"If you want to be a Pepper, you'll need to pick up some shares of Dr. Pepper Snapple Group and stash them away."

Dow Jones Industrial Average 14,512.03 (Down) Week ending 03-22-2013

What do you think about some of these iconic brands? Dr. Pepper, 7-UP, Canada Dry Ginger Ale, Sunkist, Hawaiian Punch, A&W Root beer, Snapple, Country Time Lemonade, Hires Root beer, Crush Orange soda, Mott's Apple Juice, Clamotto, Orangina, YooHoo, Deju Blue Water, Nanctucket Nectars and a whole bunch more. Who is the company that owns all these brands?                

It is..............Dr.Pepper Snapple Group (Symbol DPS, $46.42).  

The company has a Return on Equity of 27.55% and and PEG ratio of 1.88. The price to growth ratio is a little higher than I like, but I think you could buy it on a little pull-in on the stock. As you have seen, I love beverage stocks and media-content and broadcasting stocks. DPS fits right into the same mold.

This 6 Billion dollar revenue company has plenty of room to grow with all these well-known brands. Last year, the company produced 145 Million dollars in Free Cash flow. Gross profit margins are 59.23% at the company. 

The company pays a 3.27% dividend to add to your returns. Earnings for 2013 are looking to be $3.07 per share and for 2014, $3.31 per share. The forward PE ratio on the stock is 15.08.

(Photo compliments of the Kerry Glenn collection)

The One Year TOTAL Return for the stock has been 19.73% and the Three Year Total Return has been 36.30%. These numbers are very good indicators of what type of annual return you can have with DPS, probably above a 15% return a year, to be conservative. I would like to purchase it a hair lower than where it is now.

What's new here? The move to healthier drinks. They are coming out with Hawaiian Punch Aloha Morning. Sounds refreshing!!

So, don't confuse this one with the other Peppers in your life!!!!
(Although, those guys made lots of money too and it is their 50th Anniversary.)

 Where did Einstein and Ghandi go?

But if the Beatles were here, they might do an ad like this:

"Hey Laddies, how would you like a nice Hawaiian Punch? Sure George!"


Now I've gone off on a tangent!

Back to the stock at hand: DPS.

Buy it, and be a Pepper!      Freewilly

"Qualcomm, symbol QCOM, is a great company with some short-term slowing earnings growth, but still a great buy."

Dow Jones Industrial Average 14,514.11  (UP) Week ending 03-15-2013

Qualcomm Inc., (Symbol QCOM, $64.98), is a no-nonsense, rock solid company and is a good holding to have in your portfolio with the stock market making new highs. The company has a Return on Equity of 20.44% and a favorable PEG ratio of 0.87. After having a 3 year Total Return on the stock of 66.84%, the one year Total return has been (-0.36%) so it has not risen in the current year.  

There seems to be some short-term slowing of earnings growth, because of the transition from 3G phones to 4G phones and some reduction in margin with that change. You will still have earnings per share for 2013 of $4.50 per share and 2014 earnings per share of $4.87 per share.
The forward PE is 14.32.


You have a company here with 19.1 Billion dollars in sales last year with a current dividend yield of 1.54%. 

Qualcomm 5 year Sales growth has averaged 14.32% and 5 year Earnings growth has been at an annual rate of 16.87%. So what do the analysts think?

There are 34 Strong Buy recommendations and 5 overweight recommendations.  That is a good vote of confidence.  I see a stock here that can go to $75 to $85 dollars per share if you have a little patience with it. 

So, what's new?  BOSTON, March 19, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- "Qualcomm's new "RF360," a revolutionary family of RF front-end cellphone products including multiband CMOS PAs, marks the company's entry into the $5 billion cellular RF front-end component market, as explored in the new Strategy Analytics report "PA Market in Flux: CMOS PAs and Envelope Tracking Emerge as Major Themes at MWC 2013." The report evaluates Qualcomm's RF360 in the context of new developments in power management and high-efficiency multiband power amplifiers by established PA suppliers, other chipset suppliers and power management IC specialists."    They are always moving ahead with new ideas and products. 

Buy it today!   QCOM              Freewilly

"With the Dow crashing through new highs everyday, I felt like I needed to bring you a value pick this week with a good dividend. First Niagara Financial Group (FNFG)"

Dow Jones Industrial Average 14,397 (UP , and All-Time High Closing Price) Week ending 03-08-2013

Relax. This thing has a long way to go yet. Don't get scared because the Dow and market are at new highs. William O'Neill of Investor's Business Daily will tell you that you can't go higher until you first make new highs. 

Uncle Ben Bernanke has already telegraphed that he will not raise interest rates until unemployment gets down to 6.5%. That might not happen for another 2 -3 years. Technology is replacing jobs with machines as fast as companies are creating jobs!

Still, just to be cautious, I brought you a speculative value pick this week that does not fall into my normal Return on Equity and PEG ratio criteria. 

First Niagara Financial Group (Symbol FNFG, $8.35) is a bank that has 430 bank branches and has been a solid bank but that got involved in some acquisitions that kind of took them off the track. The "Net" of it is, they bought a bunch of branches from HSBC and sold a bunch of branches to KeyCorp. This caused a bunch of turbulence with the price of the stock. FNFG branches are located in New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. Like banks, Susquehanna Bank and Fulton Bank, who have branches in the same area, trade for $11-12 dollars per share. 

My thesis here is that if you are patient, you will regain the 3 year total return of ( -37%) that had been lost plus gain the 3.83% dividend. That seems to me to be easily obtainable here. The PEG ratio on the stock is 1.58, so not too bad. The 5 year sales growth on the company has been 35.15%. Earnings per share for 2013 is projecting .74 cents per share and 2014 is projecting .80 cents per share.

This stock is what Warren Buffett would affectionately call a "Cigar Butt."  There is a lot of Value here and a good Margin of Safety. Oh, and did I mention that they have their name on a stadium in Buffalo, NY? Oh, and did I mention that they have a pretty good car loan business portfolio? Oh, and did I further mention that they are actually the 37th largest bank/bank holding company in the USA?

 So call me crazy, but I think this is a pretty good deal while you wait for the growth stocks that you like to come in a little bit so you can buy them. I am just keeping a watchful eye on Revenues to remain consistent. Winter is almost over and Spring is about to break out with this continuing stock market rally. I will keep an eye out for more bargains.

Freewilly

"Every time I stop in someone's house the TV is always on a show from Scripps Network Interactive (SNI). This stock is one of my "13 for 2013" stock picks"

Dow Jones Industrial Average 14,090 (UP) Week ending 03-01-2013

If you mention the word "Streaming" in the same sentence as your stock, you will usually see an 8 to 10 Point rise in that stock's price. So this pass week it was mentioned that Scripps Networks Interactive CL A (Symbol SNI, $64.29) is going to start streaming the Food Network content with Amazon the master of all things distributed.( Amazon - Food Network Streaming story link ).

Scripps Networks Interactive, SNI, one of my "13 for 2013" yearly stock picks, has a Return on Equity of 35.83% and PEG Ratio of 1.5. 

The quarterly Gross Profit Margin for the stock is 72.57%. 5 Year Earnings growth has been 17.79%. The forward PE on the stock is 14.97.



2013 earnings are projected at $3.58 per share and 2014 earnings look $4.05 per share. Annual Free Cash Flow is 615 Million. The company pays a dividend that yields around 1 percent (Just enough to keep short sellers away!). It is a younger Mid-Cap stock with annual revenues 2.31 Billion dollars.


The One Year Total Return on the stock of 42.21%. The 3 year Total Return has been 60.24%.


There are 150 Million shares outstanding and these properties may be desirable takeover target for a Disney, CBS, Fox , or Viacom. 

Scripp's shows are very family friendly and would fit well with any of these companies.Standing alone, it will also do very well. They have a fine mix of programming content.

"So, are your going to "Love it" or "List it" ?

Freewilly  says to "Love It" , and buy some shares of SNI, Scripps Networks Interactive.

"As the March winds and turbulence in the markets approaches you will want a stock that is anchored with earnings and that already survived a storm. Chubb Corp. (Symbol CB)."

Dow Jones Industrial Average 14,001 (Up) Week ending 02-22-2013

It seems that my time on the weekends has been sequestered away by other chores and events, so I am going to post on my blog very late this week. So with the markets twirling and swirling around I thought I would bring you a stock that was already done dealing with a hurricane.

Chubb Corp. (Symbol CB, $84.03) is an insurance company with rock solid earnings (now that the storm is over).

This one does not quite meet my minimum criteria with a Return on Equity of only 9.88%. It does though have an acceptable PEG ratio of 1.34. They did have dreadful Q4 earnings because of Hurricane Sandy which should not repeat.

2013 earnings are projecting out at $6.61 per share and 2014 earnings are looking like $6.92 per share.

Chubb (CB) is raising their dividend up to .46 cents to stockholders of record March 15 an payable April 2nd which will bring up the dividend yield to 2.17%.

This company will pump out 933 $Million in free cash flow this year on revenue of 13.5 Billion dollars and that can be put to work.The long term EPS growth is projected at 17.56% per year.

The 1 year Total Return on the stock is 22.80% and the 3 year Total Return of 66.29%, so this would be a nice addition to a growth and income portfolio. 

The 52 week high on this stock is $85.00 , so you might want to put this one on your watch list and buy in on a market correction day. It does not seem the be a high beta (trading) stock , so you can easily pick your place to buy in.

I would be remiss, not to mention the passing of Wall Street week's popular guest, reknown Wall street analyst and writer , Martin Zweig. 

Marty has gone to the ages with my mentor Louis Rukeyser. Marty's macro market analysis work and early detection of market changes in direction is unmatched in the history of Wall Street. 

Marty himself was a disciple of Jesse Livermore and a fan of the Edwin Lefevre book, "Reminiscences of a Stock Operator.", the fictional story about the stock trader extraordinaire, Mr. Livermore. I have both the Zweig book, "Martin Zweig's Winning on Wall Street" ,and the Lefevre masterpiece on my book shelf , sitting right next to my copy of Ben Graham's "Intelligent Investor". 

 Marty Zweig and wife Mollie

Marty you will be missed. I salute you and your life's work.

Freewilly