Vulcan Materials' (VMC) stock has exhibited mostly sideways action since the June 3, 2009 buy recommendation at a price of $46.28, but just view that as an extended opportunity to scoop-up shares. Hence, I'm reiterating my buy call.

Institutional investors (IIs) have been cautious with Vulcan, a major producer of construction aggregates, asphalt, and concrete, given the uneven and likely mild start to the U.S. economic recovery.

CEMEX (NYSE:CX), Mexico's giant maker of cement, has quietly continued to grow both its income and its revenue through strategic acquisitions and market share expansion. Currently the world's biggest concrete producer by volume, with an annual volume of 2.6 billion cubic feet, CEMEX now operates in over 50 countries worldwide, and is looking for opportunities in China, Brazil, Russia and India. But even without operations in these rapidly growing countries, CEMEX posted a 3.5% global growth rate for the first half of 2006, earning a profit of over $1 billion on revenues of $8.6 billion. CEMEX is currently sitting on free cash flow of $2.5 billion.

According to an interview with CEO Lorenzo Zambrano in NYSE Magazine (October-November 2006), CEMEX has perfected the art of integrating recent acquisitions into CEMEX in order to achieve highly efficient results. Zambrano is particularly proud of CEMEX's efficiency in energy consumption. While energy cost of cement production rose 118% for the period 2001-2005, CEMEX's energy cost per ton increased only 11%, due in large measure to a relentless effort to curb inefficiencies in all aspects of production, delivery and inventory. Unlike other cement production companies, CEMEX runs its plants on petroleum coke, a solid fuel by-product of oil refining. Annual energy savings amount to $75 million.