world news - 15.03.2011
Steel, Iron Ore, Lumber Trade Higher After Japanese Quake
The financial markets are emotional venues, but also cold-hearted places. Investors are quickly selling stocks with negative exposure to the quake, but also looking for opportunity, as unseemly as that may sound. Among the winners today: those firms that could benefit from
reconstruction as well as diminished competition in the near term. For
instance, steelmakers. Dow Jones reports that Steel Index, a Lodon-based
price provider, says several Japanese steel mills were affected by the
quake. U.S. Steel is up 3.6%, Nucor is up 3.2% and AK Steel is the top
performing S&P 500 stock, up nearly 6%. Cliffs Natural Resources, a
big iron ore player, is up almost 3%. Heavy-equipment giant Caterpillar is up 0.5%. Also, lumber futures
are trading about 1% higher, according to data provider FactSet.
See also:
- — Timber firms may gain from Japan quake
- — Norwegians afraid of pests in Canadian wood chips
- — The Danish Government presents a promising energy plan
- — Estonian state forests’ PEFC certification should encourage private forest owners
- — Russia to cut timber duty when joins WTO -EU trade chief