Once again highlighting why it never hurts to take profits -
Arch Coal (ACI) apparently is disappointing the street with guidance of 70-110% earnings growth - not good enough! Stock falls. Essentially a wide range in which the bottom is far below the current consensus...
$2.00 - $2.50 (analysts in at $2.48). The stock was near $53 this AM, now back at $47. I don't have the old guidance ahead of me, but this range is up sharply from last year's $1.21, but analysts got ahead of themselves and were looking for 100% earnings growth. For a coal company? eek.
- Arch Coal (ACI.N: Quote, Profile, Research), a key coal producer, expects big growth in per share earnings this year, company Chief Executive Steve Leer said on Monday.
- Earnings per share were seen coming in at $2.00 to $2.50 in 2008, up sharply from $1.21 last year, Leer said in a presentation at the April 6-10 Howard Weil Energy Conference in New Orleans.
More important (to me), in this day to day noise... i.e. wow you only plan to grow 80% instead of 100%, sell it off!.... is the
comments of a coal shortage....sort of coincides with a lot we've been hearing ... shortages mean 1 thing ... higher prices. All good to me as an investor (not so good if you like to heat your home) The "World of Shortages" theme continues to play out week by week, month by month, under the radar. Again, for the 100th time - the US is in a global competition for resources; all these folks stuck in 1980s thinking of "when the US slows, the price of every commodity will fall off the cliff" are ethno-centric, narcissistic, and over the long run will be proven wrong (over the short run, the dominant thinking of when the US is slow, prices must go down can control the stock price downward)
- Global coal supply will fall short by up to 35 million tons in 2008 and the deficit is set to grow going forward, ensuring that prices remain strong, the CEO of coal miner Arch Coal Inc (ACI) said on Monday.
- "We estimate that global supply of coal will be short between 25 and 35 million tons this year," Steve Leer told analysts at an energy conference.
- "We will end up using more and more coal going forward," he told analysts at the April 6-10 Howard Weil Energy Conference in New Orleans. He said very strong international markets were leading a strong domestic market.
We're addicted to energy... I've said many times, why the Federal Government is not throwing 10 x 10 sq mile solar grids in AZ and NV is beyond me. Or nuclear plants. Or refiners on old army bases. Any solutions from those knuckleheads? I do realize the solar lobby (does it exist) does not line the pockets like the farmers, banks, or homebuilders, but throw the peons of this country a peanut Washington...
I'm so "concerned", by this "earnings disappointment" I am going to take this opportunity to buy more here in the $47s, replacing what I sold this AM around $52. Thank you.
Long Arch Coal in fund and personal account
