Out Fox The $treet

Below is great picture from a TulsaWorld article of the continual losses by American Airlines parent AMR Corp (AMR). In good years, AMR makes a decent profit. In bad years, AMR has crushing losses. Even worse is the fact the losing years outweighed the good years 8 to 3 accumulating in a net loss of roughly $10.5B. How has this company even survived? AMR recently made the historic aircraft order that some say was needed to survive. Sure it makes them more competitive, more appealing to customers, but how are they going to pay for the planes. Per my recent article , still see the airplane lessors  as the winners. Companies like AerCap Leasing (AER) will continue to benefit from major airlines that need new fuel efficient planes to compete, but can't afford to buy them.  This quote sums it up the best: "American can't really afford to do this, but they cannot afford not to do it," said Robert Herbst, industry analyst and founder of AirlineFinancials.com. "

Retail gas prices remain very elevated as seen in the chart below from Chartfacts.com. Beginning around May when oil prices plunged, gas prices remained relatively steady. Only falling as oil continued dropping below $100. According to the chart, the average price of gas needs to fall $0.30 to equal the fall in oil prices. Supposedly a lot of the price difference is caused by the price of Brent crude being higher than the Nymex/WTI quoted version. The main culprit for the price difference is the congestion and glut in Cushing, OK. Evidently they've built more pipelines coming into Cushing than ones leaving. Nice! Basically America has increased oil production to such an extent that now consumers aren't even getting the advantages. Brilliant! So while Congress is busy debating the debt ceiling our energy policy continues to be less than desirable. Wonder how many Congress members read the announcement from Chesapeake Energy (CHK) on the Utica Shale discovery ? Policy discu

Incredible negative action in Manitowoc (MTW) after earnings Tuesday night. The stock dropped from $16 on Monday to $13 around the opening on Friday. Of course, the market was very weak contributing to the drop, but it was amazing to see the level of selloff in this particular stock. MTW is a leading crane maker and competes with Terex (TEX) among other companies. What really amazes this investor is that TEX had recently reported strong sales and weak profits leading any skilled investor to know the playbook for MTW. In fact, MTW actually reported stronger cranes numbers than TEX making any serious investor dizzy seeing MTW plummet. Luckily Stone Fox Capital unloaded MTW in the $15.8x range last Friday noting the stock was technically falling apart. Not to mention it had a gap around $14 in the charts suggesting the stock might fall substantially. Unfortunately we weren't able to return to the position in the low $13s this morning. The stock will be on are radar next week thoug

his is the third in a series on stocks with the fastest estimated earnings growth in 2012. The first two articles focused on  Take Two Interactive ( TTWO ) with estimates expected to grow over 400% and  Patriot Coal ( PCX ) with numbers expected to nearly triple. The third fastest growing company is Manitowoc ( MTW ) with earnings expected to grow over 220%. Since we recently wrote a  report on the crane sector  which included MTW and the number six fastest grower in Terex ( TEX ), this article will focus on the next two stocks on the  SteetAuthority  list . Accuride ( ACW ) and Meritor ( MTOR ) supply parts to the automobile industry. Both companies were forecasted to grow earnings by roughly 220% next year. Likely both companies are relatively unknown by the investment community, which is one of the major benefits of such analysis. Focusing on just the names that hit the media outlets can cause investors to ignore under the radar investment ideas. Read the full article at Seeking

After disappointing results from Riverbed Tech (RVBD) and F5 Networks (FFIV) in the cloud networking space, Radware (RDWR) came through with excellent numbers today. RDWR continues to be the under the radar play in this general sector partly because they maintain a reasonable growth rate of only 17% half that of the numbers reported by RVBD. RDWR reported earnings of $.32 that beat estimates by $.03. Revenue of $41.1M was also slightly ahead of estimates. More importantly, RDWR guided to $.33 - .35 versus the $.33 analyst estimate. Not to mention that the CEO provided the tidbit that the numbers were conservative. RDWR is taking advantage of the move to cloud computing and data center consolidation. They also are in the process of opening up some key OEM relationships that could lead to a further revenue surge. It remains a core holding in our Opportunistic models and based on these results they should stay that way for a long time. Our goal is to hold these stocks for years if t

The buyout of Puda Coal (PUDA) is becoming increasingly likely considering the Chairman of the Board submitted a draft merger agreement last week. Though slightly delayed from the expectations of a submission in June, it still backs up his intent to follow through with the proposal from April 29. The delay also isn't too surprising considering the ongoing investigation into his supposed illegal transfers of company assets. Naturally the details of the merger agreement are more important than just the submission. No guarantee exists that the terms are agreeable. Or whether the price matches the desires of at least some shareholders that think $12 is too low. Will the special committee and BOD be able to negotiate a higher price? It would seem a difficult pill for most shareholders to swallow if Ming Zhao was able to cause the fear and parlay that into a cheap buyout. Also notable, PUDA submitted plans to regain compliance with NYSE listing standards. Though this might not be th

Schlumberger (SLB) reported growing international demand (finally!) this morning on the Q2 earnings report suggesting that Weatherford (WFT) will have good results as well. Naturally WFT isn't as good of an operator as SLB so it could still surprise the market. WFT gets over 60% of its revenue from outside the US so it only benefits to a minor degree on the huge increase in US land drilling. It has also had problems this year with accounting issues and hence the stock price was recently approaching 52 week lows while big brother SLB and Haliburton (HAL) hit highs. Interesting to see bullish comments about deepwater markets, Egypt, and Bahrain. Also, noteworthy is that oil producers are ramping up production in other areas to make up for the lost production in Libya. All the news points to significant gains by WFT if they can turn it around. Looking at the charts below, it has a lot of catching up to get back to where SLB has gone this year. SLB Q2 PR : Income from cont

Wednesday morning, AMR Corp ( AMR ), the parent company of American Airlines,  announced  the greatly anticipated orders for 460 planes and options for 465 more. While the market focused on the shift of a US airline from a Boeing ( BA )-only focus to Airbus, everybody seems to have missed the announcement last week that American Airlines was going to sell/lease back up to 35 Boeing planes with AerCap Holdings ( AER ). Clearly it's justified to focus on not only the historical size of the order from American (some estimates are close to $40B) but also the shift in plane manufacturers. While the analysts call the order a split, the additional options clearly favor Airbus in a major way. If all the options are taken, Airbus will receive around 65% of the orders. Considering that fact, the media was generous to BA executives to only focus on a split of the orders instead of a major shift towards Airbus. Read the  full article at SeekingAlpha.com.  Disclosure: Long AER in client and

After the close Tuesday night, Riverbed Tech ( RVBD ) reported inline earnings and revenues that were slightly lower than estimates. The stock was crushed in after hours as traders overreacted to the revenue disappointment and ignored the record margins. The encouraging news was RVBD reporting record gross and operating margins. This means that RVBD wasn't cutting prices to just make the estimates. If anything, it backs up the claim that weakness in EMEA was as much about closing deals as competition. Other good news was that it used a part of its $611M cash hoard to invest in two new companies, Aptimize and Zeus Tech, that will be accretive in 2012. Also, US product sales grew by 50% and sales would've met the midpoint of analysts estimates if it had been able to ship the surge of orders in the last few days. Read the full article at SeekingAlpha.com.  Disclosure: Long RVBD in client and personal accounts. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

Great news for one of the weakest stocks in our Net Payout Yield model. Express Scripts (ESRX) agreed to purchase MedcoHealth Solutions (MHS) for $29B. The deal gives MHS shareholders $71.36 based on the closing prices on 7/20 amounting to $28.8 in cash and 0.81 shares of ESRX. Considering ESRX is up 6% today the value of the deal got much more attractive now worth nearly $74. Oddly though, MHS has only traded up to around $65 most of the day. The nearly $9 gap suggests the market is concerned about the deal not completing. Anti-trust issues could pop up as the combined company will be a nearly $60B behemoth in the pharmacy benefits sector.  Interestingly though ESRX shareholders are excited enough about the deal to send their shares much higher. Maybe investors just aren't that good with math and are missing the share rise of ESRX and subsequent increase in the value to MHS shares in the deal. The combined company is promising to lead the effort to lower costs of prescription

Last week we started a series on the companies with fastest growing earnings next year. The  first article  was written about Take Two Interactive ( TTWO ) that topped the list with earnings expected to grow by roughly 463%. The second fastest grower is Patriot Coal ( PCX ). While TTWO doesn't impress us as a stock with sustainable earnings momentum, PCX on the other hand has some growth initiatives combined with expiring legacy contracts that will provide much higher margins once rolled over. In fact, the two coal supply agreements that expire will add a whopping $150M in EBITDA by 2013. Please read the full article at SeekingAlpha.com.  Disclosure: Long ANR for client and personal accounts. This information should not be construed as investment. Please review the disclaimer page. 

Laszlo Birinyi remains one of our favorite market prognosticators with his willingness to literally stick his neck on the line with very bullish calls that the market will at least exceed 2,000 in the next 13 months. In other stories, he has even predicted the eventual bull market could top out around double the current level. Considering the typical analysts will hardly predict 1,450 on the market much less 1,500 his prediction really sticks out. Most analysts still debate whether the market will avoid another recession and anybody predicting doom and gloom obtains more press coverage. Below are some details and a clip from his interview on Breakout.  My only concern is that uber-bear and host Jeff Macke sure appears to be turning bullish. Or at least he doesn't push back on Laszlo that much allowing his bullish case to remain unscathed. Birinyi puts the market into context via a model which categorizes a bull move into a template of four phases. Think of it as the 5-stage

Apple (AAPL) hit an all time high today over $374. Ok, so its not the beginning since the stock was only $80 during the great recession and much lower in the early 2000s. Still AAPL appears to have plenty of room to run considering the forward PE based on typically overly low analyst estimates is below 13. JPMorgan (JPM) made a call to buy August $365 call options to position for potential upside ahead of the company's quarterly earnings. A very unusual call and one that concerns us that AAPL will see a pullback after the earnings report. The stock has already soared from $310 to current $373 price in less than a month. Though it did breakout of stiff resistance in the $350-360 range suggesting major upside possibly to hit the JPM target of $450. The high 2012 earnings estimate is $33.30. A modest 20 PE would suggest a $666 stock price. Hmm, maybe that will the signal to sell. AAPL has been a long term hold in our models going back to the beginning. See the Portfolio Manageme

Whew! That is a complex header. According to InvestmentNews   investors fled actively managed US equity funds at the same level as the March 2009 generational low. Naturally the market has doubled since then so the percentage of the total market isn't comparable, but it does highlight the fear factor in the market. In a way, this backs up the market selling cyclicals very hard and consumer staples rallying. What was really staggering is that Fairholme Fund (FAIRX) had outflows of $1B. After being the manager of the decade, investors were very quick to flee Bruce Berkowitz in June. What a tough industry! Maybe I should reconsider. Via InvestmentNews: U.S. investors pulled $19 billion more out of actively managed U.S. stock funds in June than they put in, while U.S. index stock funds saw $1.1 billion in net inflows.   March 2009 -  investors pulled $18.3 billion out of actively managed U.S. stock funds than they put in, and passively managed equity funds saw $2.4 billion in i

After reading an  article  from  StreetAuthority  about companies with the fastest growing earnings, it got me looking into the companies not already owned in Stone Fox Capital's Opportunistic models. The companies expecting huge earnings growth next year appear to be overlooked, but one should use the list as a starting point for research. The report is only as good as the underlying data. Not to mention that analyst estimates typically aren't up to date so reports can easily give false positives. StreetAuthority  makes a good point that these stocks expect to more than double earnings, yet they all trade for a PE of less than 13. Based on that combination, all of the stocks appear cheap. Now the question is whether the growth will continue on into calendar year 2013-- or if it's just a one year fluke. Another telling sign will be the direction of estimate changes for next year. It's typical for analysts to not update estimates leaving a wide variation, so if the num

Great list of the most heavily shorted stocks by Bespoke Investment. Amazed to see that 3 stocks in our Opportunistic models appear on this list. Sears Holdings (SHLD), Savient Pharma (SVNT), and Liz Claiborne (LIZ) all have roughly 30% of the outstanding float short. Hopefully one day these short levels will lead to a massive short squeeze. SHLD continues to buy back stock meaning that the float will continue to shrink likely leading to higher and higher percentages. What the shorts don't seem to understand is that SHLD while a troubled retail operation has a ton of valuable assets and a solid balance sheet. The short story just doesn't add up. SVNT on the other hand just raised $100M plus to fund the sales rollout of FDA approved KRYSTEXXA that helps patients with extreme gout problems not solved by existing drugs. Shorters appear willing to bet that a slow sales start is because the drug lacks a market rather than the initial lack of a sales team. With the cash in hand,

The Opportunistic Levered (Arbitrage on Covestor.com) model had another rough month. The model was again hit by fraud concerns among Chinese companies and emerging markets stocks fell due to concerns over inflation pulling down growth. Over the 29 months of tracking this model, it has had numerous months of 10% plus swings. Unfortunately some cases were to the downside. In those cases the stock holdings just got more attractive in the process. Even with China fraud scares, the three stocks owned in this model still appear to be worth more than our original purchase prices not to mention multiples of that. The size of declines in some of the stocks in this model caught us off guard. It didn't surprise us that June was weak, but the level of weakness in several sectors such as industrials and emerging markets such as China caught us off guard. Bottom Performers The bottom performers were again lead by the China stocks in the model. ChinaCache International (CCIH) and Lihua Int

According to a Gleacher analyst, Cisco Systems ( CSCO ) is expected to cut about 5,000 jobs  in August. That would be a massive 7% workforce reduction for a company with roughly 73,000 employees worldwide. According to the analyst, that reduction would be similar to large cuts the company took back in 2001 and 2002. Clearly those cuts were successful, or at the very least didn't preclude CSCO from being a dominant tech company in the 2000s. Read the full article at Seeking Alpha.  Update: According to Bloomberg and other sources the job cuts might actually approach 10,000 or double the original estimate. That number is even scarier as the problems are larger than originally thought. Productivity will be disrupted in a major way with that many people cut. Disclosure: Long CSCO and RVbD in client and personal accounts. Please consult an investment advisor about your individual position. This information is for informative purposes only and should not be construed as personal in

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This is the sixth and final article in a series focusing on the plights of certain sectors since they peaked prior to the financial crisis in 2008. All of the sectors covered have struggled mightily to recover to pre-crisis levels, while other stocks and sectors have surged on to new highs. So far the series has covered  Steel Producers ,  Engineering & Construction , Women's Apparel ,  Life Insurance  and  Large-Cap Tech . This article focuses on the airline sector, and will be the first sector in which Stone Fox Capital neither owns a stock or expects to purchase a stock in the near future. Airlines have long been the suffering industry in the US market, and that doesn't appear to be changing. While several of the larger companies were able to reduce debt via bankruptcies in the 2000s, the companies still struggle with heavy competition and have a difficult time with passing on higher costs. The fear of ever higher fuel costs down the road and strong labor unions latch

June was a good month for the Net Payout Yields model on a relative basis. The model outperformed the SP500 by 0.67% with a loss of 1.16% versus the 1.83% loss for the benchmark. Naturally on a absolute basis the model had a disappointing month, but it performed as expected by being less volatile than the benchmark and holding up better during the worse parts of the big drop mid month. The model remains fully invested with an average weight of only 2% cash for June. The goal of the model is to let the companies themselves buyback stock at lower to take advantage of any market weakness rather then trying to time the market. Trades Only one trade was made during the month. Wells Fargo (WFC) was sold as the stock failed to keep the Net Payout Yield at acceptable levels. The stock was replaced in July with Travelers (TRV) that has an extremely high NPY of around 20% given its consistent large stock buybacks. Top Performers Even considering the nearly 2% loss in the SP500 for June,

Copper remains on a hot streak and backs up our theory that global markets remain on a strong growth plan. It also highlights the issue with copper supply. Read just about any copper article on the internet and it'll summarize the difficulty that large copper mines are having with keeping production up. In many cases the production levels are down 10% from last year. So in essence demand growth remains strong and supply growth remains constrained. The media focuses on peak oil, but maybe peak copper should be a bigger focus. After all oil is still being found at a rapid pace in deepwater locations and shale formations. Oil production in the US is increasing for the first time in decades and shale gas is making the possibility of moving truck fleets to LNG a real option. Hence reducing the demand for gasoline from oil. Naturally Freeport McMoRan Copper (FCX) remains the favorite play in the sector. The stock peaked around $62 earlier this year and looks to regain that level soon

Interesting to see a hedge fund manager actually bullish on Reverse Takeover (RTO) China stocks. Peter Siris is a partner at Guerilla Capital Management and has been an investor in China stocks for a long time. What gives him street creed in the current environment is that he has been short several China stocks including Longtop Financial (LFT ) that recently blew up. He didn't talk about Puda Coal (PUDA) in this interview, but he is an investors in the stock so he has done some due diligence on the company and likely visited them. PUDA should be announcing some news shortly on the $12 buyout offer from the Chairman. PUDA was a big investment in our Opportunistic portfolios so we're hopeful that Peter is correct. The $12 buyout would be much better than nothing, but we're still looking for a higher price. After a very one sided market, its nice to see somebody like Peter on CNBC's Strategy Session backing up my theory that the surviving China stocks will trade up.