Ashland Inc. (ASH)

[LCrigger]

Will Ashland Channel Ben Graham?

From Hard Assets Investor (excerpt):

"Benjamin Graham, were he still alive, would likely be having a field day picking through today's market wreckage for bargains. Graham, the granddad of value investing and mentor to Warren Buffett, earned a reputation for deep-discount investing in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash.

Just as there were valuable bargains to be struck in the aftermath of the '29 collapse, there are enticing buys to be made now...

Take the stocks in the Basic Materials sector as examples. This segment, made up of companies in the chemical, mining, industrial metals and forestry/paper industries, was brutalized after a five-year bull run. In just five months, between June and November 2008, the Dow Jones US Basic Materials Sector Index lost nearly 59% of its value. Only recently has the benchmark started to show signs of stabilizing.

Among the stocks contributing to the index's decline was that of Ashland, Inc. (NYSE: ASH), a company Ben Graham would no doubt recognize. Well, old Ben would recognize part of the company, anyway. Originally founded in 1918 as Ashland Oil, the Kentucky-based company is now a diversified chemicals enterprise operating in four divisions.

What Ben Graham would see now if he were looking at Ashland is a company with surprisingly good fundamentals that's been chucked into the bargain basement along with a lot of sector dross."

Read the full article at http://www.hardassetsinvestor.com/features-and-interviews/1/1513-will-ashland-channel-ben-graham.html