Sure why wouldn’t Australia approve of Chinalco’s stake in Rio Tinto. Australia’s wealth has grown like a weed thanks to it’s biggest customer, China, and China’s buying of Australia’s commodities. So why not play buddy buddy with you’re biggest customer? Sure, other “developing countries” are growing too…and while this might sound awkward referring to a commie country like China…China’s actually good for it’s money. You don’t just want a customer that pays, but pays steadily and that you know they’re good for it. Some of the politically unstable countries? I dunno. Countries (well country- U.S.A.) with debt growing like a tumor? Not too sure either. But China, a country that’s growing fast and steadily, and strategizing around the world, such as with African nations, to secure it’s future growth, and with national reserves growing up the wazoo- just on interest alone. Yeah, I’d play buddy buddy with China too. It’s like in the old days how a king would send over his sister or daughter to marry another country’s royalty. In this case, I guess the princess’ name is Rio Tinto. But then eventually (well after a year or so) the two kingdom’s would be at war again and the sacrificial princess be killed. Let’s see how this modern remake plays out!

Australia approves Chinalco stake in Rio Tinto

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia has approved Chinese aluminum giant Chinalco’s recent purchase of a minority stake in Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto (RIO.AX: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) (RIO.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), but warned the Chinese firm against buying more shares without prior approval.

State-owned Aluminum Corp of China (Chinalco), backed by U.S. peer Alcoa Inc (AA.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), began amassing shares this year with the aim of taking up to 14.9 percent of Rio, the target of a $127 billion takeover bid from rival BHP Billiton (BHP.AX: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz)

Full Article: Australia approves Chinalco stake in Rio Tinto

Related SuckingLess.com Research Tools:

• Base Metals LME Charts and Prices: News, Reports and Research for Copper, Aluminium, COMEX, Nickel, Tin, Lead, Zinc, Iron, Steel
• Platts: Professional Energy and Metals Information (Prices, Data, Maps, Events, Magazines, Reports)
• globalCOAL: Coal Prices, News & Analysis, Trading System

As they say, when something goes up on bearish news, it’s probably time to buy. When they weren’t able to push oil lower today on that ridiculously huge build in crude inventories of 9M barrels, and oil actually ended higher, we might’ve found a short term bottom for oil and have begun the bounceback rally. Since oil’s the commodities General, all the commodities from energy to agriculture to metals bounced with vigor today. The commodities (and the companies fund managers treat like commodities- including my beloved McDermott, now in a wheelchair after having is legs cut out from under it) have dropped basically in a straight line since end of June/early July that a bounce was inevitable. Moreover, the commodities and the collateral damage of related names have fallen so far so fast, all so far below their 50 day moving average, 200 day moving average, you name it, that this countertrend rally would likely have some umph and last for a while. (Nucor closed at $52.5 and it’s 50 day moving average is nearly 20% higher around $63!) I’m ready to add to these sectors to ride the relief rally, but keeping in mind the magnificent commodities uptrend of the first half of the year has been broken. Unless there’s reason to believe otherwise, I shall treat this rally as what it is, a countertrend rally in a downtrending market, and sell into this rally.

However, I think there’s a good chance the commodities and their friends can re-take the uptrend. My calendar has just alerted me that Joe Terranova of CNBC’s Fast Money had called for natural gas to bottom this very week and to resume the uptrend began earlier this year. I mentioned this call Joe made in a previous post, where Joe alerted viewers to the natural gas rule of thumb “June highs July lows” at the end of June, telling people to take profits in natural gas right when natural gas looks like it could go up forever, but subsequently took a death dive from above $13 to below $8 in just a month or less. With the brunt of the hurricane season still to come in September and early October, and heating oil demand to drive oil demand in the winter, the coming months are usually bullish for energy. Now we just have to see how the price reacts to this bullish environment. If energy can’t re-take the uptrend in a bullish environment, it’s probably time to get out our parachutes and bail.

Anyway, yesterday was an interesting stabilization and reversal day. Even more impressive given the dollar didn’t fall (i.e move inversely to crude), thus possibly breaking the correlation between the dollar and oil. Looking forward to seeing how this develops!

Referenced SuckingLess.com Research Tools:

• The Oilfield Glossary by Schlumberger (SLB)
• FERC Natural Gas Markets: U.S. Government Data, Analysis, and Reports
• globalCOAL: Coal Prices, News & Analysis, Trading System
• Platts: Professional Energy and Metals Information (Prices, Data, Maps, Events, Magazines, Reports)
• Power Engineering Magazine: Power Generation Industry Magazine

** Disclosure: I own shares of MDR as of this post **

Looks like the new kids are doing a good job of holding down the old fort! Now let’s keep it that way.

HMC Named Leader in Ph.D Production

“Jul 22, 2008 - Claremont, Calif. - A new report by the National Science Foundation (NSF) lists Harvey Mudd College (HMC) as the leader among private baccalaureate colleges in the U.S. in the percentage of graduates who go on to earn Ph.D. degrees in science and engineering.

The report, issued by the Division of Science Resources Statistics, traces the baccalaureate degree origins of science and engineering (S&E) doctorate recipients from 1997 to 2006 and ranks them by doctorate recipients per hundred. California Institute of Technology, classified by the Carnegie Foundation as a doctorate-granting institution with high research activity, was ranked first with 35.2 doctorate recipients per hundred bachelor’s degrees awarded nine years earlier. HMC, classified as a baccalaureate institution because it grants only a bachelor of science degree, was ranked second at 24.9; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (doctorate granting, high research) was third at 16.6; and Reed College (baccalaureate) was fourth at 16.6.” full article >>

Princeton Review Names HMC One of “The Best 368 Colleges”

“Jul 30, 2008 - Claremont, Calif. - Harvey Mudd College (HMC) is one of the nation’s best institutions for undergraduate education, according to The Princeton Review.

The New York-based education services company features the college in the 2009 edition of its annual guidebook, “The Best 368 Colleges.”

Only about 15 percent of America’s 2,500 four-year colleges and two Canadian colleges appear in the book, which offers two-page profiles of each school and student survey-based ranking lists of top 20 colleges in more than 60 categories. ” full article >>

Industrial machinery conglomerate Ingersoll Rand (IR) will report second quarter earnings this morning. This is not an earnings preview post or comments about my expectations. Obviously this market is not right in the head, cookoo, insane, whatever you want to call it. So I’m not expecting the stock price to correlate with the fundamental story one way or another. I do want to point out to folks that Ingersoll Rand is a completely different beast that we’ve all known it as. No longer is it construction equipment or the road building machinery that we’ve all seen when driving around. While it still has a lot of those identifiably Ingersoll products, Ingersoll Rand went through a dramatic transformation this past year as it sold off Bobcat (small excavators and loaders) and acquired heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) maker Trane.

Folks should forget the old Ingersoll Rand and focus on the newly-acquired Trane business as that should be the pride and joy going forward. Trane was such a big acquisition that Trane is now the dominant business for Ingersoll Rand, and rightly so. HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) is a major component of both the infrastructure and energy theme, but a story which the media has chosen to neglect. Given the high energy prices, more attention should be paid to HVAC systems since the heating and cooling of buildings, homes, factories, etc. is actually the top user of energy in the U.S. All this talk of alternative fuels for our cars or solar power pales in comparison to the amount of energy we could save on heating and cooling buildings. Also, energy conservation rather than increasing energy production would lighten the load on our already failing power grid. Similarly, it would save costs as we wouldn’t have to build out our power grids and increase power generation capacities with new power plants, wind farms, solar panels, etc.

Last summer, I wrote an in-depth piece on this topic in Four Energy Efficiency Trades for a Cool Summer. I think it’s such a decently written piece that I’m not gonna do it again- just read it! But remember, Trane was a brand of American Standard at the time of the publication, but Trane is now part of Ingersoll Rand. So what was said about Trane now applies to Ingersoll Rand. In 2003, I was part of a team that conducted an energy efficiency study of the Keck Science Building of the Claremont Colleges (CA), working with both Trane and Johnson Controls (JCI) on proposed solutions. I can attest to the importance and viability of the HVAC system to increase energy efficiency.

For a closer look into the “new” Ingersoll Rand, Jim Cramer had a great Mad Money segment dedicated to it: The Great Transformation of Ingersoll-Rand. He explained it much better than I can. Take a gander. Or, read the segment’s transcript on Mad Money Recap.

Referenced Resources:

• Industrial 101: Industrial Products and Equipment for Dummies
• FERC Electric Power Markets: U.S. Government Data, Analysis, and Reports
• Jim Cramer’s Mad Money: The Great Transformation of Ingersoll-Rand
• The Great Transformation of Ingersoll-Rand Transcript
• Mad Money Recap

** Disclosure: I am long IR calls as of this post **