From the Back Page..

It's easy to spot which newspaper stories were dug back up from the ditches of obscurity (i.e. the trash can). They're usually found on the back page of their relevant section, often wedged in between the ad for a lost puppy and a last-minute obituary. The thing is, I can find more gold nuggets from the back page than I can in the headlines. Anyway, I found these nuggets as I was pan-handling recently.

Could You Please Pass the Jelly?

Maybe if J.M. Smuckers (SJM) shoved a micro chip into each jar of their jelly they'd be able to able to glom onto the media's love for all-things-tech. However, that would turn their jelly into the 'crunchy' variety...a choice that really only works for peanut butter. What you may have missed in all of Friday's hype was J.M. Smuckers' Q3 earnings. Quarterly net income was up by 5% while sales were higher by 27%, on a qoq basis.

Rising commodity prices took the biggest bite out of the bigger piece of top-line pie...no pun intended. (OK, the pun was intended.) Not bad. Not great, but not bad. I'm just surprised we didn't see more coverage of the announcement. That's a pretty sweet revenue increase, which is usually the hard part of the business. I look for similar growth results in the future.

On a side note, I actually like Smuckers here....not the jelly - the stock (though I've got nothing against the jelly). If we're in the recession I already think we're in, and consumer staples get pushed to the head of the class, Smuckers could prove to be tasty. (Why do I have a sudden craving for a PB&J?)

Just Crazy Enough to Work

Another news bullet largely skipped by the media was Illinois Tool Works' (ITW) 15.8% improvement in revenues. Next quarter isn't expected to be quite as good...only an 8% to 11% increase in sales. It wasn't an official (SEC filed) report though - maybe that's why barely anybody touched it. Regardless, I think the forecast is encouraging.