Out Fox The $treet

Ok, Barclays Capital didn't downgrade Lincoln National (LNC) for being too cheap. One has to wonder if the stock trading around .4x book value actually played a roll. Or maybe these analysts just use recent history as a basis for price targets. Honestly don't understand how a price target below book value could ever be justified. The company has made at least a $1 in each of the last 4 quarters and trades at 4.7x forward estimates. In what book is that a stock to sell? Even worst is the Daily Political website throwing in the P/E ratio of 30 to make the analyst call appear smart. Not sure why that website is even commenting on stocks, but it had the most detail that I could find on the downgrade. While the stock is down 3% today, the bounce off the 10ema will be bullish if it holds. Also, the stock came close to closing the gap from Friday just below $21. Anybody buying at these levels at least has limited risk if it goes ahead to fill the gap today or sometime this week...

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...