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Cut your volatility with timber

Sometimes you need to look outside the box in constructing a portfolio, and sometimes you have to look at the box. That box may play an important role in the diversification of your portfolio.

The New York Times has an article today about the prevalence of timber threat in the U.S. The article quotes, "The total value of the American log-export market has more than doubled since 2000, industry experts said, and it continues to grow."

This growth, in turn, is encouraging a new breed of tree hugger -- thieves who chop down timber illegally. It's not as severe as tree cribbing in countries like Indonesia and Brazil facing huge deforestation.

Historically, large investment funds like the Harvard Endowment have made large investments into timber (legally). In 2004, Harvard purchased a 468,000-acre New Zealand forest -- then estimated to be worth $540 million.

Continue reading Cut your volatility with timber

Ford slashes production

Ford Motor Company (F) has announced plans today to slash third and fourth quarter production. In today's announcement the company stated that third quarter production would fall by roughly 20,000 vehicles, but for the fourth quarter, the reduction would shoot up to around 168,000 vehicles with much of the reduction being in trucks and sport utility vehicles.

Ford enacted its "Way Forward" plan back in January which called for the company to shut down 14 plants and lay off between 25,000 and 30,000 employees by 2012. Today's announcement will mainly affect production at the Louisville Assembly Plant, but many other plants will also experience some downtime.

"We know this decision will have a dramatic impact on our employees, as well as our suppliers," Mr. Ford said. "This is, however, the right call for our customers, our dealers and our long-term future."

Continue reading Ford slashes production

Symbol Lookup
IndexesChangePrice
DJIA-154.4810,309.92
NASDAQ-37.612,138.44
S&P 500-19.141,091.49

Last updated: November 28, 2009: 08:59 AM

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