LyondellBasell Industries (LYB-N)

A petrochemical company. They're vertically integrated and in many markets. They're winning business with strong earnings. The street is neutral on this, but this could be a commodity-uptick play. Decent yield of 3.78%. (Analysts' price target $117.89)

A past top pick. His biggest industrial U.S. holding. They make plastics and have a crude refinery on the Gulf Coast. Recent dip hurt by Hurricane Harvey then bounced back. Strong earnings growth. Reasonable multiple of 11x 2018 projected earnings. LYN expects increase in profitabilty and demand.

A global chemical company which produces chemicals that makes plastics. This has a good valuation and he likes the global growth story. Strong balance sheet. They've done a great job of growing their profitability and their cash flow. Dividend yield of 3.1%. (Analysts' price target is $110.)

(A Top Pick July 29/16. Up 19%.) This was great value. Basically industrial, focused on the chemical side. Producing plastics is its main business. Stable oil prices really helped out. Trading at about a 30% discount to its peers, which is warranted, because earnings are likely to be lacklustre in the next little while. You are still getting a 4%+ dividend. There is still room left on the stock.

Basically a manufacturer, designer and technology company around plastics and polymers. They also have a refining division. Valuation is really cheap. The company did quite well, particularly when there was a disparity between oil and gas. Trading at about 7X forward earnings. He anticipates earnings to be on a declining scale in 2016, but likely to stabilize in 2017. Dividend yield of 4.52%.

A good, long term holding. Nice dividend yield. You are not going to see a huge amount of growth coming from them, but a nice, safe, stable, high quality company with consistent earnings growth.

(Market Call Minute) It does well with improving chemicals prices and low natural gas prices. He is taking a look at it.

(A Top Pick June 16/14. Up 7.08%.) This is a pretty good free cash flow story, but within a very cyclical industry. It was doing really, really well until the oil price meltdown. Sold his holdings, but he would call it a Hold, and if oil got back into the $80s it would probably be a buy again.

(A Top Pick March 24/14. Up 5.6%.) One of the biggest petrochemical producers in the world and they have an advantaged position in North America playing the cheap natural gas prices to produce polyethylene. That advantage narrowed when oil prices dropped because other producers use oil. Still a great company and fairly valued here. Until oil migrates to higher levels, the level of profitability is a big constrained. If you are a long-term investor, you can continue to hold as it pays a nice dividend.

As energy prices came out through the fall, the halo effect washed its way into a lot of industries, and some of the chemical companies got impacted. Also, there is a question about global demand which has an impact as well. The chemicals group as a whole is still behaving okay, but he would prefer Ashland Inc (ASH-N) which looks a little more interesting. On Lyondellbasell, you want to wait and see what happens with petroleum prices

This is kind of an enigma. You would think it would do extremely well in a lower oil based commodity market because it is one of the largest producers of polyethylene and ethylene is a by-product of petroleum oil, so input costs would drop dramatically. However, the stock has dropped dramatically, but European prices have dropped even more. Currently the European producers of ethylene are producing at a much lower cost. This is a tough one to call and not something he would want to get involved in.