The Terrific 10
And now for the fun part. Putting together my 2011 list of 10 stocks for 10 years.Here are the five long-term picks already in the portfolio that I think will do best in 2011:
- Bunge (BG, news), the big global buyer, seller, storer, transporter and processor of soybean and other oil seeds, is a stock to own in a year that's shaping up to repeat the food-price spike of 2008.
- Cemex (CX, news) will see what was a handicap in 2010 -- the Mexican company's exposure to the moribund U.S. construction sector -- turn into an advantage. For once, Porfirio Díaz's lament -- Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the United States -- will be an advantage. (Well, at least if you're selling cement.) The stock lost 5.8% in 2010.
- Deltic Timber (DEL, news) sells timber and timberland for development. Amazingly, the stock was up 22.7% in 2010. This year should be better as life gradually returns to the U.S. housing market. (Let's say the housing market comes out of intensive care and investors conclude that the patient will actually survive.)
- Johnson Controls (JCI, news) did amazingly well in 2010 -- up 42.3% -- considering that two of the company's three businesses were in sectors of the economy that had been crushed. This year will be better for the company's auto-interior and auto-battery businesses and for its buildingwide energy-efficiency unit.
- Rayonier (RYN, news) is another timber producer with a lot of land that it was busy developing until the U.S. mortgage crisis hit. The gradual winding down of that crisis will make 2011 a better year for Rayonier. Not that 2010 was all that bad. The stock was up 29.4%.
- Baidu.com (BIDU, news): China's leading search engine operator has just started to tap into the market for electronic retailing.
- DuPont (DD, news): With its mix of seeds and enzymes acquired (not to recently) by buying Pioneer Hi-Bred and (very recently) Danisco, I think DuPont is targeting two of the biggest technology opportunities -- and challenges -- of the next decade. Those are growing more food and producing more energy from plants without making the first challenge more difficult.
- Fluor (FLR, news): With a choice between Jacobs Engineering and Fluor, I'd go with Fluor and its bigger backlog of orders.
- Gol Linhas Aeréas Inteligentes (GOL, news): Air travel is exploding in emerging economies as economic growth leads to increases in the number of people who can afford to fly. And on top of that, the low-cost domestic airline can look forward to a big increase in traffic as Brazil hosts the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016.
- Yingli Green Energy (YGE, news): Yingli is my choice for a horse to ride in China's solar industry.
