Archive for June, 2010

Wednesday musings

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

Yesterdays rally confirmed our more constructive intermediate term outlook as the S&P 500 pushed above the 200 day moving average on a 90% up day. We have not seen a cluster of 90% up days since 2009 during the strongest points of the rally. Bears will comment that it was a fake rally due to high frequency trading, but as the coach of the New England Patriots Bill Belichick would drolly would say: “It is what it is”.

Yesterday while driving home I remembered a conversation from the mid 1990′s with a major SRI fund manager who insisted upon owning a major oil company despite their environmental screening policies. His rationale was that this particular company was the best of the lot, the most progressive within the space. Care to guess what that company was? Hint: my initials.

Being that I’m somewhat of a financial geek I get excited when our model identifies companies that are also identified as promising by other proven investment models. Case in point is IDT Corp. which also ranks very high on the esteemed

Piotroski model

as well as our own. We don’t own the stock for clients at present but will begin to look closely at it.

Also, will be breaking down a host of Green Tech firms looking for revenue acceleration. Stories about this morning about the promise of Green Tech but unless revenues start to move higher its only a trade and not an investment.

All the best,
BP

Holding Update: RCMT

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

This will sound like a post straight out of the 80′s:

One of our recent new purchases for clients was RCM Technologies symbol RCMT which shortly after our purchase became the target of a hostile takeover by CDI Group.  My initial attraction to RCM (which is a service provider of IT, engineering and commercial staffing) was its balance sheet relative to the stock price.

Just before the announcement of the takeover attempt RCMT was the #1 rated stock in our proprietary RMHI model:

Stock Price 6/15 $4.79

Price/sales .93
Price/book .96
Book value $5
Current ratio 3.8
Cash .94 per share
No debt
EBITDA $5.3 million

CDI has made an unsolicited offer for RCMT for $5.20 in cash which RCMT immediately rejected.  Apparently CDI has had a sweet spot for RCMT for quite a while and might have made overtures in private which were rejected as well, hence going public to shareholders with the hostile offer.

As in any negotiation CDI can raise the price of their offer to RCMT shareholders.  One appealing aspect of RCMT is the cash they have on the books of almost $1 a share.   This pristine balance sheet could evaporate should RCMT continue to reject the offer while CDI remains hostile.  The RCMT board is tiered where no board replacements of significance could occur till 2011.

RCMT is a stock very much “in play” as we used to say, call it a financial soap opera.   Should RCMT continue to reject CDI overtures they’ll have some very unhappy shareholders especially if the offer is raised.   Another course of action for RCMT is the “white knight” where RCMT rejects CDI but offers itself to sale to a different company entirely.

Be careful out there

Brad

Long RCMT

Get out your old Wall Street video: Bud Fox likes RCMT

Back to life

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

This blog has been relatively inactive for the past two months as I try to determine its future.

From my perspective there is and has been a great deal of hyperbole regarding “green” stocks that fundamentals such as valuation and balance sheet strength are essentially ignored.

There may always be companies with better technologies but if the price is high relative to value the chances are strong that unless you’re a very short term trader you’ll eventually have a significant loss.   While there is no perfect formula for investing, not all methodologies are created equal nor do they produce the same results in the long run.

Our methodology revolves around growth at as low a cost as reasonably possible.   Many of our investments are socially “neutral” where the investment has little or no social, environmental or humane impact.  Ideally we would all love to own a very green proactive portfolio but the volatility and risks associated with being totally proactive are simply too high.   The bottom line is you must make money for yourself in the long run hence we blend both old school fundamental analysis with environmental screening.