Serious Money: What's up today? Food & drillers!

The stock market is in turmoil today and the reasons can be found elsewhere (including in some peoples' imaginations). But if you are a bottom line investor, then here is where you should be looking. Food and energy exploration are the places to be.

Things can change rapidly, but as of right now food related stocks like Bunge Ltd. (NYSE: BG), the largest company involved with soy based products, and Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan (NYSE: POT), the largest fertilizer company, are up.

In the exploration sector, Anadarko Petroleum (NYSE: APC), the oil, gas and exploration company, Loews Corporation (NYSE: LTR), which is the majority shareholder in Diamond Offshore Drilling and is separating from its tobacco interests, and Precision Drilling TR (NYSE: PDS), the Canadian contract driller that is expanding into the lower 48 states, are all up.

All five stocks have out performed the market this year and that trend does not seem to be in jeopardy yet.

I will update this post with final results after the market close to see how the story ends.

UPDATE: four of the five closed in positive territory when all the major indices were in the red.

• APC finished down to $77.69, -0.54 (-0.69%)
• BG finished up to $122.40, +0.47 (+0.39%)
• LTR finished up to $48.95, +0.45 (+0.93%)
• PDS finished up to $26.95, +0.49 (+1.85%)
• POT finished up to $223.10 +2.54 (+1.15%)

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money. Disclosure: I own shares of APC and PDS.