals signal growth, and the company is growing through coal mine acquisitions. Massey recently announced the acquisition of a metallurgical coal mine in West Virginia. The company noted that it can add significant metallurgical coal production almost immediately with relatively low start-up costs.

Company Description

Massey Energy Company, which is the fourth largest coal company in the United States based on produced coal revenue, is headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, with operations in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia.

Growth Through Mine Acquisition

The company recently announced the acquisition of a metallurgical coal mine in West Virginia. MEE noted that this acquisition can add significant metallurgical coal production almost immediately with relatively low start-up costs.

An Update on the Company's Guidance

In early September, Massey Energy backed its 2008 forecast, noting that it still expects full-year 2008 results, excluding a litigation charge recorded in the second quarter, to be within the ranges

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JEFFERIES INITIATES COVERAGE ON ARCH COAL WITH BUY

Jefferies analyst Michael Dudas tells salesforce believes global coal patterns should allow coal prices to sustain higher than historic pricing levels and current valuations don’t reflect robust earnings growth potential.

Specifically, for Arch Coal ($60 price target), he expects margin expansion, FCF generation. With coal as the fastest growing global fuel, he thinks Peabody Energy ($85 target) appears poised to benefit from increasing sales volumes, higher realized coal prices.

CONSOL Energy ($90 target) is poised to generate significant earnings growth from well-capitalized resource base. Massey Energy ($80 target) ranks as the largest, most diversified coal producer in Central Appalachia, and he expects the company to generate substantial margin improvement and free cash flow and EPS growth.

Track Michael’s picks at:

http://trackthepros.com/

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ZACKS RANK BUY STOCKS * Aggressive Growth -FLIR Systmes (FLIR) Since being featured as a Zacks Rank Buy, the company has surprised the street and finalized a new contract with the US Army.   * Growth & Income - Massey Energy (MEE) continues to see Wall Street lift earnings estimates. Full-year forecasts of $3.27 per share have risen by 4 cents in just the past week.     * Momentum - Pharmerica (PMC) shares have been advancing since originally being featured as a momentum stock in mid-July.   * Value - Cimarex Energy (XEC) has surprised on estimates 4 consecutive quarters, yet the stock has retreated from recent highs as crude prices have fallen.    

http://trackthepros.com/categories.php?category_id=742

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Last time I was screening top yielding stocks among S&P500 components and this time I run my fundamental stock screen for growth stocks. I set as a criteria "Estimated earnings growth for next 5 years" to be at least 25% per year. There are 18 companies with such a projected growth. For better picture I've also added P/E ratio and share price return on yearly and quarterly basis.Investing strategy based on strong projected EPS growth shows following results. S&P 500 index is yearly down by -18% and average return for selected stocks is up by 20%. On quarterly basis S&P 500 down by -9% and again beaten by growth stock with average return -2%. ...

In a tough tape on Friday Coal related stocks performed above average and look to continue to run with profitable expectations growing. Massey Energy (MEE), Alpha Natural Resources (ANR) and Arch Coal (ACI) all have rising earnings expectations and are at 52 week highs. Just this past Monday, a broker, David Khani from FBR Capital Markets raised his price guidance for coal for next couple of years. Massey Energy had a 1.48% increase on Friday when the S&P 500 fell 3%. This heavily covered producer of coal has had their current year earnings estimates increased for the current quarter from 0.50 to 0.76 in the past 90 days. The 13 analysts that cover the stock have also raised the yearly earnings estimates. The yearly earnings estimates have risen from 1.96 to 2.97 in the same 90 day period. Revenue is expected ...