Buyers are obviously in control of this market today with the Dow up 127 and the Russell 2000 up 12, a very nice way to start the week. There can be no doubt that we’re in the midst of a very vigorous bull market in the intermediate term. Internal market momentum and breadth remain excellent so I remain fairly optimistic in all time periods but with an eye open for the facts to change.
The current psychology of the market is “risk on” which also means alternative investments that need “risk off” such as bonds and gold are doing poorly and I don’t expect this situation to change anytime soon. While I have almost no bond positions, I am liquidating our GLD holdings into strength and just holding cash with the proceeds. GLD has become a drag on performance and until there is a change in the trading trend of GLD, I prefer to take the most conservative option.
While most market participants are transfixed on Apple shares I continue to look elsewhere for largely unknown names that are quite cheap with positive trading trends.
Intertape Polymer Group symbol ITPOF represents a socially benign company, a Canadian small cap company with interesting postential: They manufacture a wide variety of tape for retail and industrial clients. Example are masking and packaging tape, cloth tape foil and film tapes, packaging tapes, and duct tape.
The market value is small: $270 million but the Price to Sales is just .30%. After several years of lagging operational profits but losing money after tax the company has seen accelerated growth in revenues and margins along with a sharply reduce tax expense. Revenues have risen from $615 million in 2009 to $786 million in 2011 and net income of (-$14,389,000 2009 / -$48,549,000 2010 to a profit of +$8,954,000 in 2011).
Long ITPOF, GLD