Out Fox The $treet

SodaStream (SODA) reported Q4'11 earnings this morning that vastly disappointed the market. The numbers were very solid and the guidance was much higher than estimates, but the market tends to hone onto the weakest numbers with SodaStream when valuing the company. The weakest number in Q4 was the meager 8% soda maker sales increase. Though the company has been clear that a lot of retailers pulled sales into Q3 accounting for the 60% increase last Q, the market just decides to act ignorant and sell the stock hard. My guess is that a ton of shorts chose to push the 'negative' number hard in order to exit a short position or to cause panic for larger gains. One analyst even went so far as to suggest that soda maker sales were decelerating which is a clear blatant misstatement. Every data point suggests that SodaStream distributors sold out for the holiday period, pulled sales into Q3, and management guided up for 2012. None of these data point suggests a problem down the ...

Not that the expectations are for natural gas prices to remain this low until 2015, but this is when the real possibility of the US exporting natural gas begins. Until then the possibility remains that the new shale production techniques will keep production ahead of domestic demand and prices low. Without a serious energy policy to utilize this increased resource, it is very probable that this country will begin exporting our cheap energy supplies to Europe and Asia while still importing expensive oil and gasoline. That is assuming the big producers of natural gas remain in business in a subdued pricing environment. The main catalyst for the focus on surviving until 2015 was the huge announcement yesterday that Blackstone would invest $2B in Cheniere Energy Partners (CQP) to provide the equity financing needed for the construction of export facilities at the Sabane Pass liquefaction project in Lousiana. This will be the first natural gas liquefaction export facility in the continental...

Investors continue to focus on dividends as the best and in some minds the only way to return capital to shareholders. That remains a big mistake as the population of stocks with a high dividend payout ratio, not to mention ones that even pay dividends has been shrinking just about every decade. Several key factors have influenced these decisions. First, the historical tax disadvantage of dividends versus long term capital gains has worked to weaken the focus on dividends. Second, the SEC instituting rule 10b-18 back in 1982 made it easier for firms to implement buybacks without stock manipulation charges. Third, market participants place such a great emphasis on maintaining steadily increasing dividends that corporate boards prefer the flexibility of buyback programs over the negativity of reducing a dividend. Read the full article on Seeking Alpha. Disclosure: Long COP, GPS, KSS, TRV. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

Manufacturing activity in the central Atlantic region were off the charts bullish as reported today. The broadest indicators of overall activity - shipments, new orders, and employment - all saw noticeable jumps from January. The February Richmond manufacturing activity increased eight points to 20 from January's reading of 12. Also, the new orders component jumped 7 points to finish at 21. The prices paid remained in check with raw material prices increasing at a 2.25% annual rate while finished goods rose at 0.97%. These numbers are all down from considerably higher levels in 2011. As can be seen from the chart below, this report tends to be very volatile. Since the 2008 financial crisis, this the 3rd run the index has made towards the +20 level. A level that suggests a very healthy sector. Unfortunately, the last 2 trips only saw fleeting success as the index quickly declined back towards the flatline. Figure - Richmond Fed Manufacturing Activity Disclosure: No pos...

As the markets open on Monday in Asia, China has jumped another 17 points after a blistering start to 2012. The Shanghai Composite as already jumped roughly 15% from the lows in early January. Expect to start hearing correction calls this week. Sure that market needs a breather, but it isn't even back to the mid November levels. Difficult to see that as an over extended when looking over the last 6-8 months. Our models remain invested in China stocks ChinaCache (CCIH) and Lihua Holdings (LIWA) plus numerous other stocks that benefit from a soft landing in the economy and rebounding stock market. In addition, the market action makes us more interested in finding some China stocks trading is the US that haven't moved yet. Disclosure: Long CCIH and LIWA. Please review the disclaimer page for more details.

After a not so surprising weak Q4'11 report, coal miner Alpha Natural Resources (ANR) started trading down nearly 5% today. It didn't take long for the stock to reverse and is now trading up nearly 3%. It really isn't worth focusing on the earnings report. Alpha Natural is a long term trade on the increasing demand for met coal in countries like China and India. The low cost of natural gas is having a dramatic impact on thermal coal pricing and demand placing serious margin pressure on Alpha Natural. Since it is all temporarily, it just isn't worth the effort. Nat gas prices will eventually rise and China appears to be storming back. Normalized earnings will be the key going forward. More importantly today was the major reversal that has a tendancy to signal a bottom in the stock. With the major support now put in around $20, longs have a basis for being more aggressive. If the stock can break above the channel around $22.50, longs will get very aggressive. ...

For the week ending 2/15/12, the flows into long-term equity funds were $11.9B according to the Investment Company Institute. The kicker though is that the majority of the funds still went into bonds with only $35M flowing into domestic equities. Along with straight bond funds that have been averaging over $7B in the last month, hybrid funds are hot. Hybrids invest in both bond and equity funds suggesting that investors still favor a high mix of bonds. Over the last 5 weeks, equity funds have had positive flows for 3 of the weeks. Still the flow percentage for equity funds remains around 10%. Suggesting that even one of the strongest rallies ever to start a year isn't enough to draw investors back into the market. These number put into question the investment sentiment numbers. How can investors be wildly bullish on equities if the fund flows are so benign. If anything, the suggestion is that bond investors remain overly bullish. The correction should be in bonds.  See belo...

With some 30% of the float short, it shouldn't be that shocking to see any hint of good news send Sears Holdings (SHLD) 20% higher as it did today.  With Q4'11 earnings, Sears announced the sale of 11 prime mall locations for $270M. Combined with a rights offering and spin-off of the Hometown and outlet for $400-500M, Sears has plans to quickly raise liquidity by $1B. So while all the market experts focus on yet again disappointing earnings, Sears squashed the shorts that continue to fail to realize the substantial assets the company controls. For whatever reason, investors continue to forget that the valuation of a company should be the net assets plus the discounted cash flows or earnings. In the case of Sears, most people agree that future cash flows are a big question market, but most of those people continue to ignore the vast unencumbered real estate holdings and valuable brands. The reason for the huge jump today is that the add liquidity and especially the ability...

After investing through the 2000 investment bubble, its interesting to see an analyst on CNBC talk about the Nasdaq surging through 3,000 (closed at 2,933 on Wednesday) all the way to 4,000. After the crash from over 5,000 to the 1,000s it seemed like reaching back to those lofty levels might not even happen in my lifetime. Ok, I'm not really that old so I knew it would happen at some point. Now 4,000 wouldn't really approach the peak back in 2000, but it should be close enough to really spark the small investor back into the market. Of course, most of the gain could just be achieved via a large increase by mega stock Apple (AAPL) to $650 or $700. Too lazy to do the math, but Apple makes up a large percentage of the NAZ. Below is the video on CNBC: Disclosure: Long AAPL. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

After a horrible 2011, this Brazilian homebuilder has had a surprising start to the new year. Gafisa (GFA) was virtually left for dead as 2011 ended, but the market has probably gotten the biggest shock to see Gafisa rally big time. Similar to the move in Brazilian wireless provider NII Holdings (NIHD) , the chart below shows a much improved technical position from the start of the year.  Not only has the downtrend been broken, but the stock shows signs of breaking out to the upside. Looks like roughly a $1 higher at $7.5 will be the key resistance level. With all the interest rate cuts in Brazil towards the end of 2011, it really shouldn't be a big surprise that Gafisa at the very least has regained momentum. Looks like much more room to run as well as the stock has only returned to mid November levels. Stone Fox Capital (position sizes as of 2/17/12) Stone Fox Capital holds an allocation of 3.6% in $GFA in his Opportunistic Arbitrage Long Only ...

Investors continue to ignore that massive buyback program undertaken by DirecTV (DTV) in favor of other cable and communications providers. In fact, this $31B market cap company used $1.1B to return capital to shareholder in the form of buybacks in Q4'11 alone. Now it has announced a new $6B buyback program that amounts to 20% of the outstanding stock. Investors are clearly enamored with dividends so much that they've clamored to cable companies and wireless providers that have higher dividend yields than DirecTV. Sure those yields are nice and far exceed treasuries, but why ignore the nearly 20% yield being offered by DirecTV? Read the full article on Seeking Alpha. Disclosure: Long DTV. Please review the disclaimer page for more details.

Recent spin-off TripAdvisor (TRIP) [see Spin-Off Mania Benefits Alert Investors] had possibly the most disappointing Q4'11 earnings report reviewed so far. The spin-off from Expedia (EXPE) offered huge potential as it became independent from the bigger corporation. TripAdvisor provides a travel research platform which aggregates reviews and opinions of members about destinations, accommodations, restaurants and activities throughout the world. In a way, the travel version of IPO filer Yelp (YELP) and recent IPO Angie's List (ANGI). With 50M monthly users and expanding Facebook interaction, TripAdvisor appeared to provide huge earnings growth potential. Read the full article on Seeking Alpha. Disclosure: No position mentioned. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

Aruba Networks (ARUN) continues reporting strong revenue growth as customers latch on to the BYOD (bring your own device) enterprise wireless solutions. Unfortunately though, Aruba continues to struggle at turning that revenue growth into earnings per share growth. A main culprit is that shares outstanding continue to soar from 116.2M in Q2'11 to 120M in Q2'12. The company guided towards 122M in Q3'12. It remains very difficult to grow earnings per share with existing shareholders being diluted this quickly. Another issue is the Non-GAAP net income margin dropped from over 17% last year to slightly over 15%. Combined with the diluted share growth explains how a fast growing next generation wireless equipment maker only grows earnings from $0.14 to $0.16 in a year of 35% revenue growth. Strong technology companies typically see earnings jump over 50% with that growth as more revenue drops to the bottom line as the company gets larger. Read full article at Seeking Alpha. ...

FreightCar America (RAIL) had blowout earnings for Q4'11 reported this morning. Unfortunately this isn't a stock that I follow, but anybody watching the backlog numbers probably isn't that surprised. The stock has soared over 22% on the news. RAIL reported earnings of $.71 that easily smashed the $.18 estimate. Most astonishing were the rail car deliveries and backlog growth compared to last year and even last quarter. Deliveries Q4'11 - 2,489 units Q3'11 - 1,515 units Q4'10 -    694 units Backlog Q4'11 - 8,303 units Q3'11 - 6,311 units Q4'10 - 2,054 units It appears that most of the growth is related to a eastern coal car replacement cycle. Demand evidently jumped as more eastern coal is being shipped internationally. Getting that coal to ports evidently takes more railcars or just newer railcars. The big problem is that coal demand has slowed making the replacement cycle a big question especially to jump into a stock up 20%.  ...

The below chart from finviz.com  is a great example of how charts can help fundamental investors. NII Holding (NIHD) is a leading wireless provider in Latin America building 3G networks in Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Peru. The stock has been in a major downtrend since back in July. The original drop was in connection with the overall market drop, but the failure to rally the last few months was very frustrating to investors. All of a sudden though, NIHD broke out of the duldrums recently. Not surprising to technical analysts is that this move coincided with the break of the downtrend at the end of January. Then the stock broke the 20/50 moving averages in early February on a massive 10% up day. As typical of these moves, most long investors were shaken out in the long frustrating process. Now though is still a good time to jump in as the stock is only back even with November levels. The closing price of $23.78 is roughly half the July level. So if you believe in wireless data p...

January was yet another solid month on an absolute basis, with a 3.9% gain for my Net Payout Yields portfolio, but on a relative basis the portfolio underperformed the benchmark S&P 500 that was up 4.4%. Though not unexpected as these large cap stocks will tend to slightly underperform on large up months. For the last 365 days the model continues to greatly outperform the market by outperforming during weak months. Dividend Risks As the market entered 2012, too much focus in the market was being placed on dividend yields with no concept of capital loss potential. As the dividend stocks rose into year end, this created the risk of capital losses in stocks yielding only 3-4%. Investors typically expect and want higher gains for a year. What happens when the stock drops for the year wiping out the benefit of the dividend? This highlights the benefits of a model that focuses not only on dividends but also stock buybacks. The typical stock owned in this model has 60-70% of its ...

The announcement that People Express might return as the new PeoplExpress Airlines further highlights why the airline business is just too competitive. With American Airlines recently filing for bankruptcy, why in the world would another investment group jump into the frying pan? For anybody like me that wasn't familiar with the original People Express, it was a leading lost cost carrier from the '80s that at one time was the #5 airline in the US. Excerpts on the history from Wikipedia: People Express Airlines , stylized as PEOPLExpress , also known as People Express Travel , was a U.S. no-frills airline that operated from 1981 to 1987, when it merged into Continental Airlines . The airline's headquarters was in the North Terminal of Newark International Airport in Newark, New Jersey .  In 1985 People Express bought out Denver -based Frontier Airlines . The combined company became the United States' fifth largest airline, with flights to most major U.S. cit...

After the close last night, Paulson & Co filed a 13D disclosing a presentation to the BOD and a letter sent to the CEO. The goal being for Hartford Financial (HIG) to begin the process of a spin-off of it's Property & Casualty business. Simply Paulson believes that Hartford has an industry low valuation due to the combination of both the P&C and Life business lines that competitors all spun-off long ago. He makes a compelling pitch that the ultra low valuation for the company is based on the thesis that analysts just don't follow or understand it due to the combined business lines. A Travelers (TRV) that focuses on P&C or a Lincoln Financial (LNC) that focuses on Life have higher multiples since the analysts follow either business line, but not both. Without doing all that research I could've told them that Hartford was incredibly cheap trading at close to 40% of book value. Paulson though has an army of analysts that did some incredible research. Ho...

The fast casual dining sector has been on fire this year basically picking up where it has been ever since the March 2009 bottom. The three leading stocks of Buffalo Wild Wings (BWLD) , Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) , and Panera Bread (PNRA) have had virtually no pause in the rally for the last three years. Not even the market downturns in 2010 and 2011 could pull them down. Though continuing to grow fast all these stocks face steep valuations and at some point the wall of large numbers will hit them. Chipotle already has a market cap over $11B and annual sales above $2.2B. As an example, Darden Restaurants (DRI) with its main restaurants of Olive Garden and Red Lobster has succumbed to much lower multiples even though operating several successful chains. The company will approach $8B in fiscal 2012 revenue, but only has a market cap of $6.4B. Read the full article on Seeking Alpha. Disclosure: No positions mentioned. Please review the disclaimer page for more details.  ...

The housing market has been depressed for over 5 years now. During that time period several smaller, housing-related internet stocks have gone public to mostly limited fanfare. These stocks could provide some under-the-radar opportunities as the housing market rebounds in the coming years. The market is well aware of the homebuilding stocks that have soared this year such as KB Homes (KBH) or the major home improvement retailers like Home Depot (HD) and Lowe's (LOW). What about the internet-related housing stocks such as Bankrate (RATE), Market Leader (LEDR), Move (MOVE), or Zillow (Z)? The market is very infatuated with the social media stocks such as the upcoming Facebook IPO or Zynga (ZNGA). Instead of focusing on these stocks, why not buy into a sector of the internet that isn't hot? Read the full article at Seeking Alpha. Disclosure: Long HD and LOW. Please review the disclaimer page for more details.

While the market appears overbought and everybody claims to be bullish, several indicators of action show a different story. The sentiment versus action debate in investors is beginning to match that of the consumer confidence reports.  Bespoke had an interesting graph yesterday showing that analysts have not had a single day of net upgrades this year. During the rally upwards in 2012, every day analysts come out downgrading stocks only to see them go higher.  This action related number gives a completely different view than the investor sentiment polls. Considering analyst actions typically are great contrarian indicators does this mean the market goes higher? Considering the 8th appears to have been the most negative day of the year so far with 25 more downgrades. Wow!

Over the last couple of weeks, several cloud software stocks have issued guidance that disappointed the markets. In most cases, the original estimates weren't that aggressive for stocks with relatively high valuations. Not being able to make estimates was beyond disappointing. Back a few months ago, this article analyzed the sector after SuccessFactors (SFSF) agreed to be bought out by SAP for a 52% premium. At the time, I highlighted how the stocks had very aggressive valuations for the expected earnings growth. Now, even that potential upside doesn't appear to be coming forth. So why are these companies struggling to hit earnings estimates if the sector is supposedly booming? Part of the issue is that these companies spend a lot of money to sign contracts where upfront expenses aren't always matched with 1-2 year contracts. The faster the growth in billings, the more difficult it can be to produce earnings in the short term. Read the full article on Seeking Alpha. D...

Jive Software (JIVE) continues to be one of the most interesting recent IPOs. Jive provides social business software and is the first publicly traded pure play. After the close yesterday, the company reported it's first quarterly report as a public company. Both revenue and earnings beat estimates. The company guided to numbers for Q1'12 and FY'12 that beat estimates. All great numbers compared to expectations. The only problem though is the company still expects a loss around $.40 in 2012 on revenue around $110M. So even though the company has one of the more interesting market opportunities to develop, the valuation for the stock is relatively high at nearly $1B. The revenue estimate for 2013 quickly jumps to $150M so any material drop in the stock price during 2012 would provide an appealing entry point. Nice picture that Jive provided via the earnings release to highlight the quarterly numbers: Guidance: First Quarter 2012 Guidance : Total revenue ...

After a bad 2011, this year got off to a fantastic start with the model seeing a 25% gain in January easily outperforming the 4.4% gain for the S&P500. The model spent most of the month accumulating cheap stocks in order to take advantage of the market rallying against the proverbial 'wall of worry'. January was an interesting month with stocks rising even in the face of what appeared like continued negative news out of Europe. With the continued focus on Greece, most investors stayed out of the stock market and missed that yields on Italian and Spanish bonds saw dramatic declines. The ability to isolate the problems to Greece and Portugal to a lessor extent were a big relief to a market pricing in a European blowup in December. In addition, the decline in emerging markets inflation was a big benefit to the under performing stock class in the new year. Specifically fast growing countries like China and India saw multi year lows in inflation rates allowing monetary polic...

Following on the report from Lincoln Financial (LNC) , Hartford Financial (HIG) reported solid earnings of $.69 that beat estimates by $.07. More importantly though Hartford reported the book value jumped to $47.25, up 17% on the year. Per Briefing.com : 4:18PM Hartford Financial beats by $0.07 ( HIG ) 19.12 -0.21 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.69 per share, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.62. 2011 was a difficult year for Hartford with record cat weather related losses. Yet the company still reported earnings of $1.94 for the year. More importantly the company was able to repurchase 3.2 million shares at $15.93 per share in Q4'11. It has already bought another 2.6 million shares in Q1'12 at $16.58 per share. Not only were these purchases at roughly 35% of book value, but so far they were done at prices lower than the current market price of $19. With a $400M authorization left, management should've bought all they could in Q4. Per...

Lincoln Financial (LNC) reported after the close that earnings for Q4'11 were $1 which helped increase the book value 20% for the year. Now try explaining to a non investor why the stock price for Lincoln declined for the year. The company is worth more by every measure, but the stock is worth a lot less. Another mind boggler is that the short term earnings picture remains reasonable, even though low interest rates are keeping income artificially low. So not only did Lincoln report huge earnings in 2011, but it also has the potential for higher earnings down the road. Speaking of book value, it increased to $48.59. The main increase was due to earnings, but Lincoln also repurchased $575M shares during 2011 reducing the diluted shares by 6%. Anytime a company can buy shares at 50% of book value it provides huge value to shareholders. The company also raised the quarterly dividend 60% to $.08 to yield 1.3%.  It also repaid $250M of Senior Notes. The question still remains w...

Back in October I wrote an article about how stocks could reclaim highs from July. At the time, numerous stocks were down 50-60% from those July highs after the dramatic summer sell-off that didn't appear to be justified. Since that article, numerous stocks such as Toll Brothers (TOL) and F5 Networks (FFIV) have already recaptured the July highs and more. Much to my surprise, homebuilders lead the market higher. Not to mention the Nasdaq composite has soared to 11 year highs. Clearly the theory has worked in some situations, such as the above growth stocks and particularly with most dividend-paying stocks. Numerous stocks still trade considerably below those July highs, providing opportunities for investors. The original report focused on Riverbed Tech (RVBD), Terex (TEX), Hartford Financial (HIG), and Weatherford International (WFT) . None of these stocks has recaptured those July highs providing plenty of opportunity for investors to still get in on these stocks. Read ...

Just about every stock segment I caught on Friday and over the weekend talked about the tech sector being very extended. The talk is of massive gains that reach bubble levels. The Nasdaq Composite hit 11 year highs so clearly it must be time to sell. Or is it? When finally taking a closer look at the Technology SPDR Select ETF (XLK), I'm actually dumfounded by all the pessimism. Sure the XLF has hit new highs. Sure the RSI and CCI are both showing an ETF that is overbought. Though I wonder about the accuracy of those measurements or the immediacy of the negative outcome. First, the index is only at $27.72 after first reaching over $26.50 back in mid February 2011 so over a year ago. Second, not more than 2 months ago the index was at $26.50 again. Third, the index hit similar overbought numbers in October 2010 and continued rallying the next couple of weeks prior to a shallow pull back and another 3 month run. Facing a similar run as Sept 2010 though Feb 2011 one would have...

Gilead Sciences (GILD) had been about a 5% weighting in our Net Payout Yields model. The company had been on a huge buyback plan making the stock very attractive for this model that focuses on stocks with high yields from the combination of net stock buybacks and dividends. Unfortunately with the recent Pharmasset (VRUS) buyout announcement, Gilead has strayed from the plan of rewarding investors with capital returns toward buying growth. Typically these deals don't workout for investors of the purchasing company. With the reporting of Q4 numbers , Gilead verified on the conference call that stock purchases have all but been eliminated as the company raised debt to buy Pharmasset. Via Seeking Alpha transcript : Robin L. Washington And, Geoff, relative to your share count, as we talked about with the acquisition, we did moderate and pretty much have spent our share repurchases after October of 2011. We will do moderate share repurchases in the near term to offset option d...

A chart speaks a thousand words so the below chart of the monthly nonfarm payrolls over the last four years speak to the recent strength in the report. We'll let the experts spin all the minute details of the report, but this charts shows how the US economy is on the verge of a major breakout. Employees flush with cash just can't hold back any longer. The biggest concern is that this provides Obama with the ammunition that he needs fore re-election. That could subdue any Spring rally. via wsj.com

Based on the chart and earnings of associated stock Green Mountain Coffee (GMCR) , it sure appears that SodaStream (SODA) is about to explode higher. SodaStream's stock was crushed mid-year dropping from a high around $80 to a low around $30. Why? All due to very conservative guidance from a management team that continues to UPOD almost similar to the Apple (AAPL) history.  SodaStream has beaten estimates by nearly 60-80% a quarter since going public and naturally gave very conservative guidance for Q4. Why then did analysts completely take the number given by management? Amazingly analysts have actually guided towards a drop in earnings from $.25 to $.21 in Q411. That also equates to a 50% drop from Q311. How is that possible when Q4 is such a huge quarter in the US? It is very puzzling to us as well. As with Apple for years, analysts have quickly forgotten how management lead them towards the $.27 estimate in Q3, even though the company produced $.42. This brings us to ...

Before the open, leading virtualization provider Radware (RDWR) reported an earnings beat of roughly 15% reporting $.42 versus estimates of $.37. Revenue was also slightly above estimates. Oddly though the stock originally jumped over 5%, but it has been trailing off since the open even with the market up over 1%. The company also guided Q1 above estimates with guidance of $.35 compared to $.33 estimates. This guidance likely translates into $.37-.38 when reported. Radware remains one of the most under followed tech stocks especially with exposure to the virtual and cloud data centers. This is possibly due to the CEO being non-promotional. The company just takes care of business and each quarter it beats estimates. Details from the Press Release : Record Annual Revenues of $167.0 Million Record Quarterly Revenues of $45.1 Million Record Quarterly Non-GAAP EPS $0.42 Record Quarterly Non-GAAP Operating Margin of 20% "Strong demand for our traditional and ADC virt...