| Overseas Growth to Send Airplane Lessors to New Heights Stone Fox Capital submits:Anybody just focusing on domestic US traffic would miss how the rest of the world is seeing explosive growth in airplane traffic. For airplane lessors it's mostly about international growth and with Boeing (BA) continuing to struggle to get its new plane out it just makes the planes owned by lessors like AerCap (AER) and Genesis Lease (GLS) more valuable. Below are a couple of examples of the explosive growth seen outside the US and in places other then China and India.LAN Airlines is one of the leading airlines in Latin America with a dominant position in Chile and Peru plus operations in Argentina and Ecuador. It reported a huge 11.9% increase in system traffic for September.Complete Story » seekingalpha.com |
Thoughts on Northrop Grumman's Relocation and Municipal Investments Ryan Avent submits: Northrop Grumman (NOC) is preparing to move its headquarters from southern California to the Washington area. In terms of direct employment, the shift will be small — a couple hundred new jobs joining the 21,000 already employed by the company in region. Here’s how the Biz Journal leads its story on the news:The company broke the news in a news release Monday, saying it is considering locations in D.C., Maryland and Virginia. Northrop Grumman will complete the search by the spring of this year and open its new corporate office by the summer of 2011. It expects to base its decision on the amount of financial incentives offered by local jurisdictions.Complete Story » seekingalpha.com |
Deconstructing Buffett Felix Salmon submits: Alice Schroeder has two interesting takes on Berkshire Hathaway’s (BRK.A) acquisition of Burlington Northern (BNI). In her BusinessWeek cover story on Warren Buffett, she explains the hidden upside: Buffett always likes a sweetener, and Burlington gives him one in the form of information. He learns about wallboard demand from USG and consumer-credit trends from American Express, but Rose has called the railroad a kaleidoscope of the economy. Rail traffic patterns are a window on commodity, wholesale, consumer, and international trade flows. Buffett is adding this kaleidoscope to what his other CEOs tell him about the “reset of the consumer” to a lower level of spending. They feed him data from Berkshire’s portfolio of companies—sales of building materials, jewelry, furniture, real estate, credit, fractional jets, vacuum cleaners, fabricated steel, newspaper ad lineage, and other products and services. He may now command as much information about the state of the U.S. economy as anyone, including the Federal Reserve—and probably gets his faster.Complete Story » seekingalpha.com |
June Railtime Indicators Report Shows Further Strength in Rails The Pragmatic Capitalist submits: From the AAR: U.S. freight railroads riginated 1,153,675 carloads in May 2010, an average of 288,419 carloads per week. That’s up 15.8% from May 2009 (which is the second highest percentage gain ever, behind April 2010 — see chart below right) but down 11.8% from May 2008. U.S. railroads averaged 294,758 carloads per week in April 2010 and 288,793 in March 2010. Thus, May 2010’s average was actually down slightly from those months (see chart below left). One month does not a trend make, but it would obviously be worrisome if the decline continued. In May 2010, 18 of the 19 major commodity categories saw carload gains compared to May 2009, but just one saw carload gains compared to May 2008. Commodities with the largest carload gains included coal (up 32,081 carloads, or 6.8%), steel and other primary metal products (up 19,641 carloads, or 96.6%), and motor vehicles and parts (up 19,138 carloads, or 58.1%). The tables and charts beginning on page 5 have much more commodity-level detail. U.S. railroads originated 867,516 intermodal trailers and containers in May 2010, an average of 216,879 per week (see chart top of next page). That’s the highest average since October 2008, up 18.9% from May 2009, and the largest year-over-year monthly gain since AAR records begin in 1990. Intermodal volume has risen in absolute terms for three straight months. As was the case in April 2010, the big year-over-year percentage gains in May 2010 U.S. rail traffic were partly a function of easy comparisons (May 2009 was a miserable month for rail traffic) and partly a function of real traffic growth. Complete Story » seekingalpha.com |
Celadon Group Inc. F4Q10 (06/30/2010) Earnings Call Transcript Celadon Group Inc. (CLDN) F4Q10 (06/30/2010) Earnings Call August 2, 2010 11:00 AM ETComplete Story » seekingalpha.com |