Hello Friends! As always, remember to PLEASE discuss any ideas you retrieve off of this website with your investment advisor. I am an amateur investor and any ideas here may result in loss of your investment and may or may not be appropriate for you!
Today was a rough day in the market. First the sell-off, then the rally and then the late fade into the close. Kind of discouraging! Economic data wasn't bad but the continuing stream of violence in the mideast was unsettling for the stock market.
Looking, as we like to do, at the lists of greatest percentage gainers, is an interesting retailer called Hot Topic, Inc. (HOTT). HOTT had a nice day today on the back of earnings news released after the close of the market yesterday. HOTT closed today at $28.61 up $2.01 or 7.56% on the day. I do not own any shares, nor do any members of my family.
Yesterday, 11/19/03, HOTT announced their third quarter financial results. Revenue jumped to $161.5 million from $122.6 million last year. Net income was $15.3 million or $.31/share vs. last year's $10 million or $.21/share. Analysts, according to this report from Dow Jones, carried by Yahoo.com, were expecting only $.28/share which HOTT had forecast last month.
Looking at Morningstar.com, we find STEADY revenue growth from 4103.4 million in 1999, $168.9 million in 2000, $257.2 million in 2001, $336.1 million in 2002, $443.3 million in 2003 and $487 million in the trailing twelve months.
Earnings per share have grown steadily from $.14/share in 1999 to $.75 in the trailing twelve months.
Free cash flow has also improved nicely from $3 million in 2001, $13 million in 2002, $21 millin in 2003, and $24 million in the trailing twelve months.
The balance sheet is very nice with $70.3 million in cash, more than enough to cover both the short-term liabilities of $46.9 million and the long-term liabilities of $2.8 million combined. In addition, HOTT reports on Morningstar an additional $75.7 million in other current assets.
Checking some other "key statistics" on Yahoo.com, we find that the market cap is $1.36 Billion. The trailing p/e is at 33.34, with a forward p/e (fye February, 2005) is 24.18. With the quick growth reported and expected, we have a PEG on this stock at 1.15 which is quite reasonable, and price/sales is 2.60 which while a bit expensive isn't too bad either.
Yahoo reports 47.55 million shares outstanding with 47.20 million of them that float. Currently there are 6.10 million shares outstanding, quite a few (!), as of 10/8/03, representing 6.715 trading days. Either these people know something I don't or we are in the midst of one heck of a short squeeze! No dividend is paid; the company just had a 3:2 stock split on 9/3/03.
I do like this company and if I had a bit of free cash....well you know the story...I probably would buy a few shares. The PEG isn't bad and the p/e isn't that pricey. Furthermore, one of the best indicators of the health of a retail firm is the 'same store sales' numbers. For HOTT, this was reported by Dow Jones on Yahoo on 11/5/03, when they reported October same-store sales growth of 10.8%. This was a terrific report!
Well, thanks again for stopping by. Please be sure to discuss any ideas gleaned off this page with your financial advisor. If you have any questions about anything, please feel free to email me at bobsadviceforstocks@lycos.com
Bob