Happy Columbus Day everyone! We don't get our snail mail today....but nobody figured about giving the email a rest. Anyhow, the stock market is up so far today and that puts me always in a better mood. I have two laggards in my trading portfolio, AAII which has a 50% short interest...and MMSI...both have had nice moves this past twelve months so maybe they just need to 'consolidate' as the technicians say...sort of digest the gains in on of the market's many stomachs. Now how is THAT for a mixed metaphor so early in the morning.
International Game Technology (IGT) is a long-time favorite of mine but unfortunately I do not own any shares. IGT is having a nice day today trading at $30.17 as I write up $2.08 or 7.40%. According to money.cnn.com, IGT "...is an operator and manufacturer of computerized casino gaming products and proprietary systems." As far as I know the are one of the world's largest if not the largest manufacturer of gambling machines...like slot machines!
IGT reported their third quarter results on July 17, 2003. Earlier this year, on July 2, 2003, IGT had a 4:1 split...a fairly rare occurrence in the market in my experience. The third quarter results for the period ended June 28, 2003 were solid. Net income totaled $103.7 million or $.30/diluted share vs $82.6 million or $.23/diluted share last year. Total quarterly revenues and earnings of unconsolidated affiliates (if you know what they mean?) grew 16% to $597.5 million.
Morningstar.com shows a steady growth in revenue from $0.8 billion in 1998, $0.9 billion in 1999, $0.9 billion in 2000, $1.2 billion in 2001, $1.8 billion in 2002 and $2.1 billion in trailing twelve months. Earnings/share have grown during this period from $.33 to $.95/share in the trailing twelve months.
Free cash flow has also increased from $110 million in 2000 to $471 million in 2002 but only $317 million in the trailing twelve months. The company is fairly flush with cash with $972.5 million in cash compared to only $493.3 million in current liabilities. The other current assets are not quite enough at $820 million to cover the $1.9 billion in long-term liabilities, but with the nice positive cash flow this does NOT seem to be a problem at all.
This is certainly a large Cap company with a Market Cap of $10.41 Billion. The trailing p/e isn't too bad at 27.81, the PEG ratio is at 1.65, and the price/sales a bit rich at 4.38. The company does pay a small dividend of $.40 yielding currently 1.42%. There are 345.06 million shares outstanding and 332.50 million of them float. There are 14.63 million shares out short...as of 9/8/03...representing 7.717 trading days. These shares may actually be positive for this stock for if it continues its upward drive, some of the shorts may be 'squeezed' and forced to cover...providing additional buying demand for this equity.
As you can probably tell, I like this stock a lot...I do not own shares but would love to see this in my portfolio somewhere...perhaps another time? Thanks again for stopping by. If you have any questions, comments, or words of encouragement, please drop me a line at bobsadviceforstocks@lycos.com or leave them right here in the webpage.
Bob