Hello Friends! You know for a 'one-year-old', I really feel pretty mature. I mean, with this BLOG one year old (lol), and here I am WRITING at twelve months, reading, telling awful jokes...heck...I am even potty-trained! Thanks so much for stopping by. As always, remember to do your own investigation on all stocks discussed on this blog and consult liberally with your investment advisors...as I am an AMATEUR investor who just likes to discuss ideas and look at stocks. If you have any questions, comments, or words of encouragement, please feel free to post them right here....just click under the posts where it says "comments" and start a discussion...or email me at bobsadviceforstocks@lycos.com and I will probably respond to you right in the blog!
As I noted in my last post, the stock market really does appear to be looking for a support level in here. I find it hard to believe that the only thing that will move this stock market higher is BAD economic news...news that will not mean that interest rates will be raised. Quite frankly, with the rates at 40 year lows, what can we expect but some normalization of interest rates in here. If rates get so high that they seem to be shutting down the economy....well then that would be something different...but all of this hysteria, in my opinion, of the first rate rise...well is this overdone or what? Anyhow....
Was looking over the big movers today and came across MapInfor Corp. (MAPS).
MapInfo is having a fairly nice day today trading at $10.50, up $.56 or 5.63% as I write. According to Yahoo.com, MapInfo "...is a global software company that designs, develops, licenses, markets and supports location-based software and data products, application development tools and industry-focused solutions." I guess the key to all of that 'jargon' is the term "location-based". Sort of like a map!
On April 21, 2004, MAPS announced 2nd quarter 2004 results: revenue came in at $31.4 million vs $27.1 million in the prior year same quarter. Net income came in at $1.07 million vs a loss of $(742) thousand last year. On a per share basis, this was $.07/share vs $(.04)/share last year.
If we look at Morningstar.com "5-Yr Restated" financials, we can see a slightly erratic growth in revenue from $74.4 million in 1999 to $114.0 million in the trailing twelve months. Earnings peaked in 2000 at $.54/share dropping to a loss of $(.16)/share in 2002 and have been improving each year since. Free cash flow which was $(1) million in 2001, $(7) million in 2002, turned positive in 2003 at $3 million and has improved to $6 million in the trailing twelve months.
The balance sheet on Morningstar.com shows $35.4 million in cash and $27.8 million in other current assets, easily covering the $41.5 million in current liabilities, with enough left over to pay off the long-term liabilities of $17 million if that were necessary or desirable.
Looking at "Key Statistics" from Yahoo, we see that this is a SMALL cap stock with a market cap of $206.46 million. The trailing p/e is steep at 50.10 (as the company is just returning to profitability), but the growth is so FAST that the forward p/e (fye 30-Sep-05) is only 21.04. Thus the PEG, which isn't cheap, isn't nearly that bad at 2.21. The price/sales is 1.65.
Yahoo reports 19.62 million shares outstanding with 19.60 million of them that float. Thus, the insider holdings are only 0.13%. There are only 180,000 shares out short representing 0.92% of the float or only 0.677 trading days as of 4/7/04, so this is not much of an issue. No cash or stock dividends are reported on Yahoo.
Looking at technicals with a "point and figure" graph:
We can see that MAPS was trading lower throughout 2002, bottoming out in January, 2003, at about $3/share, Since that time, it has moved higher, breaking through a resistance level at about $12 in August, 2003, to its current level around $10.
By the way, I do NOT own any shares nor have any leveraged position on this issue. What do I think? I prefer stocks a little higher than $10.50/share. With an 8% stop, I seem to hit this point over and over in the lower-priced investments. Other than that, I like this stock! The valuations isn't bad, the technicals look nice, and the recent earnings report is encouraging.
If you have any questions, comments or words of encouragement, please feel free to email me at bobsadviceforstocks@lycos.com
Bob
P.S., meanwhile, enjoy a slice of birthday cake: a beautiful picture from one of my favorite artists: Wayne Thiebaud!
