Well the market is now closed with the Dow down about 90 points and the NASDAQ down 27. Earnings are coming in this week for the second quarter and some of these reports are good enough to give stocks a lift. Simpson Manufacturing reported and the stock is up nicely on a down day. I don't own any shares of Simpson and quite frankly, never heard of it before today when I came acrosse SSD on the lists of most up!
SSD closed today at $40.75 up $1.80 or 4.62% on the day. According to CNN.Money, SSD "...through its subsidiaries Simpson Strong-Tie Co. and Simpson Dura-Vent Co., designs, engineers and manufactures wood-to-wood, wood-to-concrete and wood-to-masonry connectors & venting systems for gas & wood burning appliances." (This does not sound like some of our other picks which are dot.com's!)
In the news today was the earnings report: net sales increased 18% to $146.4 million compared to $124.1 million for the second quarter of 2002. Diluted net income per share was $.71 vs $.60 last year.
Morningstar.com demonstrates that this 'low-tech' firm has pretty high quality growth. Sales were $279.1 million in 1998, $328 million in 1999, $369 million in 2000, $416 million in 2001, and $465 million in 2002. Sales should high over $500 million at the present rate if extrapolated for the next two quarters.
Free cash flow while not consistent has been positive: $16 million in 2000, $48 million in 2001 and $23 million in 2002.
The balance sheet looks pristine on Morningstar.com. They have $90.0 million of cash on hand against $49.6 million in current liabilities and $5.3 million in long-term liabilities. In addition, they report $205.9 million of OTHER current assets!
Per Yahoo.com, this company has a market cap of $957.6 million. There are 24.6 million shares outstanding while only 17.0 million float. No dividend is paid. The p/e is a very reasonable 17.29. Only 250,000 shares are out short....representing 4.90 days of daily trading volume.
There are a lot of things to like about this company and the fact that it is low-tech adds to the attractiveness in a balancing-out kind of way. I would love to own some shares of this issue...and may if the opportunity should arise.
Thanks for visiting and be sure to skim through the many other posts on this site....it is helpful to navigate via the calendar along the left hand side of the page.
Bob