PPG Industries (PPG) shares are down nearly 5% as the company just announced profits for the quarter will come in below current analyst expectations. Management said the market softness which was seen initially in the U.S. industrial markets has now spread globally. The company sees the biggest weakness specifically in its industrial coatings segment, including automotive, [...]

PPG Sees Fourth-quarter Earnings Below Street Estimate

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For companies, they're only getting more expensive.

Market-trouncing returns could be written in these four stars.

Filed under: General Electric (GE), Coca-Cola (KO), PepsiCo (PEP), Exxon Mobil (XOM), Market matters, Walt Disney (DIS), Caterpillar (CAT), Chevron Corp (CVX), duPont(E.I.)deNemours (DD), Dow Chemical (DOW), DJIA, Stocks to Buy, Cramer on BloggingStocks

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer takes a look at the next six Dow stocks: Caterpillar, Chevron, Coca-Cola, Disney, Du Pont and General Electric.

Editor's note: This is the second part of Jim Cramer's series of predictions for the Dow components in 2009. If you missed the first part, you can go to Cramer bullish on the Dow for '09 -- Part I

Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) (Cramer's Take): Here's a direct play on a turn in China and a huge stimulus plan by President-elect Obama. I believe the dividend is safe, and I trust management when it says that 2009's second half can be much better than the first half, even though I am in a lonely minority on that front. The decision to freeze wages and fire a bunch of people made sense and made me believe the company cares more about maintaining the dividend through hard times than I thought it did.

I believe the stock will get gigantic orders from the U.S. government after the passing of a stimulus plan. You can't build any infrastructure without Caterpillar's equipment, and the government ain't buying tractors from Komatsu. Helped by its 4% yield, the stock will go back to $55, a fantastic move, even though first-quarter earnings will be horrible. Don't forget, China's coming back, and that's a second big customer.

Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: Cramer bullish on the Dow for '09 -- Part II

Cramer on BloggingStocks: Cramer bullish on the Dow for '09 -- Part II originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 06 Jan 2009 09:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PPG Industries (PPG), a paint and chemicals maker, forecast Q4 EPS of 35-45 cents, well below views of 72 cents. Shares fell 4.2% to 39.71.

Ever since Cramer went on the Today Show and advised investors with shorter term goals to sell stocks if they planned to hold for less than five years, he’s been mostly been ostracized in the news. I do believe however that this was a useful piece of advice for anyone that needs the money in less than half a decade from now. Jim Cramer gave another good piece of advice last week when he advised investors who are scared from the enormous volatility in the stock markets to simply purchase dividend paying stocks. The reasoning behind that is that no matter what the daily range of the S&P 500 is, dividend stocks should still be viewed as a business governed by fundamentals and not some sort of fancy lottery tickets. No matter how volatile your stocks are, as long as they are fundamentally sound and have a business model that supports increasing their[More...]

At the end of a week of gloom and doom, stocks are finally on the rebound on Friday. Taking the cue, chemical shares too are on their way up after surviving a terrible Thursday when, according to AP, most of them took a nosedive following the announcement by four companies of force majeures -- a legal clause that excuses a party from liabilities for not being able to fulfill its obligations due to unforeseen developments -- thanks to the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Ike.

But they threw off their shackles on Friday. Dupont (DD), which fell 46 cents to $45.24 a day earlier, was up by 3.77% to $47.67. Keeping it company was Dow Chemical (DOW), the only one to have bucked the pullback on Thursday, with a surge of 4.16% to trade at $37.31.

But the stock to really watch out for is Olin Corp. (OLN) that climbed by 10.39% to $23.17 in spite of the announcement that caustic soda shipments from its plant in McIntosh, Ala., will be halted until further notice. Praxair, Inc. (PX) too scaled $85.98, up by 4.65%. Dow and Praxair are trading near their 200-Day Moving Average.

Also on the upswing were PPG Industries, Inc. (PPG), Ashland Inc. (ASH) and Air Products & Chemicals, Inc. (APD), all stocks that had tanked on Thursday. However, the biggest chemical maker, BASF (BASFY) was not so lucky, as it was down to $46.83 following a Bloomberg news that the company will cut down polystyrene production in Europe by 25% because of a fall in demand. Dow Chemical too had announced a 15% reduction in polystyrene production in Europe in June.

"DD" Free Stock Analysis: Buy? Sell? Hold?
"ASH" Free Stock Analysis: Buy? Sell? Hold?
"DOW" Free Stock Analysis: Buy? Sell? Hold?
"OLN" Free Stock Analysis: Buy? Sell? Hold?
"PPG" Free Stock Analysis: Buy? Sell? Hold?
"APD" Free Stock Analysis: Buy? Sell? Hold?
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