Out Fox The $treet

CSX beat Q3 EPS estimates while missing revenues yet again. The company remains on pace for negative trends despite help from lower share counts. The recent rally in the stock already prices in any potential upside from higher earnings in 2017. After the close,  CSX (NYSE: CSX )   reported  the traditional earnings beat and revenue miss. The railroad operator has a history of strong operations even despite the multi-year headwinds in the macroeconomic and specifically the energy sector. Read the full article on Seeking Alpha.  Disclosure: No position. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

The purpose of a stock buyback plan should be to utilize excess cash to buy a significantly undervalued asset. In this case, the undervalued asset is the stock of the company involved. In order to even announce a buyback, the stock should be significantly cheap on a historical basis and future earnings expectations. For the stock to be significantly cheap, the company should be in a position that existing cash more » Disclosure: Long CSX. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

An amazing thing in the market are stocks such as Kansas City Southern (NYSE: KSU ) that are suddenly worth an amazing value such as $10 billion. How many social media stocks or recent IPOs does the market obsess about with market caps hardly above the $1 billion level? Railroads have been hot for years and Warren Buffett has already collected Burlington Northern for his Berkshire portfolio, yet how many people more » Disclosure: Long CSX. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

--> This model was up 2.1% in September versus a 2.4% gain for the benchmark S&P 500. The model slightly under performed the market in September, which can happen in solidly positive months. The model is now up over 20% for the year. Trades As mentioned in the last several monthly reports, one goal of this model is to slowly trim the amount of positions back closer to 20 after reaching 26 a few months back due to mergers and partial positions. The position count remained at 24 at month end, but a partial position in Vale S.A. (VALE) was increased in order to fill out the position. The Gap, Inc. (GPS) was sold, as the position became the largest one in the portfolio after an incredible gain by the stock. After a 100% gain for the year, the Net Payout Yields (NPY) declined to the point that Gap was no longer attractive for this model. Read our Seeking Alpha article for more details. With the cash from the Gap sell, Motorola Solutions (MSI) was purchased ...

CSX Corporation (CSX) has a been a mainstay stock in our Net Payout Yields model for over a year now. The company has a solid 2.5% dividend and has had a huge buyback plan that included over $1B worth of stock purchased in Q311 alone. Earnings After the close on Tuesday, one of the leading railroad operators reported earnings of $0.49 that slightly beat estimates of $0.47. The number also was a 7 percent year-over-year improvement even though the actual earnings amount only increased from $506M to $512M. In essence, the whole gain per share came from the reduction of diluted shares outstanding from 1,109M in Q211 to 1,043M in Q212 or a 6% drop. Read the full article at Seeking Alpha. Disclosure: Long CSX (for now). Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

October was an excellent month with a 9.41% gain for this model, but the relative performance was lacking with the benchmark up 10.77%. This was the reverse of the results during the summer swoon, but mostly inline with what would be expected in this large cap model. Stocks with market caps over $10B typically underperform when the market soars. Trades The model had three trades in October. FirstEnergy (FE) was sold as the stock saw decent gains during the summer months hence reducing the net payout yield below normal levels in the model. Typically the model looks to sell when a stock hits 52 weeks high and either buybacks tail off and/or the dividend yield slumps if the company doesn't raise the rate. The other sell was Microsoft (MSFT) since it has reduced buybacks over the year making the stock less attractive. Possibly this was due to the Skype purchase or other potential deals that could be in the pipeline. Regardless the yield dropped to an unappealing level for a cons...

September was another decent month for the Net Payout Yields model with a return vs. benchmark of 3.46% - the portfolio was down 3.72% while the S&P500 fell 7.18%. Naturally on an absolute basis the results are disappointing, but this model is not designed to time the markets. The goal remains to outperform on the way down and remain even on the way up, in the effort to produce superior returns over time. For 2011, the model remains roughly 7.0% higher than the benchmark. As of the end of September, year to date the model was down 2.92% while the S&P500 fell 10.04%. Trades The model was inactive for the second month during September as the weak market increased the yields and hence the valuation attractiveness of most of the equities in the model. A few stocks though have recently reached new 52 weeks highs causing the yields to decline. For example, Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) has seen the dividend yield drop to 4% and without a buyback the Net Payout Yield (NPY) has reac...

August was a decent month for this model with an active return of 1.02% (Portfolio was down 4.66% versus the benchmark S&P500 down 5.68%). Naturally on an absolute basis the results are disappointing, but this model is not designed to time the markets. The goal remains to outperform on the way down and remain even on the way up producing superior returns over time. Trades After several semi active months of trading especially in May and July, August saw no trades executed. Typically the model trades more in good markets as companies outgrow yields making them less attractive to keep. While down markets normally lead to higher yields and a improvement in the decision for keeping a security in the model. Largest Weights Lorillard (LO) remained the largest stock in the model as the tobacco stock was able to post a nearly 5% gain in the month. CSX Corp (CSX) remained a top weight even though the stock plunged. The railroad operator remains tied to a cyclical business and was the ...

For transporters, the cost of gas will be a 'driving' force in future profits and the ability to transport more commodities and less retail products will be beneficial. For that fact, Stone Fox has decided to swap shares in UPS for a bigger focus on CSX. Both were favorites of the NetPayout Yield Portfolio for decent dividends and a history of buybacks. Unfortunately for UPS whether public perception or reality, the cost of fuel will likely continue to hinder the amount of products shipped going forward. Even if it doesn't, its likely to hold the price of the stock down and competition with FedEx and USPS is likely to hold down profit growth regardless. Not to mention that legal documents that used to be delivered via Express services will likely move to a sort of digital format reducing the need for UPS services because it can be done cheaper and is more economical and even greener. Fortunately for CSX, the increasing cost of gas and likelihood that it will stay higher inc...

The railroad stocks like CSX ( CSX ) have been out of favor for awhile because of declining shipments. CSX though continues to maintain a 2.8% dividend while attractive, its not overwhelming in this environment where stocks move up or down by 20% sometimes in a day. We like to look at the Net Payout Yield as its been deemed more reliable in studies as a predictor of a stocks potential. View my old articles for more detail. The stock buyback portion of the Net Payout Yield makes this stock more enticing. For 2008, CSX bought back $1.5B of net stock. For a company with a current market cap of $12.1B thats an impressive amount. Unfortunately for Q109, CSX didn't purchase any stock with the turmoil in the markets. That leaves the trailing 12 month buyback at $1.2B or 10% of the current market cap for a whopping yield of 10%. Combine that with the 2.8% dividend and the Net Payout Yield is an impressive 12.8%. Obviously CSX will need to get back to buying up stock for this yield to remai...

The market has been too crazy to keep up with posts. Both the Hedged Growth and Net Payout Funds bought CSX at the close yesterday - May 5th. The stock has a good 2.9% yield and over a 10% buyback last year giving it an incredible new payout yield approaching 15%. Of course, the buyback might be lower in 2009 lowering the yield, but we'd expect the rails to start benefiting from a recovery in the economy and growth in China. More to come later.