Hello Friends! Guess we made it to Friday. It is a relatively quiet day in the market with the Dow up 9.77 at 10,597.77 as I write and the NASDAQ down 3.54 at 2,051.57. Looking through the lists of movers, I came across Nutraceutical Intl (NUTR), which as I write is trading at $19.00, up $1.85 or 10.79% on the day.
As always, please exercise due diligence and do your own investigation on all of these stock market ideas before taking any action. I do not own any shares of this stock. If it would be helpful, I would also like to encourage you to use your investment advisors liberally in deciding whether any investment is appropriate or timely for you.
According to the money.cnn.com "snapshot", NUTR "...develops, manufactures and markets branded vitamin, mineral, herbal and specialty dietary supplements to domestic health food stores and international distributors."
Looking at the latest earnings reports, NUTR reported their first quarter 2004 results on January 29, 2004, for the first quarter ended December 31, 2003. Net sales for the quarter jumped to $33.2 million compared to $28.9 million for the same quarter of fiscal 2003. Net income was $3.2 million this quarter or $.27/diluted share compared to $2.6 million or $.23/diluted share the prior year.
If we take a look at the "5-Yr Restated" financials on Morningstar.com, We can see that revenue growth has NOT been very exciting, in fact fairly flat between 1999 and 2002, and just the last couple of years has improved nicely from $107 million in 1999, to $111 million in 2002, but $125 million in the trailing twelve months, and with the latest quarter at about $33 million, this should be over $130 million for 2004.
Earnings/share have also been erratic, increasing from $.42/share in 1999, to $.64/share in 2001, but dropping to a loss of $(2.03)/share in 2002, but increasing back to $1.09/share in the latest twelve months.
Free cash flow has been steady, increasing from $11 million in 2001 to $19 million in 2002 and 2003.
The balance sheet, as presented by Morningstar.com, looks nice with $2.2 million in cash and $33.8 million in other current assets, more than enough to cover both the $13.7 million in current liabilities and the $13.0 million in long-term liabilities.
If we examine the "Key Statistics" on Yahoo.com, we can see that the Market Cap is a small cap $212.41 million. The trailing p/e is reasonable at 16.69, and for the fye 30-Sep-05, the forward P/E is 13.22. Price/sales is nice at 1.49.
Yahoo reports 11.16 million shares outstanding with 5.40 million of them that float. There are only 49,000 shares out short representing a small 0.278 trading days or 0.91% of the float. No dividend or stock split is reported on Yahoo.
I do NOT claim to be a technician, but the NUTR Point and Figure chart from Stockcharts.com looks gorgeous, with a slightly declining share price reversed in early 2001, and with the stock heading steadily higher since that time.
NUTR has been in the news with a positive article from Investor's Business Daily and a nice online endorsement from TheStreet.com. All in all, everything seems to be in line for this company.
Thanks so much for stopping by again! Or thanks for the first time. I would love to hear your comments, ideas, criticisms, and most of all words of encouragement at bobsadviceforstocks@lycos.com
Regards!
Bob