Joy Global, a Milwaukee-based manufacturer of mining equipment, is sniffing out potential takeover candidates, CEO Michael W. Sutherlin said on Wednesday's "Fast Money Halftime Report."
Sutherlin said the mining name is looking at a number of acqusition possibilities, but wouldn't specify who.
"We want those acquisitions to be mission critical," he said. "A very tight glove fit with our business. We want to use that to extend the scope and range of our business."
Joy Global has some additional upside in its capacity right now, but Sutherlin said it's looking to add more. Sutherlin is focused on China, where the company has already made many investments. He said the People's Republic is "the place to be" because it's a "large, rapdily growing domestic market."
Sutherlin revealed that Joy Global considered buying Terex's mining business, but after reviewing its portfolio, decided it wasn't a good fit. One of Joy Global's fundamental business models, he explained, is providing mission critical eqiupment to customers with great reliability on a 24-7 basis. It was decided that Terex wouldn't help them to better achieve that goal. In December 2009, Terex sold its mining unit to Bucyrusfor $1.3 billion.
Watch the video to see the full interview with Sutherlin.
What's the Trade?
In the mining space, capital expenditure budgets are only going higher, said Joe Terranova of Virtus Investment Partners. He recommends moving stops up higher. With JOYG, he would get out if it goes below $65 a share.
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AG RETREATS FROM HIGHS
The PowerShares DB Agriculture exchange-traded fund briefly hit its highest level in more than a year Wednesday.
With the pullback in midday trading, Veracruz founder thinks it's time to not only short DBA, but corn, as well. Cortes is concerned about price action being as corn costs roughly $5 a bushell when it was trading at around $3.50 a short time ago. Perhaps the biggest problem, he said, is trade tension between the US and China, which he thinks could affect US exports.
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ANALYST UPGRADES HATED AOL
Miller Tabak upgraded AOL to 'buy' from 'neutral' Wednesday, becoming only the second firm on Wall Street to upgrade the New York City-based Internet company. It placed the long-term price target at $44 a share.
David Joyce, the analyst who made the call, explained his reasoning on the "Fast Money Halftime Report." Forty percent of its revenue is still tied to dialup Internet services, but that's what's giving it the valuation, he said. In other words, the company is only trading at three times next year's earnings, which is equal to other dialup-only businesses. AOL, however, isn't getting credit for its content monotization capability or advertising movements.
The Internet service provider is losing 25 percent of dialup subscribers year-over-year, Joyce said, but its property sites are getting 107 million unique visitors and that generates additional revenue.
"There's a number of actions that they've taken lately that really make us believe that they're on the offensive now," said Joyce.
Watch the video to hear the full conversation with Joyce on AOL—it starts at 1:15.
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UNUSUAL ACTIVITY: BLUE COAT SYSTEMS
In the first 35 minutes of trading Wednesday, Blue Coat Systems saw 17,000 contracts traded in the options space, said Pete Najarian of optionMONSTER.com. Most of it, he said, is in October for the 24, 25 and 26 calls. He thinks traders are expecting action to the upside.
"Fast Money" called Blue Coat, but the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company gave "no comment."
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CALL THE CLOSE
, principal of Trutina Financial, is buying dividend paying stocks, but not much else right now.
Steve Cortes, founder of Veracruz, is selling financials.
"I like this whole protection idea, but I think you can see that there's a bid in the market," said Pete Najarian, co-founder of optionMONSTER.com, adding that the market could push higher.
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Trader disclosure: On Sept. 29, 2010, the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC’s Fast Money were owned by the Fast Money traders; Pete Najarian owns (BCSI) call spreads; Pete Najarian owns (WFC) put preads; Pete Najarian owns (BUCY) call spreads; Terranova Owns (APA), (AAPL), (ARUN), (BMO), (C), (IBM), (HES), (JOYG), (XBI), (FTO), (OXY), (ORCL), (PEP), (POT), (RSH), (SU), (RIG), (UPL), (VRTS); Cortes owns U.S. Treasuries; Cortes is short (XLF); Cortes is short (BAC); Cortes is short (LVS); Cortes is short corn; Cortes owns U.S. Treasuries; Cortes is short (XLF); Cortes is short (BAC); Cortes is short (LVS); Cortes is short corn
For Joe Terranova
Terranova is chief market strategist of Virtus Investment Partners, LTD.
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For Patty Edwards
Edwards owns (BAC) for clients
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For David Joyce
***No Disclosures***
CNBC.com with wires.