So as I was looking through TXI's results today, something dawned on me - TXI's much lower cost per ton of cement in its first fiscal quarter is masking a significant inventory build Quarter-over-Quarter. I know it's not easy to adjust the numbers perfectly, given the timing of maintenance and some other things, but it looks like inventories at TXI grew by almost 10% on a unit basis. IN this environment, that's huge!... especially since they seemed too high last quarter. When compared to current sales levels, TXI seems to have an inventory level that's almost 60% higher than it was a little more than a year ago.

Is this going to end badly? Or is stimulus really going to be so large that it's going to 1) overcome continuing weakness in commercial construction; 2) take up whatever additional slack exists in TX/CA cement capacity to allow for efficient plant running even while TXI sells through plant inventories.

I'm getting a little nervous here!