Street Justice: Keep on truckin'!

Greetings, and welcome back to another installment of pin the tail on the Bear. So, yeah another good day with the exceptions of a few companies. The DOW was up like 130 points yesterday, oil behaved and the dollar continues it's upward momentum. I'd be stoked to see a couple weeks like this. Speaking of being stoked, I've got 3 companies today that oughta keep your portfolio happy.
First outta the chute today is VMI/Valmont Industries. They produce fabricated metal products. These products include engineered metal structures and components for the lighting, traffic and wireless communication industries. They also manufacture metal and concrete structures for the North American Utility Industry and supply parts to the agriculture and irrigation industries. VMI has also just begun supplying the Wind Energy Development Industry with accessories. VMI has extremely high relative value, timing and safety(almost the highest I've seen). They have climbed(price) 27% over the past 52 weeks and are up 18% for the week. Valmont has an historic EPS growth rate of 38% and a projected earnings growth of 26%. Annual sales for VMI are up 20%. Owning VMI will yield you a $.52 per share dividend with a 14% dividend growth rate. O.k. where was I? I need to get my bearings, bearings like directions, directions are found with a compass. CMP/Compass Minerals to be exact. They mine and produce rock and highway deicing salt. CMP processes and markets the salt for a number of applications including paper bleaching, water treatment, food flavoring, highway deicing and as a nutrient for animal feed. CMP also provides a specialty fertilizer used to grow chloride sensitive crops like tobacco and turfgrass, operating in the US, Canada and the UK. Compass has very good relative value, timing and safety. CMP is up an impressive 123% over the past 52 weeks and continues to climb with a 6% gain over the week. They have also seen EPS rise 13% for the quarter and are projected to have earnings increase 34%. CMP has an annual sales growth of 38%. They pay a dividend of $1.34 per share with a growth of 9%. My final company for today is GTI/Graftech International. They manufacture and distribute graphite carbon electrodes and cathodes which are used in electric arc furnace steel production and aluminum smelting. GTI supplies the transportation, semi-conductor and petrochemical industries among others throughout the US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil and other countries around the world. GTI has excellent relative value and timing, but the relative safety is low(0.72 of 2.00). Graftech has climbed 47% over the past 52 weeks and has a 9.5% gain over the week. EPS for GTI were up 40% for the quarter and are projected to grow 36%. GTI has an annual sales growth of 17%.
I must say I'm enjoying what I'm seeing in the market so far this week. It looks as though America is shedding it's skin once again. It will be a lengthy process, but one that's begun nonetheless. I am surprised(pleasantly) that some of the gloomy earnings reports we got(ACX, GOOG) didn't affect the market as much as I thought it would. Don't get me wrong the companies that announced the earnings took some hits, but they did not cause sector wide losses that can come with bad news. Overall from where I'm sitting things are looking up.
You all must be sick and tired of hearing about how happy I am and how great I think the market is doing lately. Whats your take on things? Are you a bearish investor whose been raking in the dough on gold and oil over the past year? Or, are you like me and glad to be seeing some light at the end of the bear cave? Let me know.
"I'll buy that for a dollar!" That phrase may have some meaning again soon. I know I'm a little preemptive, but isn't hat the point? I think the dollar is poised for some serious comeback against a few of it's crosses. The indestructible Euro is facing some serious challenges ahead and our friends down under may be in for some slowdown or currency problems. I hate to benefit from other peoples misfortunes, but in this case we're just playing catch up.
O.k. then, I'm off to work. It looks like the market is holding on for one more day. The 3 companies I went over today oughta keep your portfolio hanging on. I hope so, cause we're all in this together. Thanks for reading.