Chicago Bridge & Iron Company NV (CBI) reported net income of $40.8 million, or 42 cents per diluted share, for the third quarter of 2009, compared with $8.6 million, or 9 cents per diluted share, in the third quarter of 2008. This was higher than Zacks Consensus Estimate of 38 cents per share. Revenue for the quarter was $1.0 billion compared with third quarter 2008 revenue of $1.6 billion.  New awards for the reported quarter totaled $1.6 billion, including CB&I’s $550 million Gorgon LNG contract in Australia and the $530 million GASCO award in Abu Dhabi. With less work, the company cut sales-related costs 39%, although overhead shrank by a more modest 12%.  Earlier, the company had announced that it has agreed to buy hydrogen-management technology from H2Gen Innovations Inc. in order to get hold of the Mars modularized Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) technology. H2Gen's PSA technology ...

The overall industry structure is rather concentrated, with a few producers being a high proportion of sales. Production cuts of up to 35% are occurring to keep operating rates in the low-80s and keep the market balanced.

OPPORTUNITIES

There is higher consumption of metals in the Asia Pacific region, especially China and India. This is due to per capita consumption rising towards U.S./European levels. There are vastly improved balance sheets with solid liquidity. Among the Buy-recommended stocks in the space at this time includes AK Steel Holdings, Inc. (

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Our current outlook for the Metals & Mining industry is neutral. We will now cite the pros and cons of this group at the present time.

OPPORTUNITIES

There is higher consumption of metals in the Asia/Pacific region, especially China and India. This is due to per capita consumption rising towards U.S./European levels. The overall industry structure is rather concentrated, with a few producers representing a high proportion of sales. There are vastly improved balance sheets with solid liquidity. Production cuts of up to 35% are occurring that is keeping operating rates in the low-80s and keeping the market balanced. Currently, we have a Buy rating on AK Steel Holdings, Inc. (

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Our current outlook for the Metals & Mining industry is neutral. We will now cite the pros and cons of this group at the present time.

OPPORTUNITIES

There is higher consumption of metals in the Asia/Pacific region, especially China and India. This is due to per capita consumption rising towards U.S./European levels. The overall industry structure is rather concentrated, with a few producers representing a high proportion of sales. There are vastly improved balance sheets with solid liquidity. Production cuts of up to 35% are occurring that is keeping operating rates in the low-80s and keeping the market balanced. Currently, we have a Buy rating on AK Steel Holdings, Inc. (

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Unearth Big Gains from the Commodity “Supercycle”

The latest research from the Investment U Advisory Panel Friday, November 28, 2008: Issue #893

Consider that your computer could contain up to 38 separate chemical elements and that all of those elements needed to be mined and refined. Everything from cell phones to housing supplies requires massive amounts of raw materials.

Our modern lifestyle encourages us to buy the latest products, all made with increasing amounts of technology - and more raw materials.

But industrialized nations aren’t the only players clamoring for these commodities. Developing nations around the world are pounding the table for more of everything. They want what the industrialized west has had for years. And they want it now.

And that’s just the problem. There isn’t enough of it being produced fast enough to satisfy everyone. An imbalance exists between producers, supplies and ...

Financial NewsJason Corcoran in Moscow23 June 2008 Investment climate is steady as new leader continues reform agenda Russia’s equity markets are enjoying the country’s honeymoon period under its new leadership, but investors remain wary of how the power-sharing arrangement will evolve.The changing of the guard on May 7 saw Vladimir Putin hand over the presidential mantle to his protégé Dmitry Medvedev. Within hours, Medvedev had nominated his mentor Putin as Prime Minister.The smooth choreography proved to be a fillip for Russia’s main stock markets and sparked a buying spree by foreign funds.The MSCI Russia Index was the best performing emerging equity market last month, rising 15.7%, and outperforming the MSCI EM Emea index, which rose 7.3% in the same month. Inflows recorded in the third week of May of $542m (€350m) were the highest in Russia ...

For mental health reasons, we hardly ever watch CNBC anymore. But glancing at it this afternoon, at one point we saw three separate live graphics displaying the price of crude oil. So much screen space was taken up by live oil trackers, there wasn’t enough space left to show the chart of whatever alternative energy company they were pumping.

Was oil making a new high today? Did the U.S. unilaterally attack another country?  Did someone accidentally double-park in the Strait of Hormuz?  No.

If you feel like it’s been impossible to get away from oil and oil-related stories for too many years to count, that’s because you’re right. The CXO blog has a nice report up on a momentum-based sector investing strategy, and as they explain, the primary reason the strategy massively outperforms the S&P over the

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