Hurricane Sandy: 5 stocks set to soar

It promises to be the biggest thing to hit The Street this year. A Category 1 hurricane with winds over 140km/h bearing down so violently on New York City that transit, tunnels, schools, casinos and the markets all took heed of Mayor Bloomberg's two-word warning — "Get out" — and shut down.

The schools will still be closed tomorrow, as will countless businesses, but it generally takes more than a full-moon fuelled Frankenstorm to keep the financial sector down for long. Indeed, land-fall hasn't even hit yet and already stock pickers are scanning the storm clouds looking for some blue sky to point towards. (It's a cynical pursuit to be sure, searching for profits amid a maelstrom imperiling most of the Eastern Seaboard. But this is Wall Street we're talking about. That don't make it rain, they just reap the rewards).

So with that said, where is the smart money looking? The obvious choices, of course, are the DYI giants Home Depot and Lowe's. According to the latest metrology reports, Sandy has roughly 50 million people over 1,280 kilometres in her sights. Let's say that's a worst-case scenario, torqued up several notches by the media, and in fact only one-tenth of that number is affected. That still leaves up to five million people either fixing the roof, salvaging their basements, or just stocking up so they're better protected next time.

Home Depot and Lowe's have been through this drill many times before. You can be sure no retailer spends more time pouring over the Munich Re natural catastrophe reports with their inventory execs than those two companies. And that's not macabre or sinister, that's just smart customer service.

Drilling a little deeper, analysts expect portable generator producers like Generac Holdings and battery companies like Duracell to see a significant uptick in sales as emergency officials warn of possible 10-day power outages. Proctor & Gamble, makers of practically every household item, are also seen as big beneficiaries when it comes to stockpiling goods.

In the same univeralist vein, stock watchers expect Facebook to see a big spike in traffic over the next week, as users across North America log on to swap photos, videos and no small number of jokes about the wreckage being wrought.

Those are all the sexy picks; the ones that immediately spring to mind as soon as hurricane season nears. Less widely known, but no less poised to pounce, are the energy bigs who will be idling refineries and limiting production in the coming days, all of which will send prices soaring as soon as the storm passes.