The trend, dear Fools, is …
It's infrastructure, and over the past few months, we've seen the United States commit hundreds of billions of dollars to building it. That sum joins China's $586 billion, India's $4 billion, and Mexico's $44 billion. And that's mostly new spending since June, when Merrill Lynch announced that it was raising its emerging-markets infrastructure spending forecast from $1.25 trillion per year to $2.25 trillion!
That's a heckuva lot of money, and it's being spent not only because governments fear a prolonged economic downturn, but also because many of them look at their countries and see that they're plagued by decades of underinvestment in roads, ports, railroads, electrical grids, sewer and water lines, and many more. They simply cannot continue their rapid economic growth until they put better infrastructure in place. Get stuck in a traffic jam in Bombay or Jakarta, or look at the quality of life in western China, and you'll readily agree.
There are clear beneficiaries of this spending, including public companies that can help you benefit as well. Some of the names, such as Ameron (NYSE: AMN), Perini (NYSE: PCR), Cemex, Siemens (NYSE: SI), POSCO, and Caterpillar, are obvious. Others, such as General Steel (NYSE: GSI), KHD Humboldt Wedag (NYSE: KHD), Mueller Water (NYSE: MWA), and Matrix Service (Nasdaq: MTRX), are not.
