CAT and HON, the importance of earnings, really?

cat july 2011 hon july 2011

Both charts superficially look alike. Both have very distinct B-waves , I think. Caterpillar, the one on the left, far exceeded its old highs primarily as a result of being the beneficiary of a lot of digging going on in mining and construction. Honeywell, on the right, did not do quite as well but did manage to, more or less, equal the old high (double-topping), and, hitting the underside of the previous channel.

Today both reported earnings, CAT was better by 44% and HON by 40%, and quite obviously both stocks traded down, CAT by as much as $7. It is not that CAT did not meet or exceed expectations, they almost all do. It is just that the CEO said a few things about China and the US administration that the market misunderstood or simple did not like. Earnings over the long haul are obviously important but in an environment where even large corporations go from shutting down to overtime in very short periods and where costs of capital are artificially reduced to zero and where productivity goes through the roof due to previous firings only to crash again due to exhaustion, it does not make a lot of sense to pay attention to. If these are B-waves, both stocks will go down regardless of earnings.

HNO and HON, Horizons long natgas/short oil or visa versa

HNO March 26, 2010 HON March 26 , 2010

With the expectation that oil would come off the $88 or so level and natural gas would hardly budge this new product would be a great tool to play the game with a single trade , just make sure you buy the one intended, in this case HNO. I have no idea where oil will go next but after a $20 drop some rebound is not unlikely so I would exit the trade.

Fundamentally the trade  (is this a contradiction in terms?) to do is , of course , to buy the HNO and not the HON. The reason being is that the shale gas phenomenon has had a disruptive effect on the (always local) price of natural gas. This is not, according to the experts, a sustainable situation, in fact , it may be very short-lived as the shale gas depletion rate is extraordinary high. Oil ,on the other hand , is never priced locally (with a few exceptions like Venezuela, and some of the Arab states) and is destined only to go up if one believes the ex-chief economist with one of our banks. Ergo , over time, HNO should  go up as the ratio between the two energy sources gets back to a more logical thermal equivalent.

For the moment we are out and just keeping an eye on this.