Alpha Natural Resources' Solid Results Just the Beginning of a Coal Boom

As I keep saying, metallurgical coal is about where fertilizer was 15
months ago - we have a long wave of earnings estimates upwards coming
in the year + ahead, with the biggest pushes up in earnings coming in
about a year.<!--more--> Alpha Natural Resources (ANR) is up about 7% premarket as I check off a fabulous earnings report....
just getting started in a long and winding road up over the next year, I
believe.

I wrote a piece on fertilizer in October 2007 about just how
wrong these analysts (who are supposed to be industry experts and just
follow one sector) were... when a no name like me could see the coming
earnings explosion [Oct 23: Analysts Still Doubting the Fertilizer Stocks] - since then estimates for many of these companies have gone up 2-3x in the out years. Replace the word fertilizer with metallurgical coal
and check back in 15 months; once again analysts are so... so... so...
wrong. And this creates opportunities for us, before CNBC jumps on the
bandwagon next Valentine's Day proclaiming the bubble that is coal.