Bookkeeping: Closing Foster Wheeler (FWLT) and CF Industries (CF)

I am closing 2 of the remaining 5 "global growth/commodity" positions - global engineering firm Foster Wheeler (FWLT) , and CF Industries (CF) which is a fertilizer maker that is focused more on nitrogen with some phosphates mixed in (no exposure to potash) We held both positions since day 1 in the fund, so these are among our last "original holdings"

1. CF Industries (CF) we are closing just under $66, and was a 2.8% position going into the day, playing "the bounce" from Friday's lows. We had a good run, making $23K on this name although we obviously had a much larger gain earlier in the year. The reasons to keep are a very high cash position ($22/share I believe) so the rest of the business is being valued at almost nothing; a very cheap stock; and I continue to believe fertilizer stocks are the least exposed to a global slowdown. But that does not matter in this day and age of computerized trading where every commodity is the same. Nitrogen prices are faltering worse than phosphates (potash is not faltering at all) so there is also risk there ALTHOUGH this stock has priced in nitrogen going to $0. But I can play the same theme with our 2 other fertilizer stocks.
   
2. Foster Wheeler (FWLT) we closed just under $33, but only was a 0.8% stake coming into the day. We lost $11K on this position. I believe this price will be seen as a steal in 1-3 years down the road, but I thought that as I sold Fluor (FLR), Jacobs Engineering (JEC), and McDermott (MDR) the past few months at far higher prices. I also think this is a buyout candidate since it is dirt cheap. This closes out our exposure to global engineering firms which again, I believe have excellent customers, mostly flush with cash in petro dollars or Asian trade surplus nations BUT the hedge fund computers don't care.
   

These are 2 excellent companies but in this market, individual stocks seem to not matter - only sectors in or out of favor. So we have 3 stocks left in this space which we will keep as trading vehicles - 2 fertilizer and 1 coal. I can buy a natural gas stock, an oil stock, a drilling stock, a global engineering stock - anyone reading for months on end will have seen by evidence I've presented it really does not matter - these are all being punished or rewarded equally. When the market once again begins to reward individual names for their company specific pros or cons, and/or the light is at the end of the tunnel (6-9 months ahead of a global recovery) we'll be very heavy back into these type of positions and over the next 5-10 years these will be among our top positions. But the next 3-9 months we have to look elsewhere as a focus.

No position