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re CHAR: Lukoil is buying out NLG which owns 50% of CHAR, so shareholders not thrilled about their new partner.
I think the panic is overdone, but Lukoil may try to buy out CHAR shareholders at a discount, just as they did with NLG.
bbotcs: re HURC, I added to my position this morning after the news of the trade show success. Looks cheap at $16 with EPS of $1.46 through 9 months of their October fiscal year. Last year fiscal Q4 was a barn burner, so hoping for a repeat this year.
This has been a great long term growth story at a low PE !
GV +.31 to 1.20, on news of their participation in New Orleans electrical restoration work. It opened at 1.01 and dropped to .98 briefly. I was tempted to buy a few shares for a daytrade, but got cold feet. Hindsight is perfect, I should have bought a chunk.
The daytraders love this stock and have already traded nearly 1M shares in the first 45 minutes.
bbtocs: GV should see a nice boost to Q4 earnings from the New Orleans cleanup, but I agree it's just a single quarter effect. In Q3 they should see some added income from some electrical restoration work in South Florida from the two hurricanes that passed that region.
But the stock is primarily appealing for their Florida real estate construction projects that should increase EPS substantially over the next several quarters.
I owned a substantial position in GV from months ago in the .40's, .50's and higher, but sold it all on the last spike up after the Company announced it would likely not be doing any hurricane cleanup. I'd say fair value is around $1+, and I was looking to buy back shares at $.80, but it never got that low.
GV should rally higher tomorrow .... already up sharply after hours. Company to participate in electrical restoration work in New Orleans ....
MELBOURNE, Fla., Sept. 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The Goldfield Corporation (Amex: GV - News), a leading provider of electrical construction services in the southeastern United States, today commented further on its involvement in storm restoration activities.
Goldfield today announced that Southeast Power, Goldfield's electrical construction subsidiary, has been selected to assist in the identification and removal of electrical hazards to permit clearing operations to be performed safely, primarily in Orleans Parish, Louisiana, in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Southeast Power expects to divert a portion of its field workforce from Florida to Louisiana to service this project.
John Sottile, President of Goldfield, said, "Goldfield is proud to help on this very important assignment" and that "as a matter of civic responsibility, certain of its existing Florida customers had agreed to temporarily free up some of the Southeast Power's workforce as the Gulf Coast struggles to recover from one of the worst natural disasters in US history."
Goldfield reiterated its previous announcement that it is impossible to gauge how long this special demand for services will continue or its effect on financial results.
About Goldfield
Goldfield is a leading provider of electrical construction and maintenance services in the energy infrastructure industry in the southeastern United States. The company specializes in installing and maintaining electrical transmission lines for a wide range of electric utilities. Goldfield is also involved in the development of high-end condominium projects on Florida's east coast.
stock_peeker: I picked up some more NKBS this afternoon. Sure looks cheap at $2.05 with Company guidance for EPS of $0.30 for the year.
TGB +.10 to 1.14, evidently strong due to yesterday's 8K filing of financial statements for the 9 month period ended 6/30. The Company reports 103M basic shares and 129M fully diluted shares outstanding for the 3rd quarter. EPS of C$0.08 fully diluted, adjusted for the exchange rate of 1.17 equals EPS of $0.068 in US dollars.
Copper prices are up sharply, now at around $1.80 per pound, versus the $1.51 average sales price for the Company in the June quarter ....
valuemind: NAVR does look interesting and I have it on my watchlist for now. It will be interesting to see if there's any further insider buying. Good luck.
linuspop: thanks, that looks like an excellent website to scan periodically for insider buying. I plan to check it regularly, if I find the time, LOL
ATVE aka TALL continues to act well after a series of bullish PR's. Hopefully there's some substance behind their optimism. In the latest PR they announce plans for additional profitable acquisitions with debt financing ....
Stock has gone from .05 to .16 in the past 5 weeks on strong volume ....
TORONTO, Sept. 28, 2005, Sep 28, 2005 (PRIMEZONE via COMTEX) -- ActiveCore Technologies, Inc. (ATVE) announced today that it has retained the services of Pathpoint Capital to assist in the identification and financing of a strategic acquisition. It is contemplated that the two parties will target several U.S. based organizations that ActiveCore considers to be synergistic with its core business, and that any transaction which gets consummated will be debt financed.
Pathpoint recently completed a due diligence investigation of ActiveCore, prior to determining that they would proceed with this engagement. This exercise encompassed financial and operations reviews, as well as an evaluation of the Company's new management group and their strategic direction.
Bryan Keeler, partner at Pathpoint, commented "The directional decisions and strategic acquisitions made over the last year have positioned Activecore for the next level of growth. We are pleased to be associated with what we see as a strong, experienced new management group."
Pathpoint and ActiveCore have already initiated discussions with potential targets. Although no firm date has been set to complete a transaction, ActiveCore indicated that this process would likely extend until early 2006.
With respect to the types of companies being considered as potential acquisition targets, the Company is currently examining a number of possibilities presented by Pathpoint, but acknowledged that the most logical move would be to add new revenue to its corporate messaging business to help bring the CDM division more in-line with the current size of its SIM division. Recent M&A transactions involving corporate messaging businesses have commanded impressive revenue and earnings multiples, primarily due to the high margins and recurring revenue model the underlying business can deliver.
Peter Hamilton, CEO of ActiveCore elaborated, "We anticipate that the next strategic move ActiveCore makes will be a sizable one. As indicated through recent press releases, we are pleased with the current status of our existing businesses, and we feel we are ready as an organization to take a next step. Although there are numerous variables impacting our evaluation process of potential targets, we would certainly like to be able to add a minimum of $5 million -- $10 million USD of profitable revenue by early 2006."
valuemind: are you a subscriber to an insider buying alert service, or do you just scan for insider buying yourself ? It certainly can be useful information to have. VPHM is just one example of notable insider buying this past spring before the big runnup in the stock price ....
lentinman: ERS certainly has been weak lately and it will be interesting to see if it drops much further. But it's very cheap on a PE basis for an AMEX stock showing strong growth. Fully taxed EPS of $0.48 in the 1st half, up sharply from the prior year, for a foward PE of around 8 at today's close of $7.95. On a value basis it has plenty of appeal over the vast majority of listed stocks.
Of course, maybe the selloff reflects a change in the fundamentals, perhaps a cyclical downturn in the business, but hopefully it's just technical. That's the risk of investing. ERS looked very weak technically earlier this year when it dipped from 5 into the 3's, but it proved to be a great bargain at the time ....
As for the debt/equity ratio, long term debt is always used for that measurement. On that basis, ERS has virtually no debt, and the D/E ratio is only 0.1.
As for short term debt, ERS is a distributor of aluminum products. Like virtually ANY distributor they carry a lot of short term debt on the books which is offset by accounts receivable and inventory. That's an entirely normal business model for a distributor. The current assets and liabilities are all highly liquid. There's no risk in that.
As for the issue of cash ... that's just another liquid current asset ... it means very little in this business model. It would be inefficient for them to hold a lot of cash in lieu of inventory. To maximize ROE, a Company, most especially a distributor, needs to put its cash to use, not stick it in the bank ! I'm very glad they don't have a lot of cash.
Insider ownership is higher than I'd like, and the CFO sold a block of shares recently in the 12's, which proved to be good timing. But as a percentage of insider holdings, the selling has been very modest. I view it as normal, healthy, well deserved profit taking. But hopefully we won't see much selling with the stock down in the high 7's.
tophat59: standard options are always offered for 4 expiration months. In the case of EPEX you can go out to October, November, December and March at various strike prices. When the October options expire on 10/21, the June options will start trading.
tophat59: options are a great tool for leverage and with gas prices skyrocketing, $35+ by November for EPEX could be realistic. It all depends on how probable you feel such a further dramatic rise in the stock price is.
I feel safer with longer term options and hold a bunch of EPEX March 20 and 22.5 Calls. But shorter term calls are cheaper and therefore offer greater leverage, but are of course riskier.
The Nov 30 Calls are currently asking 1.40, so if the stock closed at 37 on expiration day, you would have a 400% gain on the options versus a mere 35% gain in the stock price. Good luck !
But, generally speaking, it's important to remember that most short term 10% 'out of the money' options expire worthless.
wade: re NKBS
It's surprising to see such a large insider sale at a deep discount to the market price. Some institution probably bought the shares and made out like a bandit. I'd rather have seen the sale done gradually on the open market so I could have scooped up shares at $1.50 ! The small investor doesn't get that opportunity very often.
I'm hoping the sale was for personal reasons and does not reflect any change in the fundamentals for the Company.
SSKILLZ1, UCIA has been surprisingly weak given the strong fundamentals. I bought a bunch of shares in the low 3's, so won't add more unless it gets to the mid 2's. But it's good to see a decent size bid at 2.90. Maybe that will prove to be the bottom.
EPS of .11 for the June quarter versus .03 the prior year on a 24% jump in revenues.
Forward PE is around 6 on a pretax basis. Sizable operating loss carryforwards will continue to shelter the Company from taxes.
ASPN 10K filed. Looks a bit disappointing at first glance. Revenues down 15% sequentially in Q4 versus Q3. Reserves down from a year ago due to depletion and lower revisions to existing reserve estimates. And 'years of reserves' down sharply due to increased production rates. Fully taxed and diluted EPS of .22 for the June fiscal year.
Of course recent discoveries should help reserves and production. And the huge jump in natural gas prices occurred after the June quarter ended. Fiscal Q1, the September quarter, should be much better than Q4.
ERS down to 8.05, I just picked up a few more shares in the low 8's. Stock is now way down from its high of 14 a few months ago. Fully taxed and diluted EPS of .48 in the 1st half was up sharply from .22 in the year ago period. Stronger aluminum prices should help Q3 results.
Stock also appears to be finding strong technical support at the $8 level.
TGB flat at .94 even as copper breaks over $1.80 per pound, a new record high. TGB reported basic EPS of .10 for the June quarter. Fully diluted EPS was significantly lower, but with most of the warrants now far out of the money, and copper much higher than the $1.51 average sales price in fiscal Q3, the stock looks very cheap. The much anticipated melt down in copper prices as failed to materialize so far. A negative factor in September fiscal Q4 results will be some production problems earlier in the quarter and a lack of sales from inventory that occurred in the June quarter.
Stock should make a run at some point given that it's so cheap on a PE basis, and near the bottom of its 52wk range of .80 to 1.85 in spite of strong fundamentals.
CAS looks cheap at $17.40 and could spike higher with a solid Q3. Results for the 1st half for this metal and plastics distributor were outstanding.
Q2 EPS of .73, fully taxed and diluted, versus .35 last year. Sales up 33%. For 6mos EPS of 1.41 versus .47. Favorable forward looking comments from management .... solid balance sheet.
PE of just over 6, based on 1st half results annualized.
re ETEC, correction, pre-merger EPS is about $0.38, not .44 for the 12 months ended June, versus a stock price of 2.10. I'm hoping the combined entity will still have trailing EPS of at least $0.25 - .30. Plus there are synergies the merger will provide to improve results going forward ....
hweb: ETEC looks very cheap at $2.10 and I'm still holding my shares awaiting the combined financials of the new merged Company. ETEC alone has fully taxed and diluted EPS of about $0.44 for the trailing 4 quarters ended June. We already know that Westwood has higher revenues than Emtec and their shareholders will own about 55% of the new Company. I doubt Westwood's profitability is as strong as Emtec's, but they must be quite profitable considering that the investment bank, Hyde Park Capital, felt the 55%/45% ownership split was fair ....
From the PR ....
Hyde Park Capital Advisors, LLC is pleased to announce it has rendered a fairness opinion to the Board of Directors of Emtec, Inc. in its recently announced merger with DARR Westwood Technology Corporation, Inc.
Upon effectiveness of the merger, which is expected to occur within the next several weeks, DARR Westwood's shareholders will acquire approximately 55% of Emtec's then issued and outstanding shares of common stock
The combined company will continue to operate as Emtec under the ticker symbol ETEC. Westwood's revenues for the twelve months ended August 31, 2004 were $129.87 million. Emtec's revenues for its fiscal year ended March 31, 2005 were $112.70 million.
DXPE has had a great run to the low 20's from the 7's just 10 weeks ago, but I think it's gotten to fair value. I took profits on Friday, but will buy back if it dips sufficiently. However it was featured in an Investor's Business Daily article on 9/22 and also made it near the top of the weekly IBD 100 list. Traders could take it even higher ....
SMXC looks undervalued at 7.24. This trucking company reported an outstanding 2nd quarter with fully taxed and diluted EPS of .27. Last year their strongest earnings came in Q3. Furthermore the Company has a solid balance sheet with tangible book value at nearly $5 per share.
The stock spiked over $9 on the Q2 earnings report, and will hopefully head even higher if the Q3 earnings are even stronger.
UCIA looks cheap under $3
UCIA is a solid growth story at a low PE. EPS of .40 pretax through 9mos of their September fiscal year, versus .28 the prior year. That's up 43% y/y. Revenues up 18% for the same period.
EPS of .11 for the June quarter versus .03 the prior year on a 24% jump in revenues.
I think pretax EPS is the proper way to evaluate earnings for this Company since they still have sizable operating loss carryforwards left to shelter them from taxes. So ignore the tax credits and expenses, it's just accounting ... they're not actually paying taxes.
Forward PE is around 6 on a pretax basis. That's very cheap for the kind of growth they've been showing, even on a fully taxed basis, imho !
abh3vt: ASPN earnings should be decent, but 'years of reserves' may be somewhat disappointing, especially since recent drilling successes occurred after the end of their 6/30 fiscal year. Production is way up from a year ago, but if reserves are relatively flat, then the life of the reserves at current production rates will be rather modest. As of 6/30/04 they had about 8 years of reserves based on fiscal 2004 production levels. It will be interesting to see the new figure based on 2005 reserves and production levels ....
michael: thanks for your accounting expertise. It's fairly clear that they violated the GAAP rules based on your information. Of course the details regarding the dilution was in the footnotes, so perhaps the violation could be considered as minor. Nonetheless they were clearly trying to hide very substantial dilution from the preferred shares and convertible debt, and it raises questions about their honesty and motives.
10 bagger: thanks for your insights into UBOH and the other recommendations. I appreciate your expertise in the banking sector. MBLA and FRGB look especially interesting to me.
michaelt: Certainly GAAP rules require reporting diluted share count, but arguably they did report that via the footnotes, though not directly on the income statement. I presume what they did is acceptable since their 10K was audited by a CPA ....
However I would agree that it's a bit sleazy and evasive, if not a violation of the GAAP rules. But I'm not a CPA and not aware of the exact reporting protocols .... one might say that they have violated the 'spirit' of the GAAP rules, though not directly ???
10 bagger: UBOH looks like an undervalued small bank. Are you familiar with this one ? Very thinly traded on the Nasdaq, but perhaps undiscovered and at the low end of its 52wk range. Now trading around 15.60 with EPS of .31 in Q2, up from .21 the prior year for an annualized PE of around 12.
Are you still bullish on the banking sector ? Or is the spector of rising interest rates and a potential slowdown in the real estate sector too worrisome ?
wade: convertible preferred stock terms can vary, but holders would almost always have the right to convert into common stock before the redemption date. A notice of redemption would be sent out to holders, and then they could either redeem their shares or convert them into common shares. Obviously with the price of the stock at .80, and a 1:10 conversion ratio, they would convert rather than redeem.
The Company chose to show only the basic share count in their 10Q filings, which is acceptable, but also sleazy. They didn't lie, but were deliberately evasive in their reporting, imho.
Even with the dilution, the Company has shown strong growth, and would seem to have a lot of potential.
Estimated_Prophet, maybe somebody else knows of some domestic pure plays on copper. The only companies I can think of are the industry giant, PD, Phelps Dodge, and CUP, Peru Copper.
TGB is continuing to lanquish around $0.91 even as copper is flirting with all time highs of $1.77 per pound. At the current stock price, most of the warrants are out of the money and not included in diluted share count. So fully diluted EPS should be very strong in their September fiscal Q4 even without the inventory draw down that occurred in Q3. In the June quarter they averaged $1.51 per pound of copper.
Berliet: re TGE: The secondary offering is much less dilutive than meets the eye. They are using part of the proceeds to buyback 3.5M warrants, so the fully diluted share count will only rise by 2M to 14.5M, an increase of 16%.
It doesn't justify the current 35% pullback in the stock price to 7.95 from a recent high of 12.28. I've been accumulating more shares.
Bobwins: EOG looks like another excellent play on the sharp rise in natural gas prices. Thanks for posting about this one. Their lack of hedging will make for some windfall earnings in Q3 and beyond. Their reserves are also solid, at about 10 years as of 12/31/04 at last year's production rates. Hopefully they will match this year's increased production with new reserves ....
I picked up some stock and a few of the January '07 75 Calls @ 12.30. I prefer the LEAPs to ride out any short term volatility in the stock price ....
gilead: SEYE looks like a great find, but unfortunately there's no liquidity in this one. I placed a buy order this morning for 2500 shares @ .66, but no takers so far. One minor negative is that they are phasing out their Eddie Bauer eyewear which accounted for 14% sales in the latest quarter. Eddie Bauer went bankrupt some time ago .... but other brand lines are filling the void.
niles_crane: re TMFZ
I'm glad they're converting to a REIT because the stock is undervalued, and this way they'll be paying out at least 90% of pretax income to shareholders, as per the regulations for REITs. Clearly the insiders are frustrated with the current valuation.
Pretax income amounted to $0.62 per share in the last 2 quarters alone, so if the earnings stay up, the dividend payout will be very impressive. That in turn could drive the stock price higher. Of course a lot depends on what the real estate market does in the coming quarters. The stock is now around $3, so it would have meant over a 20% dividend for the 1st half of '05 if they had been a REIT over that period.
Bobwins: Your wry sense of humor, wit and crafty writing make for enjoyable reading. I still remember laughing at your somewhat satirical critique of SWTX in an outstanding post back in Raging Bull days.
I have no doubt that if you set your mind to it, you could be a fine novelist or even a poet .... but we're all glad to have you analyzing stocks instead ....
Bobwins: Wow, that's very aggressive, but it sure is paying off for you so far. I'm likewise heavily into options, my Oil LEAPs portfolio accounting for about 10% of my total investments, and other short term options another 2%. But at least I have until 2007/08 before expiration on most of them.
Are they allowing you to trade options in your IRA account ??? I thought it wasn't allowed in IRA's ....
wade: MAJR and SLV are both disappointing so far, but hopefully patience will be rewarded. Stocks often trade mysteriously .... I think the overhang of shares for sale in SLV squashed the rally, but with time it should move higher, imho. MAJR could have another run when Q3 results come out. No doubt some profit taking now after the quick 60% gain. Good luck.