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Warren Buffett Is Still Riding the Rails

As evidence of a bullish long-term outlook for railroads, Warren Buffet's Berskshire recently increased its stake in Burlington Northern (BNI) and the CEO of Kansas City Southern (KSU), Michael Haverty, appeared on Larry Kudlow's show on CNBC Thursday evening, stating that rail transport was showing continued strength in the transport of coal, chemicals, and grains with weakness in the transport of consumer goods and housing related commodities. Berkshire paid $79.65 each to add 825,000 shares of BNI, upping its stake in

A Mixed Trade in Transports

Transports have provided a safe haven for investors with the iShares Dow Transports (IYT) registering a small gain over the past year in spite of a meltdown in financials and sharp losses in the overall market averages. The gains in the Dow Transport ETF were largely the result of strong performance by the top four U.S.-based railroads by market cap which I wrote about yesterday as a bullish trade, accounting for over 30% of the stock holdings for IYT.



As evidence of increased commercial interest and product developme

Now that more than half the year is behind us, I thought it would be interesting to look at my top 5 performers through July 31, 2008. As dismal as the stock market has been this year, there are still some bright spots. My top five performers have all achieved double-digit positive total returns since I owned them and positive returns in 2008. Here they are with comments:

#5 - McDonald's (MCD) + 4.4% Total 2008 Return
Last November, I bought this burger maker for $57 in spite of only paying one dividend per year. I was rewarded by MCD moving to quarterly dividends and a 2008 total return of 4

CNI reported a decent quarter in spite of a number of factors that it has been up against:

high fuel prices, bad winter, midwest flooding, drop in auto and lumber shipments

Going forward, the Prince Rupert port looks to have a positive outcome for CNI, especially with respect to agriculture shipments.  If the EJE situation can be resolved to CNI's favor, that'll be a nice pop to their stock price.

Filed under: Barrick Gold (ABX), Canada, Goldcorp Inc (GG), Commodities, Oil, Agriculture, Stocks to Buy, Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan (POT)