Triple your money with Trinity Industries

Trinity Industries is one of my top picks for this year. For that reason I decided to share with you an article that shows exactly some reasons behind my choice. Take a look and see why this stock has legs to run.

" Buy Trinity Industries
By Byron King

Now that the Obama Administration is about to descend upon Washington DC, the nation’s list of “Top Priorities” will receive a makeover. I will leave it to political pundits to evaluate the pros and cons of the makeover. My beat is investing. So I will be looking for opportunity in those industries that seem most likely to prosper during the early days of the Obama Administration. Clean Energy and Infrastructure are two leading candidates…which is why Trinity Industries (NYSE: TRN. Recent price: $16.68) is one very promising stock.

Trinity is a multi-industry company. It has divisions that sell products and services to the construction, transportation, industrial and energy sectors of the economy. Trinity’s five principal business units include its Railcar, Railcar Leasing and Management Services, Inland Barge, Construction Products and Energy Equipment groups.

I’ll get to the windmill angle shortly. But first, I want to explain that each of Trinity’s business units has its own story. And this helps put the windmill tower business in perspective.

Trinity’s Railcar group has a long history of building and repairing railway cars and components. These include auto carrier cars, boxcars, gondolas, hopper cars, intermodal cars, specialty cars and tank cars. So Trinity has long experience in fabricating metal for tough outdoor jobs like railway equipment.

And Trinity’s Construction Products group has a long history producing concrete, aggregates and asphalt, as well as highway products like the beams and girders used in highway bridge construction. Thus, the Construction group has solid experience serving customers in the construction and foundation industry.

But the business group that we want to focus on is the Energy Equipment Group (EEG). The EEG manufactures large tank systems (such as propane tanks), tank containers, tank heads for pressure vessels and structural wind towers.

So the EEG capitalizes on Trinity’s long experience in building robust metal systems like rail cars and pressure tanks. And the EEG utilizes the corporate experience in the foundation and construction work that the Construction group has.

Trinity’s Energy Equipment Group produces wind towers through a wholly owned subsidiary called Trinity Structural Towers Inc. Quite simply, TSTI fabricates tubular towers, and I mean BIG tubular towers.

These tubular towers are the large poles on which the windmill turbines sit. They can be 20 or more feet in diameter at the base, and 250 or more feet high. Some of the poles even have an elevator inside, so the maintenance people can get to the top. And some of the towers are so big that you could land a helicopter on the topside platform. Is that big enough for you?

These massive towers have to be able to withstand the utmost in stress. First, there’s the windmill turbine and blades that can weigh up to 100 tons - the weight of a fully-fueled Boeing 757. And then this assembly has to handle the stress of high winds, heavy rainstorms and lightning strikes. The towers will spend the next 40 or 60 or 80 years exposed to the elements. The turbine blades at the top can be over 200 feet long and rotate at speeds of over 20 revolutions per minute. That’s a full revolution of the blade set every three seconds. And that’s one heck of a lot of stress. So only the strongest tower systems can hold up.

Just the tower foundations alone can go 50 or more feet into the Earth. And because soil and bedrock conditions change over any large area, almost every windmill tower requires its own unique engineering, excavation and construction plan.

So TSTI offers an array of services related to design, fabrication, construction, installation, testing, operation and maintenance of windmill towers and generating systems. In this respect, TSTI provides steel turbine components, concrete and aggregates, product transportation and specialized coatings that relate to wind tower design and construction. (Just the effort to transport these large tower components to the site is a logistical business in and of itself.)

TSTI operates some massive production facilities. Indeed, the TSTI plants are among the largest production facilities in North America for fabricating tubular wind towers. TSTI can fabricate to the detailed design of a turbine manufacturer like GE, Vestas or Gamesa. Or TSTI can work with customers to design and fabricate towers that meet unique criteria for both the turbine and project location.

TSTI subjects its towers to strict quality tests similar to those used for building high-pressure tanks and railway tank cars. And Trinity adds value with its extensive corporate experience (from railway cars and barges) in coating structures exposed to every conceivable weather condition. This is critical for the future maintenance and safety of the tower. After all, the tower holds up the turbine and generator. And a steady generator is the key to the overall reliability of the power system — not just of the windmill itself, but for feeding power into the overall electric grid.

Trinity is currently producing towers to support turbines as large as 2.5 megawatts, enough electricity to power about 1,750 homes ( or two average-sized Wal Mart stores). The next generation of turbines will be rated at 3 megawatts or more, and Trinity will have towers for those, as well.

Wind power currently produces a fraction of 1% of the U.S. total electrical supply. But there are plans and policies afoot to increase U.S. electric power output to more than 20% of the total supply within the next 20 years. The only way to do this is by setting big turbines onto big tubular towers. No, make that lots of big turbines onto lots of big tubular towers.

And who makes those big tubular towers? Now you know.

Trinity stock is trading at about $34 per share, down from its 52-week high of $41.15. Trinity’s market capitalization is $2.8 billion, and the company has a relatively low price-to-earnings ratio of 8.8. Demand for rail cars and barges has fallen in the past year, and this has hurt Trinity’s overall profitability. But Trinity is compensating with a fast-growing backlog of orders for windmill towers. Trinity even pays a dividend of 32 cents per share, or a yield of about 0.9%.

I expect Trinity to be a growing stock, even in a market that will be weighed down by many other negative economic and political issues going forward. By the end of 2009, Trinity could be selling for $46 per share."

Source : Buy Trinity Industries

Chart courtesy of www.stockcharts.com ( click to enlarge )

From a technical perspective the share price ruled weak in line with my view outlined last week. It dropped below the negative trigger level of 14.84 ( MM50 ), which has imparted weakness. The short-term outlook remains bearish, however TRN seems to have reached a level that has a strong support. If nothing happen, TRN offers a clearly defined entry point level, limited risk, and good profit potential. Honestly I think the stock is way under valued at current prices and could have a big rally in the next few weeks, and should be bought not sold.

Disclaimer : Trading stocks involves risk, this information should not be viewed as trading recommendations.The charts provided here are not meant for investment purposes and only serve as technical examples.

That's all Folks. See you tomorrow !!!

AC

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