July 6, 2012
I have long been attracted to companies with a high level of free cash flow, and I have found that telephone companies have been a fruitful place to look, as the companies combine a cash flow orientation with a recurrent source of income. And I think cable companies may have similar investment characteristics. There is […]
June 19, 2012
As you may know, a few weeks ago Dell reported remarkably disappointing earnings of 43 cents a share on a comparable basis versus 55 cents in the year-ago quarter, which caused the price to decline sharply. In my view, taking DELL’s substantial cash position into account and even allowing these bad results to be indicative […]
March 9, 2012
M & F Worldwide is a company that has come across my screens many times in the past, but I never could bring myself to write about it. The company was taken private last September by the well-known takeover artist Ron Perelman, and unfortunately for me, I’m not on record as saying it is an […]
February 26, 2012
Investment Technology Group (ITG) is in an interesting situation; the company primarily operates a trading platform and provides brokerage services, as well as providing investment research. As you may know, trading volumes have been low for the last few years, never having reclaimed the peak levels of 2008. This has naturally affected ITG’s earnings and […]
January 28, 2012
I have a soft spot in my heart for companies that are out-of-the-way, meaning that no one thinks about what they do. CSG Systems, for example, does nothing but handle the billing paperwork for other companies. And John B Sanfilippo & Son, Inc. (JBSS), is a producer of nut products. Owing to high levels of […]
January 17, 2012
Lexmark, the well-known printer company, presently offers a robust free cash flow yield of roughly 15%, and also has a vast cushion of cash and investments representing more than a third of its market cap. Although a lot of that money is in overseas subsidiaries, whatever isn’t is being wisely used to buy back shares […]
January 8, 2012
In my last article discussing Black Box, part of my positive opinion of the company was its performance in 2009. This led me to consider how far back into a company’s earnings history we should go. Ben Graham in his Security Analysis recommends at least a decade, but that runs into the situation that a […]
January 2, 2012
Black Box Corporation (BBOX) is a provider of network infrastructure services, which embraces design, sourcing, installation, and maintenance of network. Roughly 60% of the company’s income is from voice communications, but the data infrastructure portion has been slowly increasing and represents 23% of income based on the latest two quarters. The company also has a […]
December 14, 2011
As you may know, I generally adopt a fairly quantitative process when looking for potential investments, at least at the screening stage. I first consider an excess cash position if there is one, both because it provides a source of primary liquidity and also because it often can be considered separately from the company’s operating […]
December 8, 2011
Hello all. Some of you may have noticed that I have not been posing as much as I normally do, and the reason for that is that I have been studying for the CFA examination. The test was last week, so I now find myself again at your disposal. I thought I would kick things […]