Ebix Inc (EBIXQ)

[bob smith]

EXCELLENT NEWS!


Ebix Announces Record Revenues With Second Quarter Diluted EPS of 47 Cents

just a quarter later than i expected1


gl

[bob smith]

another aquisition, and a full circle is formed.

should benefit the company for the long haul


gl

[bob smith]

seems dividends will continue.

oportunity to pick up more shares are right around the corner.

dont think spain or italy will help this niche market!


gl

[bob smith]

Ebix Inc (EBIX) filed Quarterly Report for the period ended 2012-03-31.

Ebix Inc has a market cap of $765 million; its shares were traded at around $18.67 with a P/E ratio of 12.7 and P/S ratio of 4.5. The dividend yield of Ebix Inc stocks is 0.8%. Ebix Inc had an annual average earning growth of 53% over the past 10 years.


http://www.gurufocus.com/news/175908/ebix-inc-reports-operating-results-10q

look for a run up prior to the next quarterly release!



gl

[bob smith]

The dividend was a brilliant move, the immediate short interest will not go away immediately, but the long term enticement too hold will benefit shareholders and create more stability and hence make the shorts cover over the coming months.


gl

[jcwillis]

Good Q and Increase of Dividend...

Yet, Market is selling into the news. The significant short interest is not going away. Would think they would cover.

What gives?

[bob smith]

Board of Directors has increased the quarterly dividend by 25% to $0.05. The next dividend is payable at the end of May.

Great for institutional stability!


gl

[bob smith]

Ebix will grow its quarterly earnings
Analysts believe that Ebix will post a quarterly profit of $0.41 a share, just shy of the $0.42 that the insurance-industry software provider earned a year earlier.

The pros only see a marginal dip in profitability. The other significant data point is that Ebix has landed ahead of analyst bottom-line projections for eight consecutive quarters.


Lets see what happens, but expecting a quarter ahead!



gl

[Penny Roger$]

~ Monday! $EBIX ~ Earnings posted, pending or coming soon! In Charts and Links Below!

~ $EBIX ~ Earnings expected on Monday *
Want more like this? Search Keyword: MACMONEY >>> http://tinyurl.com/MACMONEY <<<
One or more of many earnings sites has alerted this security has or will be posting earnings on or around the day of this message.








http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=EBIX&p=D&b=3&g=0&id=p88783918276&a=237480049




http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=EBIX&p=W&b=3&g=0&id=p54550695994



~ Google Finance: http://www.google.com/finance?q=EBIX
~ Google Fin Options: hhttp://www.google.com/finance/option_chain?q=EBIX#
~ Yahoo! Finance ~ Stats: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=EBIX+Key+Statistics
~ Yahoo! Finance ~ Profile: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=EBIX
Finviz: http://finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=EBIX
~ BusyStock: http://busystock.com/i.php?s=EBIX&v=2


<<<<<< http://www.earningswhispers.com/stocks.asp?symbol=EBIX >>>>>>



http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/post_prvt.aspx?user=251916

*If the earnings date is in error please ignore error. I do my best.

[bob smith]

good analysis, should be taken to heart when trading and following EBIX for the next 3 months!


http://www.moneyshow.com/investing/article/1/GURU-26614/3-Software-Plays-with-Charts-in-the-Clouds/?aid=guru-26614&iid=GURU&page=1

Ebix (EBIX) is another smaller enterprise software name that’s been showing good technical strength. It’s up almost 5% so far in February, its fifth month in a row with gains.

The company makes software for the insurance industry. It’s posted a strong track record of earnings and revenue growth in recent quarters, although analysts see an income decline of 2% in 2012, to $1.41 per share.

Ebix has a market cap of around $926 million. It has decent liquidity for a small stock, moving around 467,000 shares per day on average.

However, like many small caps, it tends to trade in a volatile fashion. Its beta is currently 1.73, a sign of that volatility vs. the broader market. That means that investors need to use more caution than they would with a blue chip, which might have longer staying power in a portfolio.

While smaller stocks often pull back harder than the broader market in a downturn, they can also post bigger price gains in a bull rally. These are often stocks that should be sold to pocket gains, rather than held, during corrections.

At the moment, Ebix is still emerging from a steep base. It corrected 57% between March and October of last year, and still has some work to do before regaining previous highs.

The stock flashed a technical buy signal in December, when its ten-week line crossed above its 40-week. Since then, it has not pulled back to the ten-week for an alternate entry point. However, it appears to be digesting gains in the past two weeks, and may stop for a breather, allowing new buyers to grab shares.

The company reports earnings next month. As usual, guidance that’s better or worse than what’s expected could send the stock moving sharply in one direction or the other.


gl

[bob smith]

Ebix Announces Dividend, Fueling Stock's Rebound
By AMY REEVES, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 02/03/2012 01:14 PM ET


Email Print License Comment
inShareFeatured Stocks
EBIX * Ebix Inc
* Top-Rated Company Ebix (EBIX) was up 4% in midday trading Friday after it announced a quarterly dividend of 4 cents a share. The move brought the stock to its highest point in 10 months, and was trading at about twice its normally modest average volume of about 530,000.

Ebix offers cloud-based software that connects insurance carriers, brokers and buyers online. It has reported a long string of growth quarters that have given it the highest-possible IBD Composite Rating of 99, but only a few Wall Street analysts cover it. It didn't help matters that last March a financial blog attacked its reporting practices at great length, leading to a sell-off from which the stock is still recovering.

The analysts who've stuck with the stock are expecting financials to slow down in the near future. When it reports Q4 results, likely in March, analysts expect per-share profit for 2011 to have risen 13% to $1.71, on sales of $168.2 million, up 27%. But for 2012, the consensus analyst estimate calls for 9.2% sales growth and earnings per share inching down 2% to $1.67.

estimates that are marginal and can be beaten!

http://news.investors.com/Article/599998/201202031314/ebix-stock-up-on-dividend-announcement.htm?ven=yahoocp,yahoo

[bob smith]

excellent!

this is testament for many who have accumaleted and held long.

this will only go higher in the near future!

strong support!


gl

[bob smith]

ITS BEEN A GREAT 3 MONTHS.

REGAINED SOME FORM.

WOULDN'T BE SUPRISED WITH SOME PROFIT TAKING.

WOULD LOVE THIS THING TO TOO TOUCH $30 DOLLARS AGAIN1




GL

[bob smith]

I guess no one liked the interview.......

Lol

[bob smith]

i reasonably agree.
i still think this company is still a long term play, and worthy investmant.


gl to you and happy holidays!

[Alpha66]

bob smith:

as, with most of my holdings this year, it's been rough on reasonable.....

merry Christmas.
A66

[bob smith]

institutional holding is still fairly strong down the stretch.

gl

[bob smith]

yes
no

summation.
the short term target of $30, which was reached, was reasonable.

Do i think the Long term target of $60 is reasonable, yes.

and your point?

been in this for awhile, and have done well playing the technicals.

and its a unique brand that lives in a vacum.

gl

[Alpha66]

...$50 to $60 is reasonable in 6 months...

Is today's $16 to $17 reasonable ?

[bob smith]

I think that the company will have other events that will disprove these reports in the long term.

we had our short term drive, $30 was a respectable drive, and profit taking was due and expected.

the longterm target of $50 to 60 in another 6 months is reasonable, especially given the vacum EBIX operates in.

regardless of the trust or respect or lack of respect the managment has(I think its irrelevant), EBIX is the only player in this market that can control this niche market share.

gl

[DSquared66]

So what does the board see as a catalyst for the SP? Is there something that can be done to remove the overhang of the negativity? Or do you think that the company will have other events that will disprove these reports in the long term?

[bob smith]

this would be the first time i would agree with you.

gl

[voipy mcvoipster]

For those who read my report...

I still stand by my evaluation of Ebix.

The market is still not fairly valuing Ebix, and many simply do not understand the carry-loss forwards, or that Ebix enjoys low costs and tax breaks as a result of their Indian operations, or the perceived volatility due to constant acquisitions.

I do take issue with Ebix for acquiring growth strictly through acquisitions, rather than organic development.

If I were the one with a chance to interview Mr. Raina, I'd be more interested in pressing him on how Ebix plans to develop more organic growth, and what strategies they have devised to acquire more customers through sheer sales & marketing efforts.

They have the margins to support a large increase in SG&A, it'd be nice to see that for a change instead of just buying more companies.

[Soapy Bubbles]

Go EBIX...

[momentum74]

EBIX 23.72 bullish update article http://seekingalpha.com/author/david-collins/comments

[momentum74]

Link EBIX 23.22 related article on Legal tax loopholes for GE
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/business/economy/25tax.html?partner=yahoofinance

[DSquared66]

I'm concerned by the latest report. Though I don't doubt there could be other forces at work here, I think that there are valid points raised. Or should I say re-raised? What concerns me the most is the companies response. Though I don't advocate companies responding to everything in the blogosphere, the company's response may be telling. They have not come out with strong statements to defend their practices in light of significant negative market action on their stock.

I've pulled back 50% (still taking considerable percentage gains). If there isn't a clear, specific response to these allegations, I'll probably take the rest of my position as well.

[bob smith]

:)


it will come back.

it has a strong outlook.

gl

[momentum74]

Link .$EBIX 22.24 -25% buyins. shortsqueeze report. Bought some for a bounce trade. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/BUYINSNET-Updates-Ebix-Inc-pz-2533083580.html?x=0&.v=1

[dawgpac68]

Hit piece attacks the appearance of auditor shuffle, but CEO addressed it in a past conference call:

"We continue to have strong relationships with all accounting firms that we have worked with over the last seven years. And still continue to utilize them. For example, our present consolidating auditors CBH have been our auditor since the last two fiscal years now. For fiscal 2009 our past U.S. audit firm HAW helped us with some income tax matters in 2009. In fiscal 2009 one of our past audit (BDO Seidman) continued to function as our auditors in Singapore, Sweden and Australia and now they have done that for more than five years."

[dawgpac68]

Today's hit piece tanks the stock but allowed me to buy more. The author (written under a pseudonym) is admittedly short the stock and EBIX ceo and an analyst have reiterated their strong outlook in the past hour. It'll come back and maybe the hit piece author should read this article:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-24/barry-minkow-is-charged-by-u-s-prosecutors-with-conspiracy-in-miami.html

[DSquared66]

Let's hope you're studying at a university with a large endowment. A big enough position may help everyone on this board!

Seriously though, we all appreciate your research and contributions.

[voipy mcvoipster]

We just learned a few hours ago that the board approved Ebix for a full buy.

[DSquared66]

Excellent work. This is the type of analysis that I feel has been lacking on this board (I'm as guilty as anyone). I really appreciate the work you've put in. Can you let us know if your recommendation is accepted?

[okvestor]

Well done analysis. Thanks for sharing!

[voipy mcvoipster]

Ebix analytical report ready for viewing.

This is the same report (albeit slightly altered) submitted this morning to our endowment board and I'll be pitching it tomorrow.

Hope it provides some useful insights for everyone!

http://www.filedump.net/dumped/ebixanalysis1299086492.pdf

[DSquared66]

Your analysis is far more detailed than any that I have done. I am definitely interested in what you guys come up with tomorrow. Please post!

[voipy mcvoipster]

Ebix has an intrinsic value of approximately $40.

Pro forma statements aren't fully complete but we're already seeing this based on our growth rates using FCFE calculations. Despite my misgivings, we still see massive potential and have come up with creative counter-arguments to Ebix's potential risks.

1. Ebix is in a niche industry, so we're treating it as a synthetic industry by creating a synthetic industry growth rate. We weighted their different product segments that mirror other industries, then applied a sum-of-squares approach to each weighted percentage to factor in future GDP growth, and it yielded an annualized industry growth rate of 9.6% over the next 5 years. Pretty good as far as industries go. That's over 2.5 times greater than GDP growth estimates.

2. As for Ebix itself, we're getting crazy estimated revenue growth. We applied a 3 stage growth mode, and determined 60% growth for 2011, 48% in 2012, and 30% in 2013. We think 15% - 20% annual growth beyond 2013 isn't out of the question. We determined that that when the NOLs run out probably around mid-to-late 2012, it wont matter as much because Ebix will have grown so much in the next 2 years that a growth rate of about 15% - 20% will apply once tax rates are normalized. Worst case scenario, our synthetic industry growth of 9.6% applied to projected revenue beyond 2013 would probably hold well.

3. We also talked to some insurance biz whizzes, and they confirmed the insurance market is ultra-soft right now. Ebix stands to benefit from this easily until a major catastrophic event occurs that eliminates a lot of the over-competition in the insurance industry. Even if a cat event happens, we expect the high growth and diversity of products and services they offer will make it easier for them to withstand the drop in customer base when the hard market returns, and remainign insurance carriers will increase revenue from adjusted risk models, while also increasing the pool of policies that can be written since there will be less competition. So Ebix stands to benefit either way, provided they can maintain their excellent customer churn after the hard market returns.

We're also going to analyze put/call ratios, and volumes at different prices with different expiry dates to formulate our counterargument on why the short ratio is bullish. Already the ratio has been dropping the last few weeks from 30%, to 15%, to 13.5%. It's a classic squeeze, gotta be. Our report will be complete by 3/2/11, I'll be more than happy to post a link for everyone to read.

[DSquared66]

Voipy,

Welcome to the board! Glad to see a new face.

All of your concerns are valid to a degree. I have reasoned these same questions myself over and over again. EBIX is growing by acquisition, which makes the accounting a lot "harder" to manage. I don't feel like Raina has given adequate detail as to why KPMG left, but I don't think at this point we're going to get it.

I do believe that there is an overhead related to their tax accounting. On the contrary, I don't believe that Raina doesn't understand it in terms of the last CC, I believe more that he does not want to address it. The 40%+ operating margin they've been posting is what is getting them recognized by the street again. I think once the NOLs can no longer be carried forward, the quarterly numbers are not going to look as good.

While the quantitative analysis here is accurate, I believe EBIX is a growth story based on IT consolidation of the insurance industry. In that light, you have to realize that a company is going to do whatever they can to continue to grow. A lot has been made of organic growth versus growth-by-acquisition. I think the best way to view is it that EBIX is positioning themselves as the premier consolidated exchange provider within the industry. If you successfully position yourself in that space, you have a significant moat to prevent others from entering the space. That's where EBIX true risk/reward is. If they are successful in that, which they appear to be so far, then they are a screaming buy. If not, then all these accounting issues may catch up to them.

[DSquared66]

New article from IBD, nothing particularly new:

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=564259&ven=yahoo

[voipy mcvoipster]

Some serious fundamental questions...

1. Is anyone else bothered by such a large amount of goodwill on Ebix's balance sheet? Goodwill comprises nearly 60% of their total assets, and is almost 340% higher than total current assets. Think about it for a second.... 60% of Ebix's asset value is derived simply from overpaying the fair market value of acquisitions. Doesn't this seem like a very heavy future impairment just waiting to happen as soon as the insurance cycle starts to soften?

2. What about the CEO's inability to understand questions during the last shareholder meeting regarding their artificially low tax rate, based solely on their net operating carry-loss forwards? How long do they expect to continue these forwards and maintain this low tax rate? At some point the cookie jar will be empty and Ebix will be confronted with a realistic tax rate.

3. How about KPMG's decision to leave Ebix due to their lack of accounting transparency with all their recent acquisitions, and deficiencies in internal controls? This seems to bring up the whole goodwill issue again.

4. Who's responsible for the high short ratio? I'm certain this is a classic short squeeze and the price should go higher, but damn! Is it just a handful of institutional investors who made a bad call to short Ebix, or is there more too it?

5. Why isn't the market rewarding Ebix for such high numbers? Obviously for many of the reasons I mentioned above. So why SHOULD the market reward Ebix with a higher share price?

FYI - I'm not interested in investing in Ebix for myself, I'm evaluating it as a potential buy for my University's student managed investment fund and these are the issues I have with it. If anyone has any meaningful insight to these questions I'd greatly appreciate your thoughts, thank you.

[DSquared66]

It's a tough market out there right now. I've held my positions steady. Without news flow, I would be watching the rest of the market for signs of near-term stabilization before adding. At this point though, I've allocated as much as I am going to. If we hit 25 again, I may trade out waiting for another dip. The technicals are setting up nicely for a consistent run though. We'll see. Good Luck!

[bob smith]

expect a strong bounce.....

the support levels, and prospective gains could push this higher.

like your comment of a new entry point. (now?)

gl

[DSquared66]

I've kept a core position and traded around a supplemental position for the past few months. I can see them running on the lead up to earnings, then come back down again. I may take this opportunity to trade again.

GL!

[bob smith]

i assuming thats the case, or the fear of it. but that is an extremely short sighted fear.

this is getting set up for a nice run, if the external enviroment stays stable.

gl

[DSquared66]

Was the dip in share price over the last few days a result in the issuance of new shares based on the ADAM merger?

[bob smith]

it should be a good month.

like the news.

something many of us were expecting.

gl

[DSquared66]

Some food for thought:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/245265-contrarian-ideas-highly-shorted-stocks-being-dumped-by-the-smart-money?source=yahoo

[bob smith]

i agree.......next six months should be fun and enjoyable to watch.


gl

[DSquared66]

Looks like a strong push off the 21 lows. I sold half my position at 24, bought back in at 21.

Does anyone know of any company events beyond Q4 earnings announcements? I've been hard pressed to find any news flow. I'm looking for solid DD, not just technical analysis around the MAs.

Thanks!