12 Big Surprises for 2005

• China has to eat amid an economic slowdown, and China also has to turn on the lights. Recent rumblings out of Beijing suggest that its mandarins are forcing local governments to stop building power plants. But the current ones are barely able to keep the factories, televisions and streetlamps humming. To feed the plants' hunger for fuel, U.S., Chinese, Korean and Australian coal miners continue to perform well, as do the makers of copper, due to its use in electricity distribution. Continuing their two-year rallies are BHP Billiton (BHP Quote) and Peabody Energy (BTU Quote). Recent IPO Foundation Coal (FCL Quote) doubles by year-end. Miners Phelps Dodge (PD Quote) and Southern Peru Copper (PCU Quote) also advance another 40% past their lofty 2004 highs by year-end.
• Fiber-to-the-premises finally takes off as an investment theme, as Baby Bells such as Verizon (VZ Quote) and SBC (SBC Quote) spend like drunken sailors in an effort to bring fiber-optic broadband speed to their residential customers. Street-diggers such as MasTec (MTZ Quote) and Dycom Industries (DY Quote) led the way in 2004, and they are followed in 2005 by fiber-optic component makers JDS Uniphase (JDSU Quote), Avanex (AVNX Quote) and Bookham (BKHM Quote), all of which double and more amid rising sales, earnings and stock-momentum buzz.
• The hit retail phenomenon of the year is Build-a-Bear Workshop (BBW Quote), which went public at $20 in November and rises to $60 by the end of 2005. The teddy-bear customization chain rides a wave of new popularity after it introduces iBear -- a stuffed animal with built-in satellite radio, MP3 player, cell phone and digital camera.
• By the end of the year, a study reports that the U.S. is experiencing a "creativity crisis" spawned by the intense focus on homeland security. Researchers discover that a clampdown on immigration is keeping out foreigners who see old things in new ways. Jim Williams, of the Williams Inference Center, is quoted in the study saying that "immigrants like Albert Einstein and Intel founder Andy Grove bail us out in hard times." He adds: "If immigration continues to decline, we aren't going to come back the way we have for a century. We can't trade protection for imagination."