PLUM CREEK TIMBER COMPANY INC.  (PCL) Trade Now »     Rate PCL  -  Discuss PCL  -  Add to Watch List        

Plum Creek Timber is a REIT that took a beating becaue of it's association with home builders.

PCL owns ands manages timber lands. When people need 2x4s to build houses PCL has better selling rights to their timbers, but still even in today's market the company is able to pay over 4% in dividends.

It's the type of business that maintains its value with limited over head during the down cycle and is ready to roar when things gets better. In the mean time people need paper.

We said goodbye to a dear old friend a few days ago by swapping out of Plum Creek Timber (PCL) and into American Tower (AMT).

The reason why I owned PCL at all, actually there were several reasons, was because timberland generally has a low correlation to equities and PCL did a reasonable job of capturing that for quite a while in addition to having a good dividend yield. It generally behaved as hoped for on the way down and started out tracking the rally that started in March, but has traded in a volatile yet sideways pattern since June.

While his main focus is on tech stocks, Paul McWilliams also looks at other sectors for his Next Inning advisory, such as his recent commentary on Plum Creek Timber (NYSE: PCL).

"Plum Creek is an interesting real estate investment play. It is primarily a timber company that just happens to be the largest private for-profit landowner (in terms of acreage) in North America. 

"As such, its business model is to buy property that is primarily good for timber and sell off portions that are more attractive for development.

Filed under: Analyst reports, Analyst upgrades and downgrades, Analyst initiations

Analyst upgrades:

Filed under: Newsletters, Commodities, Stocks to Buy, Housing

"With its strong balance Plum Creek Timber (NYSE: PCL) will be able to weather the real estate storm," says growth and income expert Stephen Leeb in The Complete Investor. Here is his look at the timber play.

"Plum Creek, which was added to our model portfolio in November, is the largest and most geographically diverse private landowner in the U.S. and owns more than 7.4 million acres of timberlands in the Pacific Northwest, the South, and the Northeast.