Eric Nuttall U. S. Silica Holdings SLCA-N PAST TOP PICK May 04, 2018

A big supplier of sand that fracers use for drilling. This is what he would put on the “too hard to understand” pile, because sand has a relatively low average selling price, which means it is very sensitive to what freight costs are for moving it. If you were to get involved, it should be relatively short-term.

Trading in the middle of 5-year range. Fracing in the US requires a lot of silicone sand. Trading at about 11X earnings. He was really interested when he saw a big move from one side of the boat to the other side of the boat by the street. It’s coming up as a Top Pick in a lot of reports. As long as they maintain their pricing power and as long as activity stays high in rig counts in the US, it is supported. Dividend yield of 0.7%. (Analysts' price target is $43.)

Recommended it on Jan. 17. Known for fracking sand. Recommended it when it was starting to move up a little. Bought it for $38 then it immediately fell, so he sold, losing around 15%. Likes the story now.

(A Top Pick May 23/17, Down 33%) A disaster last year for all sand names, due to concerns of overcapacity in Texas. He sold his shares at end-2017, seeing better returns in the pumpers than the sand stocks.

Trading at 9x earnings. These are big manufacturers now supplying the fracking industry. This business will continue to do very well as the U.S. drills more shale wells. These companies will do just fine. Will grow.

(A Top Pick June 19, 2017. Down 19%). The bull thesis on fracking sand has played out. There has been a chronic worry about too much regional supply. There are very few active analysts for this category, so the stock prices whip around unnecessarily. Sentiment is horrific. He would rather own pumpers, which are also severely undervalued but without the fear of oversupply.

(A top pick July 19/17, down 30%) Was lowest risk frac sand producer but did not work out. He exited last year.

(A Top Pick September 15/17 Down 21%). They got out of this one as they saw infrastructure constraints in the Permian basin. He expects this to yield good returns into 2020 as the bottlenecks are mitigated.