$7 target for shv, page-11

Over the past few months, Select has been getting much more publicity in the mainstream Australian media. At the same time, the share price has rapidly appreciated: from $4.50 in December last year to around $6.50 today, an increase of over 40%

To put another way: in the absence of any major news, I suspect the main factor driving the share price north since December has been this extra publicity.

Some investors like to focus on the fundamentals of a company, and sure, this is sensible. But with Agri stocks, the fundamentals of a company are of secondary importance... of greater concern are macro considerations: the soft commodity prices, the exchange rate, the weather.

With respect to Select, I think you can make a strong argument that the almond prices are probably going to continue to rise, and that the Australian dollar will continue to weaken against most major currencies.

Given that there are problems in most of the almond growing regions of the world, including (of course) California, Spain and (it would seem) Chile, Australian almond growers find themselves in a sweet spot.

But here's the rub: if you want exposure to Australian almond industry, you really have only one obvious option: SHV.

If some extra publicity from the Australian media can drive the share price 40% higher, you can't help to wonder how much more the share price could go up when this one starts to get on the radar of American investors...