Several days ago I asked my buddy MJ over at Dyslexic Research what he thought of Ingersoll-Rand (IR: chart, web, Y!).  I’m not really an industrials guy, as my area of knowledge rests more in energy (specifically oil and gas) and tech.  That said, I’ve been making efforts to broaden my knowledge and diversify my portfolio.

MJ, however, is very much in tune with industrial sector, and I figured he’d have a good opinion on the company.

So it was with great interest that I read his opinion post on the company.

As MJ mentions, Ingersoll-Rand is in early stages of acquiring Trane …

Duncan Energy Partners (DEP: chart, web, Y!) reported Q3 financials today. They reported a net income of $4.5 million for the quarter, which rounds out to $0.22 per unit, fully diluted share, missing Reuters estimates by $0.01 per share.

Gross operating margin was $19.1 million for Q307 as compared to $22.5 million for Q306. The difference can be attributed to business interruption insurance recoveries, startup expenses for 2007 (remember that DEP went public in February of this year) and the write off of conversion costs when they tried to convert a NGL storage cavern to a natural gas storage cavern, and determined the cavern would not be suitable for natural gas storage.

Consequently, if you adjust for these unusual costs incurred in 2007, the gross operating margin was ahead of that in 2006.

Distributable cash flow for the third quarter was $8.7 million.

“We are pleased to increase the cash distribution rate to our partners this quarter for the first time since our IPO in February,” said Richard H. Bachmann, president and chief executive officer of the general partner of Duncan Energy Partners. “Future increases in the quarterly cash distribution rate are expected as the distributable cash flow from our commercial businesses, whether from our existing assets or the acquisition and/or construction of new assets, warrant.” -Source

Higher than expected capital expenditures brought the overall distributable cash flow for the quarter down, part of which was due to a state requirement to have partial pipeline integrity done by the middle of December.

Bachmann went on to say that he expects the capital expenditure levels to drop going through 2008.

I received an email from Steve Carpenter yesterday. Typically when I receive emails from someone I don’t know, I’m enticed to “file” the message accordingly, however I opened this one, not knowing what to expect.

Steve is the founder and CEO of Cake Financial Corporation.

After reading his email, I found myself intrigued with his new service. Cake is a new online financial service that allows individuals to display their actual portfolio,and keep track of how the portfolio has done over a period of time. It also lets you share your portfolio and real-time trading information with trusted …

Two days ago I wrote a post on more exotic stocks to deepen your exposure in the market. More specifically, I wrote about the S&P Covered Call Fund (BEP: chart, Y!, ETFconnect).

Well, I’ve had more time to research the stock, so I’ll present what I’ve dug up. I may ask Winston to chime in here too, as he’s more in tune with more advanced aspects of the market than am I.

The first thing I’ve noticed is that the NAV has not been keeping up with the share price. In fact, it’s going downhill while the share price has been …

A couple days ago I revealed a way to get a free research report from Reuters.

I downloaded a research report on a company I’ve had some interest in for a while, and compared it to other public data I’ve found online from SEC filings, earnings reports, and other sources.

On the surface, the Reuters reports don’t reveal anything that isn’t already available online through SEC reports or press releases. However, the report is well organized with 12 pages of aggregated data from the last few years.

Normally, these reports come with a $20 price tag, which …

TD Ameritrade has joined up with Reuters to offer a free research report on the company of your choosing.

Just use the code Q2EARNINGS06 when you order a report from Reuters.

Each report contains:

- Historical stock price trends
- Complete company financials
- Key ratios and statistics
- Consensus estimates and analyst recommendations
- Income statements, cash flow reports, etc.

Reuters reports are valued at $20 a piece, so I figure it’s worth a shot to take them up on this offer.  Having never read a Reuters report, I’ll let you know what I think of their content.