One reason why DAC might be down..

At a recent conference for the overall shipping industry the container ship sector was singled out to be more bearish than the dry bulk or tankers. Reason given was that too many owners had gotten on the band wagon all at once and ordered too many ships and unlike the dry bulkers who get some help by a predicted increase in demand and dayrates along with older ships getting scraped ... not many container ships are scheduled to be scrapped due to the newness of the current fleet just at a time the demand is weakening. One of the analyst speaking said that they expect only 50% of the fleet will be utilized in 2010-12 ( now does not that seem to be a bit shocking?) and he did not see any recovery until 2015. He noted the many long term contracts being broken and walked away from or rewritten at lower rates. Of course this is only one man's opinion but a respected analyst within the industry. Noted that day DAC and SSW dipped when the news hit the wires. Once again the debt levels of all these firms have to be considered in this light.
Certainly puts the dividends at risk of being cut back.

Less you think I am just doom and gloom here, you would be wrong. I like DAC in this sector and have traded in and out of it over the last two years and it has made me some nice profits along the way... but this is a time of realistic and steely eyed assessment of this industry. Its day will return again but for now it is rough sailing with more bad news to come... if this analyst is only half right. DAC being a tad bigger than SSW at the moment has the opportunity to buy out some of the poorer financed competitors or pick up some ships on the cheap... the only problem is that this trend could be hurting both big and small shippers at the moment.

So far the China--USA---worldwide trade-- has fallen off dramatically much faster than anyone could foretold and now the recovery looks chancy and not assured in the near future. Personal opinion would be not to rush into the stocks even at these cheap prices until the recovery looks more definite.
When it does the bigger players like DAC will attract the investment dollars first.

***PinewoodsBear***

Correction...

SLC should be SCL.... sorry about the typing error.
Note that their chems. are used in soap and other consumer goods that are apart of daily living... and their on going entry into the Asian markets.
***PinewoodsBear***

I originally bought Del Monte Foods when it was called the California Packing Co. and Del Monte was their main brand name. It was one of those slow but steady companies. Slowly increasing their dividends and earnings which sometimes took a dip when they tried to expand their horizons... like making their own cans at one time. After they changed their named to Del Monte Corp. they got bought out by General Foods, the maker of Jello and Minute Maid Rice and lots of well known other brands... they made the price of Del Monte Corp jump about 45% when that happened. You could take a combo of all cash, all stock or 50% each. I opted to take all stock of Gen. Foods because I liked the co and for tax reasons. Then in a year or so General Foods was bought out by Kraft Foods.... which in turn was taken over by Phillip Morris . Since I did not want to be a owner of a tobacco stock I sold ... but catching that multiple buy out can increase your wealth in short order.
Mentioned this because sectors catch fire after years of slowly improvement in earnings and dividends but litter recognition in the stock prices. All it takes is one sudden over the week end merger and every stock in that sector gets new attention. Back in the mid 1990's this happened to the sleepy Gas Utility sector. Nicor and Nisource bought out smaller companies as did the old Brooklyn Union.
This action often happens to a sector not only slowly improving that gets no respect from the markets but is most likely to happen when we are at the beginning of coming out of a market bottom.... beginning to sound familiar ?
Very often the best of breed in the sector gets taken over first... but not always. Since the deals have a nasty habit of being announced over the weekend before the market opens.... you normally have to already owned them to get the best percentage gain... although buying quickly at the start of the market --- even though you might pay more.... can still give you a pretty good percentage gain. The ploy is not to be complacent. After you get your quick profit then check out the competitors and take you profits and spread it around the two or three most likely candidates that might get taken over also. NOTE... only do this if you like them long term on their own merits because sometimes it takes a while for the next merger to happen. With the two examples named in the Food and then Gas Util. the merger process happened over a two to three year period. Noted only because there had been almost no mergers at all for quite a while before then in these sectors.

Coming out of this bottom and number of industries look promising on their own merits but also could be ripe for the merger game... one of the is the specialty chemical business since so many of these firms are midsize. So do your own research since it is your money and not mine. Here are a few stock symbols to help you out and get started... ALB, EMN, FUL, SLC, KWR, and many more out there to be discovered.
***PinewoodsBear***