1) ?..... short-sell insurers and electrical utilities? 2) !..... get "long" for a "not as bad as expected" rally! :eek:
Get a chain saw and remove fallen trees. My neighbor had one fall on his house after a hurricane and they wanted 7000 bucks to remove it.
As Katrina approached, I had a brilliant idea about how to make money from the storm, so I bought shares in Clorox (CLX). Visions of trainloads of bleach chugging toward New Orleans filled my mind. Didn't turn out that way; I think many of the houses were left to rot and then were torn down. However, my story has a happy ending because CLX was a decent stock pick. I bought it in the low or mid 50s, it paid a 2% or 3% dividend and I sold it a while later in the high 60s or low 70s.
hoodooman has the right idea. there were stories of entrepreneurs buying portable generators for $500 in other states near LA and selling them for $10,000 in LA. they would buy like 10 generators and put them on the back of a pickup and just drive down the devastated areas and pull over to people and ask if they wanted one. cash only of course