Trinity Taps Into the Winds of Change

Wind's real. It's cheap, it's being built aggressively and it is changing the economics of energy. If you don't believe me, go to the Trinity (TRN - commentary - Cramer's Take) earnings announcement. This is a railcar company -- that's how we think about it.

Until last night, that is, when they reported. This time in the release the emphasis is all structural wind towers. The backlog for wind is now $1.6 billion. The energy group sales are up 42% year over year. Operating profit for the division is up an astounding 80%!

Now, it is still a railcar company for certain, with a $2.4 billion backlog. But to me, this is all about this company's decision to embrace this new form of power that works throughout the Midwest.

Trinity's a $2.6 billion company with backlog galore. It's cheap, and this was supposed to be a bad quarter. Now that's behind them.

We don't think of Trinity as a cutting-edge company. This quarter proved that wrong.

I don't think it is done going up. A 10% rally doesn't cover this change. I suspect this company will be revalued by analysts and that in the end, the wind business will be bigger than railcar.

Just a matter of time.

I was negative on this company because it had been very negative about itself.

I flipped last week, when I saw the wind story developing. I know that I have been criticized for "flip-flopping." But let me ask you -- what was the right thing to do? Stay negative because they told you to because of problems with railcars? Or get positive because of the new business of wind taking off?

Better to be flexible and right than inflexible and wrong.

At the time of publication, Cramer had no positions in the stocks mentioned.

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