"Things move so fast in this market that two blog subject topics that I had picked out ran away before I could even get to discuss them. Well maybe the third idea is now the most timely. Life moves fast!"

Dow Jones Industrial Average 16,392 (UP) Week ending 02-19-2016

I had it all setup perfect for the this week's blog. IBM was sitting there at $123.00 and had a 4.4% dividend and was going to earn over $14.00 a share next year. I was going to tell you all about how Warren Buffett was really right about IBM and that it was a great value purchase here. I even tweeted about it early in the week. Perfect setup. Then the stock went up $3.00 one day and then $7.00 dollars on the next day and  it was at $133.08. What happened? It had not moved in ages? Evidently people must have been swooping in for that dividend with very little downside risk. It is still cheap here but not as magical as it was at $123.00. Oh well.

Not to be deterred , I watched ARRIS Corp., ,(Symbol ARRS), get beaten down to $20.70 in it's last quarter as a separate company. ARRIS has done an inversion merger with PACE from the United Kingdom and the combined company will be number one in cable modem/wireless routers. They will be doing an efficiency layoff because of overlapping jobs and also combined will earn $3.23 per share. The earnings report had missed and they were guiding down for next quarter because of an expected write-off with the layoffs. ARRIS will also be picking up the tax savings from the inversion transaction. On this one I went in and bought some shares, (after my IBM experience), things move fast!.  The stock of course bounced back 8.6% once people realized it. Great for my investment, but the opportunity vanished for the blog purchase opportunity. Sorry!

Thank God for the weekend! It gives stocks a chance to stop for 2 days and you can get some stuff figured out for investment ideas. So frozen in time here a second, I like Gray Television Inc. (Symbol GTN, $10.78). This one has been all over the place earnings wise and on the investment chart. $0.84 cents per share last year, $0.59 cents this year and $1.68 to $1.76 per share projected for next year. 

These guys own a whole bunch of TV stations in mid size and small markets. They also had just had acquired Schurz Communications and should be juiced up for a spurt in sales and earnings the end of this year, 2016.

Analysts are 4 Buys , 1 Overweight and 0 Holds so light coverage here. 

Here are the rest of the numbers. A forward PE 6.98. PEG Ratio 1.86 and ROE is 15.50%. No dividend here. Quick and Current Ratio is 2.5 to 1. Price to the current Book Value is 1.85. 

Price to Cash Flow is 7.64, (below 10 is good for me), Sales Q/Q is 14.70% gain and Sales for the Last 5 Years were 24.5% gain.

Price target on the stock is $20.40 , (but I am looking for more like $17.00, 57.69% gain, which it has reached before, a nice gain).

EPS this year will be up 156.30% and EPS next year will be $205.39%. 

This just looks like a nice Value trade to me. Value Stocks seem to be in, while Growth stocks this year seem to be mostly treading water.

So buy some Gray Television Inc. (GTN) here and sit back and wait a while for this one to develop and play out for you. This is a 12 - 18 month investment. (Not a short term trade).

Thanks and have a great week,

Freewilly

"Time to take a look around and nibble on some bargain quality stocks to add to your portfolio. It feels like the storm has mostly passed"

Dow Jones Industrial Average 15,973.63 (Up) Week Ending 02-12-2014

Well that was fun! I finally stuck my head out of the foxhole after two weeks to see if the sky was still there (and it was). I thought it might be a good time to put some of that cash to work that we had stashed over on the sidelines.

So I did not venture far out just to my backyard for a local company in Philadelphia. Lannett Co. Inc. (Symbol LCI, $25.51) is a Philadelphia PA. based generic pharmaceutical company that had just purchased another company called Kremers Urban Pharmaceuticals. Kremers just this past week got FDA approval for Temozoloride capsules, so more to add to the honey pot. Lannett founded in Philadelphia in 1942 has seen it stock price go down from a high of $72.44 to this current level of $25.51. Some of that was coattails of the Mylan Labs sell off, another generic pharma company.

At it's current price it appears to me by my metrics to be a great bargain. The company is projecting 2016 earnings of $3.74 per share which is a PE of 6.55. 2017 earning are projected at $4.04 per share and a forward PE of 6.17. IBD rating is 68 and B.

Financials are strong here also with a Return on Equity of 24.10 and a PEG Ratio of 0.72.
The Current ratio is 4.2 to 1 and the Quick Ratio is 3.3. 2015 Sales growth was 46.6 %. Target price for the stock is 37.  I would say you can buy a full amount of shares here at this price.

The next one I would nibble on is Synchronoss Technologies Inc. (Symbol SNCR, $23.46).  The company is involved in Wall Street's favorite two words: "Mobile" and "Cloud". They help companies to synchronize those two with their business platforms. No mystery here, pretty straight forward. The 52 week high on the stock is 52. Sorry for the guy that bought it at that price!

SNCR will earn $2.36 per share in 2016 and $2.88 per share in 2017. That is a forward PE of 8.05. The company has a PEG Ratio of 1.59 and an ROE of 8.80 % and is trading at 1.67 times current book value. The IBD rating is 95 and "A".

Analyst right now are 7 Buy and 1 Accumulate. The company is doing a $100 Million dollar buyback of its stock. The company has a healthy Current and Quick Ratio of 5.7 to 1. The 5 year sales growth rate is 28.80%. I would buy it here, (and have purchased both of these here).


One last thing I would add for some yield here is a company that has done very well during the market downturn. 

AT&T (Symbol T, $36.47) has an IBD rating of 80 and "A". This one you are buying for the 5.26% dividend yield. The company grew big last year because of the acquisition of Direct TV. (Must have been the Hanna and the horse commercials.) This year it will only grow at 6 -7 % so really you are buying this to act like a "bond" and give some stability to your portfolio. (I own it from an earlier point). It has a 15.5 PE , so you don't have to be real aggressive buying it here. Nibble. The company will earn $2.84 per share in 2016 and $3.00 per share in 2017. 

(The aforementioned Hanna and her horse AT&T/ Direct TV commercial)

So don't get too crazy this week but you can probably put a little money to work on Tuesday when the stock mark reopens.  We are celebrating Lincoln and Washington's Birthdays on Monday.

(the aforementioned George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, US Presidents)

Thanks and have a great week and Valentine's Day today, here in the USA,

Freewilly