"How about a bank that derives 56% of its global consumer banking revenue from credit cards. Such is the unrecognized case with the stock Citigroup, (Symbol C)."

Dow Jones Industrial Average 15,739 (UP) Week ending 02-07-2014
Dow Jones Industrial Average  16,154 (UP) Week ending 02-14-2014

Well the siege of winter has laid in upon us the last two weeks in the Mid-Atlantic states and Maryland, with snow, ice, wind and non-stop storms. It is hard to write a stock blog when you have no heat or electricity for 5 days straight. If I had known, I would have bought the stock of  Generac Holdings, (Symbol GNRC), who makes portable and installed electric generators and whose stock went up 9 points in 3 days last week. Oh well, not that clever.

 "My back porch"

So now it is time to get back to the business of making money in the stock market. If you will remember your economic history, the stock of Citigroup, (Symbol C, $49.52), had done a 10 for 1 reverse stock split. That really says that you can buy the stock here at a previous pre-split price of $4.95 cents per share. It is listed in the Investors Business Daily as a "Bank", but it really is a "Financial" stock based on its revenue like American Express and Discover. IBD rates the stock an 87 for earnings.

Citi has a market capitalization of $150 Billion dollars but the Enterprise value of the company is $239.90 Billion dollars. I took a small position in Citi last month than added another position Friday morning. Friday afternoon at 5:10 PM it was announced that George Soros had taken a position in the stock, so I knew that I was on the right track.

Citigroup has a Peg Ratio of 0.1389 and a Return on Equity of 7.23%. To me this stock is a deep value play that should hopefully start paying a higher dividend soon. "Despite huge losses during the global financial crisis, Citigroup built up an enormous cash reserve in the wake of the financial crisis with $420 billion in surplus liquid cash and government securities as of June 2012. As of Q1 2012, Citi has tier 1 capital ratio of 12.4%, making one of the best-capitalized financial institutions in the world after billions of dollars in losses from the financial crisis" (Citing Wikipedia). 

I do not pretend to understand a banks balance sheet or accounting, but I know when something seems inexpensive. Citi is forecasting earnings
of $5.04 per share and for 2015 is looking at $5.80 per share with a forward PE of 8.6.

The company stock has a One year twelve month trailing gain of 12.96. That might be glacially slow compared to the stocks that I normally talk about in this venue but most conservative folks would be very happy with 13%  a year return on their money. 

There are 21 buy recommendations by analyst on the stock currently , (plus add in the endorsement of billionaire George Soros).  Also insider buying is running 5 to 1 of purchases over sales. That is a very strong endorsement for the stock.

So think credit card, when you think Citi and buy some "C". 

Let's have a great 2014,

Freewilly

"Sometimes a stock comes along that has technologies that are just "scary" cool. Put that together with impressive financial numbers and you will find the stock of Synaptics Inc. (SYNA) "

Dow Jones Industrial Average 15,698.85 (Down) Week ending 01-31-2014

First, you had human to human interaction. Then M2M machine communications, (a business that I was in for 19 years!). Now you have the new frontiers of human to machine communications and interaction. Sometimes you only need to be nearby, (Near Field Communications) to interact. Sometimes it is a touch or a gesture to communicate.

Enter Synaptics (Symbol SYNA, $58.36). Sometimes I talk about a stock and it may go down in that week. The stocks I pick out for this blog are purchased with a 1 year to 3 year opportunity window in mind. I am not a day trader. 


Synaptics describes the company on their website as follows:

Our Company

We are the leading developer of human interface solutions which enhance the user experience in the expanding digital lifestyle. We were founded in 1986 by Federico Faggin and Carver Mead and over the last 26 years we have grown from a neural network research organization into the leading human interface solutions partner of a global customer base. Simply put, our next-generation interfaces set users free to interact with devices in ways the world couldn’t have imagined a decade ago.

Our combination of technology, expertise, innovation, comprehensive and customized solutions (from prototyping to module design to manufacturing to testing), and exceptional customer support makes us the right choice for partners that want to differentiate in the market.

• We have more than 1,900 unique capacitive touch solutions in the market
• We have close to 400 patents issued or pending

Over one billion devices include Synaptics interfaces. Shouldn’t yours?

Now to take a look at the numbers. SYNA

The company currently has a PEG ratio of 0.0692 and a ROE of 26.54%. (Stats are from Y-Charts).  I should note here that be careful with the stats that you make your purchasing decisions on when doing your homework. You can go to four different websites and they may all give you a different number for the same stat. Use multiple websites for reference. 

Revenues for the company this year are $822 Million dollars so this is a small cap stock. Revenue year over year growth has been running 43.85%. Wall Street is in love with revenue growth right now because they think that most earnings are being engineered by buybacks of company stock.

Synaptics Inc. has a great balance sheet with a Current Ratio of 3.8. (3.8 Assets to every 1 part liability), with a current PE of 15.24. The company has Gross Profit Margins of 45.95%.

Earnings for 2014 are looking like $3.70 per share and looking out into 2015 are projecting at $4.11 per share, (Stats from CBSMarketwatch) , with a forward PE of 14.19. The last quarter Year over Year, (YOY), earnings change was 62%.

The One year stock gain for the Trailing Twelve Months, (TTM), is 66.36%. The Investor's Business Daily's current EPS rating is 92. (I would have liked that as a grade in high school.)

 Here is the link for Near Field Communications. Really Cool. Near Field Technology Demo Link . It shows how amazing this technology is.

 Multi-Touch Interfacing

The Analyst have 10 buy recommendations, 1 Overweight, and 2 Hold rankings on the stock. 

There are 34 Million Shares outstanding of the stock. The largest Institutional holder of SYNA stock is BlackRock.

I would say to buy in with small buys into the stock because the price will move around here a bit up and down. Then sit back and relax and put your feet up.

 "Sully"

Happy Superbowl - Ground Hog Day here in Pennsylvania. Phil saw his shadow, so 6 more weeks of Winter and another 4-8 inches of snow coming tomorrow. Super Bowl prognostication: Broncos. 

Freewilly

"A 3% correction in the market on Thursday and Friday brings an opportunity to add the top biotech company in the world, AMGEN, (AMGN), to your long term stock portfolio."

Dow Jones Industrial Average 15,879 (Down Big!) Week ending 01-24-2014

Well now, that was one ugly end of the week!
I guess it would not really be a market if stocks only went up and never went down. I would say here that if you have stocks with a good long term growth potential that I would stick with them, and hold them. They will be the stocks that come back after the storm blows over.

With that said, the flip side is that with these sell-offs in stocks comes an opportunity to add some quality names to your IRA and long term investments. One name that I identified on Friday is AMGEN, (Symbol AMGN, $119.31) which was down 4 points on Friday. 

AMGN gets overshadowed in the media by its glitzy brethren Celgene, Gilead, Biogen-IDEC and Regeneron.  But make no mistake, this company which is a little more mature and pays a 2.05% dividend, had a 1 year trailing twelve months stock value change of 44.38% and that is AFTER the sell off on Friday, so it had been up around a 50% total return last year.

Besides, you know that a company that sponsors a world class bicycle race is not going to come in last place!

AMGEN by the numbers: Revenues last year were $18 Billion. The PEG ratio is currently 1.423 and the Return on Equity is 24.05%. 
These numbers fit well with Freewilly's investment criteria for PEG and ROE.

AMGEN Helix Pedestrian Bridge

AMGEN operates at a Gross Margin of 83.40%. The quarterly year over year diluted earnings growth is 26.95%. As of last quarter, the company had $22.56 Billion dollars in Cash and Investments. 

AMGEN is projecting $7.47 per share in earnings for 2014 and $8.17 per share looking ahead to 2015 with a Current PE ratio of 18.85 and a future PE projected at a reasonable 15.20. Year over year Revenue growth is 9.93%.

AMGEN had purchased ONYX Pharmaceuticals back in August 2013 to add to their developing pipeline of medicines. AMGEN is currently the world's largest Biotechnology company. AMGEN employs 18,000 people.

AMGEN as a company has total assets of 57.07 Billion dollars. In the last 12 twelve months more INSIDERS have been buying than selling (66/65).


It is my opinion that this stock can get to a price of 136 by the end of the year, a 15% gain. Add that to a 2% dividend and that gives you a 17% Total Return. I think that will reflect as a good return number at the end of 2014 and with very little inflation.

So don't get shook out of your boots!  Be smart and be a stock picker this year. Make sure to mix in some those quality stocks that pay a dividend to go along with your mega-growth stocks.  You'll sleep better at night.

Let's see what happens this week, with lots of companies reporting in their earnings.

Best Regards,

Freewilly

"A couple of oil stock names to lubricate the gears of your financial wealth machine. Laying out a strategic energy deployment in your diversified portfolio"

Dow Jones Industrial Average 16,437.05 (Down) Week ending 01-10-2014
Dow Jones Industrial Average 16,459.00 (UP ) Week ending 01-17-2014

Good morning fellow amateur retail stock investors. This was an interesting and disturbing week in the stock market with Royal Dutch Shell reporting quarterly earnings down because of the rising cost to the major oil companies to find and deliver oil. The disturbing part was the volatility in stock names such as GE, BAC and ISRG as they reporting earnings. Some stocks that were at the top of the IBD rankings such as Nu Skin Enterprises (NUS) got blown up like stepping on a land mine on a single report from China, dropping from $140.00 down to $79.85 in 3 days. Fear not, you still need to be invested in 2014. 

I would start your energy investment strategy off by purchasing the stock of
Seadrill Ltd. (Symbol SDRL, $40.12). SDRL pays a dividend out of 9.47% for each share held. That equated to $2.67 Billion dollars last quarter to shareholders. The Return on Equity for the company is 36.91% and the PEG ratio is 0.0513. You can't ask for better numbers than that. At some point, that dividend rate will need to be lowered so that they can deploy that capital towards additional ships and rigs, but until then, enjoy the 9.47% dividend.

The Royal Dutch Shell news about the major oil companies' costs rising so much made me think that those companies may find it easier and less expensive to just buy other Oil companies. How about Continental Resources Inc. (Symbol CLR, $108.46) as an example?... America's pride in the US energy renaissance, who only has a current Market Capitalization of 20.15 Billion. Peanuts to a major oil company. And, this is a growth story. Revenue, YOY growth is 70.31%.  The PEG ratio is 0.74 and the Return on Equity is 27.03%.  I love this as a growth stock. Earnings per share for 2014 look like $5.67 per share and for 2015 is projecting at $7.23 per share. The 1 year twelve month trailing gain in the stock is 32.16%. I have current revenue at $3.324 Billion dollars. This should have probably been in my 14 for 2014 instead of Holly Frontier (HFC), an oil refiner out there in the interior USA. Did I mention that I like this stock (CLR)?!

One more for you, in case you just need to sleep at night and need a substitute for those floundering short term bond investments.  BP PLC ADS (Symbol BP, $48.20) is an investment the CFO, (Mark Panetta), of the company I work for likes. He is the best person in the world I know with numbers, so you can feel pretty safe with this one. The stock is still recovering from the big Gulf of Mexico oil spill and that has created the value pricing here on the stock.  Your dividend yield here, that is perfectly safe, is 4.73%.

BP has a Return on Equity of 19.57%.  The PEG Ratio is 0.68. The 1 year trailing twelve month gain in the stock is 9.45%. Add that to your 4.73% dividend and your safe return is 14.18%. Pretty simple. Any questions? The twelve month trailing Revenues for the company is $400.9 Billion dollars. THAT, (emphasis), is a major Oil company.

Below, some of the handy work of the editor, whose creativity and command of the English language help this blog venue immensely. Thank you, Molly Wilson.

Yours Faithfully,

Freewilly

"I called a local radio show to try to win a hat for answering a stock trivia question. I got the question wrong, but the radio show triggered a lot of good investment ideas."

Dow Jones Industrial Average 16,469.99 (Down) Week ending 01-03-2014

I listen to the "BIG Money Show" on Saturday mornings on the AM radio station 1210 WPHT in Philadelphia, PA to hear stock talk conversation. The regular host, Steve Cordasco, was off and Joe Besecker from Emerald Asset Management was hosting the show this week.

Joe put a stock trivia question out there asking, "What Pennsylvania company stock with three letters, (NYSE stock), has had a positive stock return for the last 14 years?" He also gave a second clue that it was a Western Pennsylvania company.

        I decided to give a call over to the station. I was sure the company was symbol PPG, Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company.

Joe Besecker

The only problem was that the girl right before me guessed PPG, and the answer was wrong! So I was suddenly up next and had to scramble and the only thing I could think of was to throw out the name "Eaton", (symbol ETN). But alas, that was also wrong, (but not a bad guess). I did not even get a chance to give a shameless plug for my Freewilly's stockpicker blog! It turns out the answer was Wabtec, up 14 years.

Not all was lost, though, since the show brought to light many good investment names for buying in 2014. Here is a short list of good solid companies to invest in for the long term in 2014.

Wabtec Corporation - (Symbol WAB) Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies -
 PEG - 1.192   ROE - 20.98%

       B/E Aerospace - (Symbol BEAV)
       PEG - 0.418    ROE - 15.45%

   PPG Industries Inc. (Symbol PPG) - mentioned in this blog in January 2012 also.

 PEG - 0.0334    ROE  69.76%






These are the kinds of industrial names that are growing their businesses and are safe places for the long term investor to put money to work in this year.

 If you are a reader here at this blog, you remember that I like stocks with PEG ratios below 1.5 and that also have ROEs of 15% plus.

 "Metrolinx locomotive repowered by Wabtec new engines and propulsion systems"

 So, don't get "Twittered!"  Buy stocks in businesses that make sense and make money.

Freewilly

"Everyone starts out the new year making resolutions to become more healthy. The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (HAIN) has made a big business out of eating healthy, and the trends seem to be moving in their favor."

Dow Jones Industrial Average 16,478.41 (UP) Week ending 12-27-2013

 Happy New Year. Warren Buffett says that you should not invest in things that you do not know about. Well, I went to a brunch on New Year's day and there were extensive conversations about "organic" and "sustainable" foods to eat, and even discussions about "antibiotics" and "fertilizers." So, although I have no expertise in this area, evidently everyone else in the world has been studying this subject intensively. How does this shake out into an investment opportunity?

According to Clare O'Connor, Forbes magazine Staff, in her August 12th Forbes article,            "$3.5 Billion Organic Giant Hain Celestial is Whole Foods' Biggest Supplier".

Link to Clare's full Forbes article .

Clare also mentions in her article that "the company counts famed activist investor Carl Icahn as its largest single shareholder, who owns just under 15%."  (Icahn did move his position over to Jefferies LLC in September 2013).  OK, so now you have peaked my interest.

The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (Symbol HAIN, $89.38) is a company that has a one year rise of 68.89% in stock price for the trailing 12 months. This would juice up any portfolio's health.
HAIN is one of my "14 for 2014" stock picks.

Earnings per share diluted year over year was 62.86%. The PEG ratio on the stock, that is the formula of "price/earnings to growth ratio", is 0.765. This is well under my top end threshold of 1.50 PEG ratio, so to me, this stock price is inexpensive compared to its growth.
The ROE or Return on Equity of the company is 11.02, which is a little below the 15% ROE that I like to see, but with Carl Icahn involved here, that number will likely improve.

The 2013 earnings per share are projected out at $3.02 per share and the 2014 earnings per share are looking like $3.48 per share. Revenues for the company for the year 2013 were 1.852 Billion so this stock is a "Baby" Mid Cap stock and should have plenty of growth ahead of it.

The Market Capitalization on the stock is $4.283 Billion, so it is sized correctly if a suitor like Whole Foods Inc. had an interest in acquiring it. The Enterprise Value of the company is $4.871 Billion. The current forward PE on the stock is 25.55.

Insider purchasing looks favorable with more purchases than sells. Analyst ratings are 15 BUY recommendations and 3 Hold recommendations. The Current Ratio for the stock is 2.10 to 1.

There are 47.79 Millions shares outstanding of this New York based stock.  

"Bjork hitch-hiking with Teddy bear"

So if you need to hitch a ride this year with a stock that is going to take you a long way, Hain Celestial Group is probably a good way to go. Wait until things settle out a little bit in these first two trading weeks of the market year.

Freewilly

"Here are the new year's "14 for 2014" stock picks. These stocks present the best opportunity for total return in the new year."

Dow Jones Industrial Average 16,221 (UP) Week ending 12-20-2014

Good morning everyone. I have put together my list of stocks to start on January 1st 2014 that gives you the best chance for the year for total return. It is a list of very aggressive, (and by that I mean,) "high beta" stock names that are growing the fastest and, in some cases, have already run up substantially in 2013.  What these stocks have in common is that they all have strong balance sheets and good projected earnings growth for 2014.  My thought is that the economy will actually be growing faster this year and that these names should be the best performers.

 At the end of the year, I calculate the return on the basis of buying equal parts of each stock and then calculating the average return. If you read last week's blog, it shows the 2013 return which was 38.716% which is my best return ever. In 2012, my performance was 16.7% which was also very good.



 "3 D Systems Printers"

So here are the picks for 2014:

Stratasys Ltd. - (Symbol SSYS)
Golar LNG - (Symbol GLNG)
Direct TV - (Symbol DTV)
Cree Inc. - (Symbol CREE)
Nike Inc. Cl B - (Symbol NKE)
Holly Frontier - (Symbol HFC)
Yahoo - (Symbol YHOO)
3 D Systems - (Symbol DDD)
Google - (Symbol GOOG)
Hain Celestial - (Symbol HAIN)
Berkshire Hathaway Class B - (Symbol BRK.B)
Arris Group Inc. - (Symbol ARRS)
Polaris Industries - (Symbol PII)
Manitex International - (Symbol MNTX)

I changed this list around 20 times for various reasons but have come up with this final list. 3-D printer stocks, Liquified Natural Gas transport, LED lighting and the two dominant search engines, are a few of the themes that are the glue for the composition of this year's list.

It was difficult to leave some of last year's names off, Celgene, Chipotle Mexican Grill, and Borg Warner who all continue to perform well. But I had to narrow it down to 14 names for the new year.

So let us look ahead to another good year in the stock market. Hopefully, we all make enough money to retire, so that all of the young people out there can have our jobs and be gainfully employed and lower the unemployment rate.

Technology continues to eliminate jobs permanently, especially with the emergence of the Robotics industry, (which Google has exposure to and one of my runner up stocks, Intuitive Surgical (Symbol ISRG), dominates on the medical side.) Other new technology, like Google Glass, continue to create jobs that never existed.

So here is a toast to the new year 2014! May all of your stocks perform well!

Happy New Year!

Freewilly

"The 2013 investing year is coming to a sunset. Let's see how my 13 stocks for 2013 performed. I think that I kicked butt! Easy peasy lemon squeezy"

Dow Jones Industrial Average 15,755.36 (Down) Week ending 12-13-2013

What a year! This was a year where most everything worked.  My only loser pick was Phillip Morris. I guess everybody is moving to those electronic cigarettes.

Celgene was the Adrian Peterson of stocks this year, up 106.54% this year up until Friday.
Facebook, Chipotle Mexican Grill, MasterCard and Borg Warner were the other heavy hitters in 2013. Here is the list in descending order based on success.

Celgene (CELG)                                 106.54%           

Facebook (FB)                                      88.81%
Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG)           84.71%
MasterCard    (MA)                             62.66%
Borg Warner  (BWA)                          61.83%
Scripps Network (SNI)                        39.57%
Whole Foods Market (WFM)              25.55%
Anheuser-Busch Inbev SA (BUD)      14.74%
DaVita HealthCare Partners (DVA)   12.72%
Diageo Plc  (DEO)                                 4.40%
Petsmart (PETM)                                  4.10%
Ebay Inc. (EBAY)                                 1.04%
Phillip Morris (PM)                             (3.36%)

So my grand total average return for 2013 is:    38.716%


"LEELOO DALLAS MULTI PASS" 

 

I think I won the contest to Fhloston Paradise!

This year, anyone could have been a stock Diva, though. With 13 stocks, that is a pretty darn good average.



Next year, well...now that will be a lot tougher challenge. I am working on that list right now. It will be 14 stocks.

I was a little surprised that the Tobacco and Beverage stocks did so poorly.  In most years, they are stalwarts.


 "Fed Tapering Elf"

Celgene Corp. raising next year's earnings estimates.

MasterCard ended up splitting their stock 10 for 1 and raising their dividend by 83%.

Chipotle Mexican Grill: whenever I go there it is busy and the food is good and reasonably priced.

Scripps Network getting interest from Discovery Communications.

Borg Warner doing lots of international business.

Facebook looks cheap now based on their business growth with Twitter sitting out there trading at the same price and no profits.

Whole Foods Market operationally performing perfectly and expanding at a controlled rate.

All in all a good year.  Below, Wall Street is prepared for the Christmas holiday with the lighted tree.

Remember that the holiday is about giving and thinking about family and friends here now, and those from the past. Surprise someone with your generosity.

Season Greetings and smart stock investing,

Freewilly

"Direct TV (Symbol DTV) is Berkshire Hathaway's 9th largest holding. That is a good enough endorsement for me to add some of this stock to my long term holdings."

Dow Jones Industrial Average  16,086.41 (UP)  Week ending 11-29-2013
Dow Jones Industrial Average  16,020.20 (Down)  Week ending 12-06-2013

Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway's investment team do not make investments lightly. They make a thorough investigation of a company's financial numbers and consistent growth prospects. So when they invest $2.35 Billion dollars or purchase 7% of a company's stock and it is their 9th largest holding, you can bet that someone has done their homework first. Buffett started buying DTV at $42.00 a share and kept buying on the way up. Berkshire just recently lightened their position just slightly.


Direct TV (Symbol DTV, $66.44) is the above mentioned investment which has a one year return of 32.75% and a 3 year total return of 64.70%. We will take those kind of numbers anytime. The PE on the stock is 12.73 and the forward PE is 11.44.

The PEG ratio on the stock is 1.09 and the 12 month trailing PEG ratio is 0.4626, so there is much growth in progress. Direct TV has 12 month trailing revenues of $31.21 Billion dollars.

 DIRECT TV "Genie"

Earnings for 2013 will be $5.00 per share and for 2014 they are projected at $5.79 per share. Year over year quarterly earnings growth is 42.22%.

DTV operates at a Gross Margin% of 47.69%.  The company has a Market Cap of 34.71 Billion, but the company has an Enterprise Value of $52.52 Billion.
The company currently does not pay a dividend.

Again, whatever you do with the Dow Jones at 16,000 plus, you need to buy into these stocks in small parcels and average in.  Do not place any large positions at these levels. Portfolio managers are doing stock rotations in all different directions this month for rebalancing and tax considerations. Be patient for your opportunity to buy.

Best Wishes,

Freewilly