After listening to the conference call last night and seeing the market’s reaction this AM, a few takeaways are clear: Alcoa is firing on all cylinders, but they are still in the paddock while their competitors are out on the racetrack. Listen, no matter what headlines come out about EPS misses or revenue beats, you have to listen to the call to understand that this was a great quarter for Alcoa. This company is turning around and meeting or exceeding their challenging goals. However, meeting their goals only gets them to be a not-so-bad company. They are doing a great job of lowering their cost structure and planning ahead to take on commodity costs and allow for flexibility when natural disasters strike like the Japanese earthquake (I was especially surprised how management shrewdly got raw materials from the West to operations in the Pacific before the supply chain tightened so they wouldn’t have to pay for higher caustic after the earthquake). This is a great American company and a great turnaround story. The long term fundamentals for the aluminum industry are clearly stated by Klaus Kleinfeld, and I think he’s right to bullish. But turnaround stories take a long time. I consider AA uninvestable for myself, as my personal investing goals won’t allow for the amount of time it could take for AA to turn around, nor would my patience. With that said, not only is there nothing wrong with AA, but it’s a great company and getting better. At $15, it’s a buy if you’ve got patience.