Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Two more stocks to research

I still have my list of food related companies, but some have increased a bit too much for me and others just don't seem too great. For instance, I was looking at HNZ at $34 and it shot up to close to $37 in a relatively short time span. I'll take my chances and guess that it will come down a bit before any purchases (it's still on my list to research).
Kraft is starting an uptrend but I haven't got around to this one either.
I have looked at CQB because I wanted to see if the stock price found some support. The margins are terrible, but I already knew that. The one thing I'm a bit worried about is if they have enough cash flow to cover their dividends (2.2% yield) and their interest payments. I think in the last quarter they were cutting it close (I don't have the figures/ratios with me). They made a huge acquisition not too long. I think the buy would definitely add sales growth (it was in the packaged salads business- which is one of the fastest growing food segments), but they took on a lot of debt.
They also reported today and came in with a loss greater than expected. The stock is down about 4.5% in after hours and this will give me a little time to continue looking.

Two other stocks I wanted to highlight that seem cheap on a historic price/sales basis are two well known companies and not food related! They are Dell and Intel (INTC). Intel is probably the more interesting story and I'll be watching to see if it can hold $20.

The analysts at my work use a software that takes all the financials from 10k's and 10Q's and puts it into an excel spreadsheet. Then they manipulate the data and calculate any particular ratios they are interested in. I asked one analyst to send me the model for CQB, which he did, but hopefully in the near future they will allow me to sign up for the software (the cost is on a per user basis so they would have to pay). If they did that, it will save me a ton of time looking into companies and I might be able to cover new ones.
I'm hoping something develops by next week!

No comments: