Tag Archives: Sherwin Williams

Do it yourself

Is this consider blotchy

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By ekimc

Hi again,

Last time I had trouble picking out a stain that can penetrate the wood for our liking. Sherwin Williams gave me a BAC Wiping Stain and said this would do it. I gave it to my contractor, he said this is the kind he uses all the time, should achieve the look we want.

Today, he finally started applying the stain… but it looks like this in the attached pictures. He claims that this is normal. He can patch the blotchy spot after the 1st coat drys up. Outside of the un-even marks/streaks between the areas he worked on, it seems really blotchy to me. I understand that there’s no perfect job. But if the photo shows it that much, it doesn’t seem normal….

So my questions are,
Is this normal?
Is there really a way to save it?
Will it get any better after the clear coat is applied?
Or should I really fire this contractor…..

Thanks a lot!
Mike

Attached Images

…read more

Source: DoItYourself.com

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Sherwin-Williams (SHW) EPS Expectations Down Over Past Month

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By Narrative Science Leading up to Sherwin-Williams’s announcement of its second quarter earnings on Thursday, July 18, 2013 analysts have become more wary as expectations have fallen over the past month to earnings of $2.58 per share from earnings of $2.60 per share. …read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Markets

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

New Autodesk Homestyler App Transforms Your Living Space into Design Playground

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By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool

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New Autodesk Homestyler App Transforms Your Living Space into Design Playground

Real-Time, 3D Home Design Comes to the iPad

SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Autodesk, Inc. (NAS: ADSK) unveiled the new Autodesk Homestyler, a free* iPad app for creative, real-time home design that allows users to blend high-quality 3D models of products from popular brands with photos of their interior spaces. The app also provides users with access to inspiring ideas from a community of designers and design enthusiasts.

The new Autodesk Homestyler iPad app transforms your living space into a design playground. (Photo: Business Wire)

“We’ve taken home design to a new level of ease with the Homestyler app for iPad. The app is unique because it can transform a single snapshot into a virtual home design playground,” said Samir Hanna, vice president of Consumer Products at Autodesk. “Extending this technology on iPad lets our users express their creativity on the go, tap the existing vibrant community to find inspiration for their home and showcase their personal style with greater ease than ever before.”

Homestyler, a free* online home design software, has brought interior design plans to life since 2010. Now optimized for the iPad, the new Homestyler app offers a wide selection of 3D models of real furniture, home decor and appliances so users can digitally try out everything from rugs and mirrors to paint colors and light fixtures.

For professional designers and brands looking to reach and engage with consumers, the Homestyler app allows them to better communicate their design ideas and reach decisions faster in expressing their vision for their home or office whether playing with new paint colors or viewing 3D models of furniture within the space.

The Homestyler app offers brands—including the high-end design brand B&B Italia, Jonathan Adler and Sherwin-Williams—a unique opportunity to inspire customers by providing them with access to high-quality 3D models of products and make smarter interior design choices, leading to more confident purchase decisions.

“The Homestyler app lets users tap into more than 1,500 Sherwin-Williams colors for inspiration as they create their perfect space,” says Jackie Jordan, director of color marketing, Sherwin-Williams. “Color is a critical element of design, and the new iPad app is a great way to explore the impact of different hues and the relationship between wall colors and furnishings.”

In an Infogroup Opinion Research Corporation

From: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/04/11/new-autodesk-homestyler-app-transforms-your-living/

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

RPM International Earnings: An Early Look

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By Dan Caplinger, The Motley Fool

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The new earnings season is about to begin, but a few companies on off-quarter fiscal years are just now getting around to reporting their quarterly results. RPM International is about to release its quarterly earnings report. The key to making smart investment decisions with stocks releasing their quarterly reports is to anticipate how they’ll do before they announce results, leaving you fully prepared to respond quickly to whatever inevitable surprises arise. That way, you’ll be less likely to make an uninformed knee-jerk reaction to news that turns out to be exactly the wrong move.

Companies that stand to benefit from a rising housing market have been increasingly popular lately, and RPM‘s extensive lineup of waterproofing and weatherproofing products for everything from driveways and wood decks to roofing sealants and caulk definitely qualifies it as a play on home ownership. Let’s take an early look at what’s been happening with RPM International over the past quarter and what we’re likely to see in its quarterly report on Thursday.

Stats on RPM International

Analyst EPS Estimate

$0.06

Change From Year-Ago EPS

20%

Revenue Estimate

$841.4 million

Change From Year-Ago Revenue

8.8%

Earnings Beats in Past 4 Quarters

2

Source: Yahoo! Finance.

Will RPM International be loss-proof this quarter?
Analysts have gotten a little less optimistic about RPM‘s prospects in recent months, as they’ve reduced their earnings-per-share calls by a penny for the most recent quarter and by $0.03 for the full 2013 fiscal year. The stock has posted a modest advance of about 6% so far this year, but that’s well below the overall market‘s performance, let alone that of some high-flying housing-related stocks.

RPM has benefited greatly from better prospects in the housing industry. As results from the homebuilding sector have gotten stronger, demand for RPM’s sealants and coatings has followed suit, sending share price higher. In addition to providing consumer products like Rust-O-Leum and DAP, the company also provides a wide variety of materials for industrial companies and commercial builders. The industrial segment makes up two-thirds of RPM‘s overall business.

But RPM has plenty of competition to deal with. Both Sherwin-Williams and PPG Industries dwarf RPM in size, although both of those companies are much more focused on the paint sector, which has its own specific industry dynamics. Nevertheless, just as PPG and Sherwin-Williams have had to deal with the ups and downs of the titanium dioxide market — a key pigment for paint production — RPM also mentions it as a key driver of its raw-materials costs, in addition to certain resins and solvents related to other products.

In its quarterly report, watch for RPM to discuss why its revenue growth has lagged behind that of PPG and Sherwin-Williams over the past year. Without a satisfactory explanation, it’ll be hard to justify paying 25 times trailing earnings for the stock, even with a …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Home Depot Dreams California Lawsuits Go Away

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By Rich Duprey, The Motley Fool

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If someone is going to claim their products are “free of” a certain chemical, then the Federal Trade Commission requires it actually not have the chemical in the product or at best have just trace amounts of it. It’s a reasonable assumption that goes beyond the boastful claims marketers are allowed to make, such as that their products are “best” or “most loved.”

But if you’re a store owner that simply sells products that claim to be free of those chemicals, how far are you required to go to prove the manufacturer’s claims are true? If you’re in California, apparently pretty far.

The desolation of smog
In yet another instance of why it’s difficult to do business in the state, do-it-yourself superstore Home Depot just reached an $8 million settlement in a lawsuit with California’s South Coast Air Quality Management District, admitting that it knowingly sold paint, wood lacquers, and other coatings containing excessive levels of smog-forming chemicals.

The SCAQMD says paints and coatings are a major source of air pollution, equal to an amount greater than that emitted by 1.5 million cars. Volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, combine in the atmosphere with nitrogen oxides to form ground-level ozone, also known as smog, which can cause a wide range of illnesses.

Something’s in the air
According to its lawsuit, the agency checked the claims made on paints Home Depot sold by reading the labels and then tested the contents. When the retailer was notified of the violations, the stores continued selling the paints and even discounted the cans for a quick sale. Home Depot says it fully cooperated after being advised of the violations.

Whereas similar VOC-related lawsuits in southern California have been also brought against Lowe’s and Wal-Mart totaling more than $3 million, the SCAQMD sought more than $30 million against Home Depot. In the annual report filed just ahead of the holiday weekend, Home Depot said a tentative settlement had been reached for $6.9 million plus $1.1 million in fees and costs.

It’s not the DIY chain’s first run-in with the law in California, though. It paid $10 million to the city of Los Angeles in 2007 for improper handling of hazardous waste.

Tainted paint tint
The FTC itself has pursued VOC complaints against paint manufacturers like Sherwin-Williams and PPG Industries . In those cases, the paint makers’ base paints were VOC-free as claimed, but once retailers tinted the base, it no longer met the definition. Both manufacturers settled with the FTC and were allowed to state that it was their base paints that were VOC-free.

Yet for both Home Depot and the paint makers, the defendants were caught in a hard spot not necessarily of their making. Sherwin-Williams and PPG were correct that their paints were VOC-free, but retailer actions put them out of compliance. In Home Depot‘s case, the retailer was being held liable for trusting the claims of the product makers.

Of course, it could be argued that a base paint isn’t meant to …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

3 Stocks for a Hot Housing Market

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By Rex Moore, The Motley Fool

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The following video is from Tuesday’s MarketFoolery podcast, in which host Rex Moore, along with analysts Jason Moser and Charly Travers, discuss the most important business and investing stories of the day.

U.S. home prices have recorded their biggest year-over-year gains since 2006. What does the housing recovery mean for investors? Which stocks are best positioned for the rebound? In this installment of MarketFoolery, our analysts talk about the latest housing numbers and discuss why they’re watching Home Depot , Williams-Sonoma , and Sherwin-Williams .

To learn about a few more investments that have great promise for delivering profits to shareholders in a recovering global economy, check out The Motley Fool’s special free report “3 ETFs Set to Soar During the Recovery.” Just click here to access it now.

The relevant video segment can be found between 0:17 and 2:47.

For the full video of today’s MarketFoolery, click here.

The article 3 Stocks for a Hot Housing Market originally appeared on Fool.com.


Charly Travers, Jason Moser, and  Rex Moore have no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Home Depot, Sherwin-Williams, and Williams-Sonoma. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools don’t all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Not All Dividends Are Created Equal

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By Taylor Muckerman, The Motley Fool

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Guaranteed income is a creature comfort that fixed-income investors had become accustomed to before the financial crisis of 2008. In the rearview mirror, the yield on the popular 10-year Treasury was north of 5%. Unfortunately for retirees and other income-seeking investors, that percentage has crumbled under the weight of Federal Reserve purchases and has remained below 2% since the end of March 2012. 

In an environment like this, dividends can be an investor’s best friend, especially if the payouts are rolled back into more share ownership, thus compounding returns over the long term. But some investors can be blinded by high guaranteed returns and ignore the warning signs such as unsustainable payout ratios. (The payout ratio is calculated as dividends per share divided by earnings per share). 

The good news is that the payout ratio of the S&P 500 constituents has come down over the past several decades. The historical average is around 50%, but a white paper by Global X Management, an ETF provider, shows that the ratio is now south of 30%. 

Taking this key metric into account, I ran a screen for dividend payers in the energy and materials sector, trading on a major U.S. exchange with yields better than the 10-year Treasury and an even more sustainable payout ratio of less than 25% — lower than the S&P 500 average. That low ratio gives the following five companies a tremendous runway to boost payments in the future with a very slim likelihood of having to trim the distribution. 

Sand castles
Topping my screen with a 10.4% yield and a 15.4% payout ratio is Hi-Crush Partners . Although you might be unfamiliar with this company, you’re almost certainly aware of hydraulic fracturing and its current revitalization of North American energy production. Aside from water and chemicals, proppants are one of the most important aspects of the process. They keep the fissures open after the fracturing has taken place. Without them, the tremendous production rates that fracking allows for in tight geologic formations would not be possible. That’s where Hi-Crush comes in, with its monocrystalline sand.

Although the company is relatively new, so is the explosion in fracking. Add the fact that Hi-Crush is tremendously solvent, with zero long-term debt, and that it operates with 58% net income margins in the booming demand for proppants, and investors should feel comfortable here. 

Digging up yield
With its core product coming out of the earth, Tronox Limited supplies its titanium ore, titanium dioxide, and other mined minerals to buyers ranging from paint manufacturers such as Sherwin-Williams to paper producers. After a rough go of it during, and after, the financial collapse, Tronox reinstated its dividend in 2012 to the tune of a 4.8% yield. 

Listening to the company’s recent conference call to close out 2012, management was very bullish on the company’s current position and its ability to sate both income and debt investors. When peppered with questions, company Chairman and CEO Tom Casey showed …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Make Money on the Housing Recovery, the Easy Way

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By Selena Maranjian, The Motley Fool

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Exchange-traded funds offer a convenient way to invest in sectors or niches that interest you. If you’d like to add some home construction-related stocks to your portfolio, the iShares Dow Jones U.S. Home Construction ETF could save you a lot of trouble. Instead of trying to figure out which companies will perform best, you can use this ETF to invest in lots of them simultaneously.

The basics
ETFs often sport lower expense ratios than their mutual fund cousins. The iShares ETF‘s expense ratio — its annual fee — is a relatively low 0.47%.

This ETF has performed rather well overall, topping the world market over the past three and five years. In 2012, it posted a whopping 79% gain. As with most investments, of course, we can’t expect outstanding performances in every quarter or year. Investors with conviction need to wait for their holdings to deliver.

Why home construction?
This is a cyclical industry, and the cycle has been on an upswing, as a recovery in housing is resulting in more homes being built. A general economic recovery should lead to more remodeling and maintenance work, too, boosting business for companies tied to the industry. Indeed, many companies in this group more than doubled in value in 2012.

More than a handful of home construction-related companies had strong performances over the past year. Hovnanian Enterprises surged 106%, for example, even though not so long ago some thought it might end up out of business. Standard Pacific , another builder, gained 84%. These two companies have had a harder time of it than some rivals as they focus more on entry-level homes, with a clientele that has been more severely hurt by the recent recession. Strong home sales reports have been boosting these stocks.

USG advanced 64%, specializing in gypsum and building materials such as wallboard, cement board, and joint compound. Revenue, which had been falling for several years, has started moving in the other direction in the past few years, and its bottom line is expected to move from the black into the red soon. Its recent earnings report featured much improvement, though it disappointed some analysts with its earnings.

Paint giant Sherwin-Williams soared 60%. It recently bought global paint giant Comex, based in Mexico, for $2.3 billion. Some don’t like that the deal will add to the company’s debt, but others see it as a smart strategic move. Its fourth-quarter earnings report featured record revenue up 8.8% and earnings up more than 50%. Some see the stock as pricey now, but with a promising future. Management boosted its dividend by 28% recently.

The big picture
Long-term demand for housing and construction isn’t going away anytime soon. A well-chosen ETF can grant you instant diversification across any industry or group of companies — and make investing …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Kronos Earnings: An Early Look

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By Dan Caplinger, The Motley Fool

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Earnings season is winding down, with most companies already having reported their quarterly results. But there are still some companies left to report, and Kronos Worldwide is about to release its quarterly earnings report. The key to making smart investment decisions with stocks releasing their quarter reports is to anticipate how they’ll do before they announce results, leaving you fully prepared to respond quickly to whatever inevitable surprises arise. That way, you’ll be less likely to make an uninformed, knee-jerk reaction to news that turns out to be exactly the wrong move.

As a specialty chemical maker, Kronos is highly sensitive to the price of a single specialized pigment. Will the recovery in the housing market help boost demand for the company’s products? Let’s take an early look at what’s been happening with Kronos over the past quarter and what we’re likely to see in its quarterly report on Wednesday.

Stats on Kronos

 

  

Analyst EPS Estimate

($0.05)

Year-Ago EPS

$0.74

Revenue Estimate

$397.8 million

Change From Year-Ago Revenue

(9.1%)

Earnings Beats in Past 4 Quarters

4

Source: Yahoo! Finance.

Will Kronos look more colorful this quarter?
Analysts have gotten more pessimistic about Kronos in recent months, worsening their consensus loss estimate for the just-ended quarter by $0.03 per share and lopping nearly $0.30 per share off their 2013 full-year projections. Still, investors haven’t been that dour in their views, with the stock having risen more than 10% since early December.

Kronos is one of a select group of chemical companies that make titanium dioxide, a pigment used in paint and other coatings. DuPont is the leader in world TiO2 production, but Kronos is among the top producers as well.

But times have been tough lately for Kronos, as high prices for TiO2 have sapped demand. Sherwin-Williams and other paint manufacturers put off purchases and started developing alternatives to TiO2 to try to boost their profits and, as a result, both Kronos and rival Huntsman said last year that margins would see pressure from falling TiO2 prices.

The question for Kronos going forward is whether a recovery in housing will boost paint demand and therefore improve the TiO2 pricing situation. Many companies in housing-related industries have already seen impressive gains due to the rebound, and Kronos could definitely benefit from better conditions in its key market.

In its quarterly results, watch for Kronos to discuss whether its February price increase has started to reverse the troubling trend of weak TiO2 pricing. With the company having raised its prices for titanium dioxide products by about $200 to $250 per metric ton, Kronos could see at least some of its profits restored in future quarters.

The best investing approach is to choose great companies and stick with them for the long term. The Motley Fool’s free report “3 Stocks That Will Help You Retire Rich” names stocks …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Here's What This $14 Billion Hedge Fund Company Has Been Buying

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By Selena Maranjian, The Motley Fool

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Every quarter, many money managers have to disclose what they’ve bought and sold, via “13F” filings. Their latest moves can shine a bright light on smart stock picks.

Today, let’s look at Viking Global Investors, founded in 1999 by Andreas Halvorsen and David Ott, who had previously worked together at Julian Robertson‘s respected Tiger Management firm. Viking is known as a long-short global equity fund, meaning that it aims to maintain long positions in companies on which it’s bullish and short positions in those where it’s bearish.

The company’s reportable stock portfolio totaled $14.4 billion in value as of Dec. 31, 2012.

Interesting developments
So what does Viking’s latest quarterly 13F filing tell us? Here are a few interesting details:

The biggest new holdings are Alexion Pharmaceuticals and Las Vegas Sands. Other new holdings of interest include EMC and TIBCO Software . EMC is a $50 billion storage giant, with solid growth prospects in the rapidly growing cloud-computing and Big Data arenas. It also holds an 80% ownership stake in virtualization specialist VMware. EMC has been held back some by softness in technology spending due to a weak global economy, but that won’t last forever. In the meantime, it has struck a partnership with Lenovo, which might help it in China, and its recent earnings report was solid, with strong operating income growth

TIBCO is another Big Data operator, and one that got whacked late last year after posting disappointing earnings results. It had previously posted a long string of strong earnings and pointed to softness in orders as well as some weather interference for the miss. Still, management is upbeat, as are some of my colleagues, such as Anders Bylund, who bought shares. Some think the company may end up acquired by another.

Among holdings in which Viking Global increased its stake was BlackBerry . BlackBerry, until very recently known as Research In Motion, has been fighting strong competition from iPhones and Android devices. (Apple, for example, is expected to debut a lower-cost smartphone that might appeal to businesses that buy in bulk for employees, threatening BlackBerry’s longtime strength in the corporate market.) BlackBerry recently debuted some new devices, but some think that’s not enough to turn the company around.

Viking Global reduced its stake in lots of companies, including Sherwin-Williams , which has averaged annual growth of nearly 30% over the past five years, partly on signs of a housing market recovery. Last year, the company bought global paint giant Comex, based in Mexico, for $2.3 billion. Some don’t like that the deal will add to Sherwin-Williams’ debt, but others see it as a smart strategic move. In a sign of strength, the company recently boosted its dividend by 28%. With a forward P/E ratio of 19, it’s reasonable to see the stock as not a bargain right now.

Finally, Viking’s biggest closed positions included Apple and priceline.com. Other closed positions of …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance