Out Fox The $treet

Small Cap Insight The amazing part about the financial crisis is that numerous stocks that trade below audited book values are still feeling the lingering effects on investors' willingness to buy the stocks. No matter what the financials say quarter after quarter, the stocks continue trading below the accounting value and in some cases extremely below those levels while also generating profits. In the case of FLY Leasing ( FLY ), the stock trades considerably below the established book value while earning substantial income. The company focuses on leasing airplanes to airlines all around the world with a renewed focus on buying new planes to replace an aging fleet compared to the competition. Both larger public competitors in Air Lease ( AL ) and AerCap Holdings ( AER ) have significantly newer fleets with longer average leases, but does that mean that FLY can't generate a solid return for investors? Read the full article at Seeking Alpha. Disclosure: Lo...

As an airplane leasing company, most investors probably envision the stock of AerCap Holdings ( NYSE: AER     ) trading inline with the airline industry. In fact though, it typically trades more like the financials so one should not be surprised that it currently trades below book value. The company is one of the largest airplane-leasing firms. Currently, only Air Lease Corporation ( NYSE: AL     ) trades with a larger market cap due its extremely fast growth from start up to the current level and a well respected management team that moved over from ILFC, a subsidiary of AIG . As AerCap finally trades closer to book value, investors face the interesting dilemma of whether this stock should trade closer to historical values of multiples of book value or if a new normal exists. Read the full article here . Disclosure: Long AER. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

After the financial crisis, numerous financial related stocks traded at prices below book values due to the fears in the accuracy of their reported balance sheets. In the years since the crisis, most of those fears have disappeared yet many financial stocks haven’t regained the valuations suggested by the improving asset bases. A prime example exists in the airplane leasing sector where the majority of the stocks trade below more » Disclosure: Long AER. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

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...

Air Lease raised more then expected by selling 30.3M shares at $26.50. The $800M+ will be used to finance a growth strategy with orders for more then 150 additional airplanes on a fleet base of just 49 as of today. This values AL at closer to 1.5 times tangible book value compared to Aercap Holdings (AER) trading below 1 times book value. See my recent article at Seeking Alpha suggesting that AER becomes a much greater value especially as AL surges past the IPO price: Skip the Air Lease IPO, Aercap Holdings Provides Better Value.  Disclosure: Long AER in client and personal accounts. Please review the disclaimer page.