1/20/09 transcript 4 stars. Nymph's Take..Obama Energy Play? Good company for radar.No Debt, Cash..sweet CEO Swoboda. 8 Analysts. CEO said LED sales growth was driven by a double-digit increase in XLamp LED components and LED lighting product sales, while LED chip and high-bright LED component sales declined single digits due to lower demand in consumer, mobile, and automotive applications. DEBT FREE BALANCE SHEET.Cap Ex being cut about 20%. Per Seeking Alpha..CEO..As we look ahead to 2009 we are faced with many of the same challenges as other companies due to the recession. However, we are in a better position due to our focus on the LED lighting market. We target that the LED lighting adoption will continue to gain momentum as product availability increases and recognition of the benefits grows from new installations, like the Federal Reserve, the planned Pentagon renovation, and President Obama’s emphasis on energy efficiency.360 Millon in Cash!! CHINA is looking GOOD..per SA..What we’ve seen so far is that business has remained fairly solid. Last quarter demand was pretty similar than the previous quarter and we’re targeting it should be pretty stable, plus or minus 5% this quarter as well. So right now, for the large infrastructure in China, which is where I would put the large display screens, it remains relatively solid. I would also add to that that if you go beyond that, the lighting-related stuff that we’re doing in China also has remained pretty solid. So I think there are some signs on the consumer side and definitely on the export business that there is obviously weakness there. When it comes to China domestic infrastructure, so far it has remained pretty solid for us. Company has a few competitors.

1/20/09 transcript 2 stars Nymph's Take...They made their numbers by putting their Feet to the Brake and cutting cost EVERYWHERE..they are making sales but it is hard. CEO Oberton..9 analyst..Last qtr was hard for them and the CEO said..We said, "You know what, if we don't have leases signed, let's just back off a little bit and see what it looks like going forward." I think that was a good decision". The CEO is saying that they are holding up and saving money cuz they don't have to deal with the UPS and Fed Express increases. Per Seeking Alpha..Looking forward into 2009, things are very slow. It's difficult out there. Right now, looking at our January sales numbers, we see about a 4% to 6% negative sales growth in January, the first time we've ever seen that in the company. We're watching it very closely. We're trying to find out where the bottom is and we don't know that at this point. CEO had a good point.."I spent a lot of time traveling last week. I was out in front of probably 300 managers and groups and the mood is very good. I was trying to explain that to my Board yesterday. They're going, "How can the mood be good when our sales are down?" But you have to understand they're running small businesses so if I'm running an $80,000 business last year I did $80,000, this year I'm on track to do $77,000, or something like that, I'm still busy. I still have customer activity"

1/21/09 transcript 2 stars Nymph's Take..RCAF..this qtr the hedged fuel and drop in oil prices saved them..no guidance..not popular..also keep eye on chinese new year. CEO Rose 13 Analyst..Well it looks like the Fuel charge is still saving them..per Seeking Alpha..Taking a deeper dive at fuel, as you know, fuel expense has been extremely volatile this year. Our monthly fuel price per gallon before hedge impact ranged from $4.01 in July to $1.94 in December and for the fourth quarter in total the average fuel price per gallon was $2.49 compared to last year’s fourth quarter of $2.59. Earnings include about a $0.40 per share benefit or tailwind this quarter which represents the net change in fuel expense offset by fuel surcharges. A large portion of fuel surcharges lagged by up to two months and last year prices were rising while this year prices were falling. Overall, the fuel surcharge program is about 85% effective. They can't offer guidance and are cutting cost whereever they can..they said coal was still moving...for this year the CEO said..90% of our contractual business has already been closed for 2009 so we have very little left to close. In fact, the vast majority of what’s left does not close or expire until the back half of the year. So we are fairly well set from a pricing standpoint. And recent pricing has been more challenging, obviously, than if we went back a couple of years, but we’re still achieving positive pricing results. And we have typically not given specific guidance on pricing going forward. In the past, as we have talked about it, historically our pricing remains strong and we think it will be historically strong as we work throughout 2009...Oh man...this is playing into my theory of Crop Shortages this year per cc..John, you talked about ag volumes kind of going back to normal levels. Could you speak to what your sense of is in ag rates because that tends to be much more of a spot basis. can you give us some sense as to how you see that playing out? John P. Lanigan The thing that has to happen first is the U.S. farmer has to start releasing their crop. They had such strong years in the 2007/2008 cycle that with commodity prices crashing last year, they’ve really been sitting on their stocks and we’re hopeful to start to see them come out as we get closer to spring and the planting season. And with some of their input prices going down a bit recently, then hopefully at that point we will have a better feel for price. THEY TALKED about how the Carbon Footprint thing makes CONGRESS NOT LOVING THE RAILS. They pointed out that the rails don't get any stimulus money at all and could face legislation to hurt the industry?? Other Countries had good grain crops so that is not helping export that would go down to New Orleans to asia. They were asked about the Chinese New Year..You’ve got the Chinese New Year coming two weeks early this year, which probably has most plants just shut for the month of January...they said no spike but this could be an issue in China Plays???????

1./21/09 transcript 5 stars? Nymph's take..What bad economy..beat..but won't answer about Steve's health Not Jobs..We're not going to give you an update on this quarter. We've provided our guidance for the March quarter. In this environment, I'm thrilled to be providing guidance that has growth year-over-year. And again, we're shipping the best products that we have ever shipped, and thankfully, customers are responding.

1/22/09 transcript 2 1/2 stars in a very bad neighborhood. Nymph's Take..Oilservice Cap Ex down 28% yoy..SLB will survive but many independs won't CEO Ayat..15 Analyst...Well CEO says it all, per seeking alpha..As announced, we are taking actions to reduce our global workforce as a result of the recent decline in activity in the Oilfield Services sector.....added with this...These increases however were partially offset by the U.S. land central and northern geo-markets, where the reducing rig comp that accelerated in the [courser] end resulted in lower revenue....They bought the stock up today with comments like this???.. think that our customers they are not going to break contracts but they are going to pressure us to swap price for volume or price for duration or things like that. So where they have an opportunity they’re definitely going to act on price. But I don’t think that they’re going to break contracts...he did give a good analysis of Russia..Actually we haven’t – you don’t – so you have to divide the Russian market into three. The IOC’s particularly in Sakhalin there will be no decline. The small Russian companies that depended on credit markets will probably just not drill. And what we’re looking at at the moment the hypothesis we’re working on is that there will – I can’t give you this in money, but in the total meters drilled we’re looking at a drop of somewhere between 10 and 20%. Total meters drilled.......it just bottomline doesn't look good..Now in fact we’re seeing – the situation is so dynamic, that I cannot rule out that we would not make another headcount adjustment in the first half year. And secondly depending on what comes in as the plan in April, May for the second half we will probably have to look at it again

1/26 actual call. 2 stars Nymph's take...20% Rig Count USA DOWN so far and will continue CEO..They have a backlog of work in USA for them..Their Unique drill sites are holding up ok..but common drill sites are hurting. In down cycles they normally gain market share (I assume Mom and Pop not doing so good)....they see them in the second qtr out of 3 of a bad turn down. OPEC won't increase until Oil goes over 70. Venzula will still be there for them. ROW could be also in the same cycle. Margins..they are hoping...CAP X FLAT...BUT HAL doesn't get that much from Exploration..but servicing. INDUSTRY WIDE in USA being asked about contract rates..clearly see significant drops in the early part of cycle..but can't see clear on it. RIG COUNT...top to bottom..where will it come down to? Commodity Type Rigs are the ones dropping off..not the harder areas to drill.

1.26 transcript...4 stars Nymph's Take..This is the plastic wrap on Meat Package, and case ready..mid 2009 looks better for them. CEO Hickey..9 analyst..CEO says that people are moving to hamburger so the case ready stuff is selling more. USA looks stronger the second half. South America is growing EXCEPT for Brazil cuz the conforming to the Europe Controls. Aussie is flat cuz less Cows getting killed. Mooo.VERY interesting what they say about Credit, cuz Jamie Diamon said people just don't want the money to borrow..per seeking alpha..One additional item I would like to mention received a commitment for a total of $300 million of senior notes in a private placement. As you know, the regular credit markets have essentially been closed for all but a few borrowers with no clear sign as to when conditions will improve. 57 dollars is what they see for Oil this year..As a basis for resin price assumptions, we assume the full year average price of oil at $57, and we are anticipating oil prices to be above that average in the second half of the year....Stronger dollar will hurt ROW a bit..they are cutting SG and A, and handling more bad debt well. Per seeking alpha...CEO knows the world..I will give you sort of the quick summary is that the U.S. is still declining. In Europe, I actually bifurcate England and the rest of Europe. England, I actually think is sliding faster than the U.S. Europe is catching up to the U.S. pretty quickly, pretty dramatically. In Asia, you are seeing spill over from the U.S. You’re seeing spill over in Latin America. The numbers for the year in both China and Latin America as you heard me say except for Brazil and Latin America were still up, and their numbers through the fourth quarter were still positive, but not by much.......Here is how USA eating meat...George, the projections for the first part of ‘09 are looking at slaughter down depending on who you look at. I have seen numbers 1%, 3%, down 5% for the first half of 2009, flattening and maybe a slight up tick in the latter half of ‘09. Pretty much the same with in terms of pork we saw pork flat in ‘09 versus ‘08, so you got to remember our mix is not just beef. You got the pork component and you’ve got the poultry component, and our food business represents the composite of all three of those, but if I look at the mix, the beef will be down more, pork will be more flat, and probably poultry will be pretty close to flat. So that’s sort of how we get to the food numbers, George, for ‘09. This is a razor/razor blade company and check it out..first cc I have seen that takes q's from the internet.

1/26 transcript..5 stars Nymph's take..THEY are doing well. Obama play big time..I bet EVERYONE KNOWS ABOUT THIS PUPPY> CEO Anastasio..8 analyst..from seeking alpha...HUH??...I'm very pleased to say that while many companies struggled last year during a very challenging economic environment, NuStar shined, finishing 2008 with our best year ever in practically every single categoThat's indicative of the significant scale NuStar has achieved. We're one of the larges and most geographically diverse MLPs with a liquid storage capacity that ranks us the second largest in the United States and the world's third largest. We expect to hear our Fortune 500 ranking within the next couple of months. Asphalt biz that they bought is doing well too...I REALLY HAVE TO WATCH THIS COMPANY..it is also a Low Oil Play which the company benefits from..other great stuff from seeking alpha..In fact, NuStar GP Holdings was the number 1 best performing publicly traded general partner in its peer group for 2008 based on total return. In addition, we once again had an excellent year in our safety and environmental performance. In fact, we exceeded our 2007 performance, which was already a record year for us and also outperformed our peers and the industry averages.....The current version of the $825 billion economic stimulus package out recently from the House democrats which is entitled the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, pledges a total of $30 billion dedicated to highway and bridge projects and will be distributed using the current SAFETEA-LU as they call it, funding formula. However, states will not have to put up matching funds as they normally would and they'll have to spend the stimulus money or risk forfeiting it. While there are still several details that need to be sorted out as it makes its way through Congress, we could see upwards of 10% demand growth, 2009 over 2008, depending on the U.S. amount, timing and types of projects. In other words maintenance projects versus new build projects. This $30 billion would be a significant increase over the $42 billion of federal money that is currently funded through the SAFETEA-LU for 2009, and certainly much more than we would have ever imagined, further benefitting our asphalt operations. Congress will debate this package in both the coming days and weeks and other proposals will likely be offered. However, the major provisions, like the infrastructure spending portion are expected to remain the same. Bottom line there is significant support to make this bill happen; however, for the time being we have conservatively excluded this from our forecast until we know more. Contango benefits them too..I mean the contango is supportive of demand. Of course, we've got a lot of our storage locked up in contract, which we did intentionally to hedge against a downturn in the market. But Dan, do you want to comment further on that effective contango and shift it? Dan Oliver Well, again, as Curt mentioned, about 90% of our capacity is leased, so we have 10% remaining that's available on a throughput basis, but that's primarily attached to refineries, and uses crude oil supply. So while we see this increased, the speedness in the contango, adding interest for storage, and certainly helping us as contract renewals approach we really don't have a lot in our system available to lease.