It is late in the evening but I wanted to take a look at the stocks and see if we can find one off the top gainers that fits our criteria. ChoicePoint appears to make the grade.
CPS closed at $36.14 up $1.62 or 4.69% on the day. The stock has a trailing p/e of 25.76, a market cap of 3.139 Billion, and does not pay a dividend.
According to Yahoo, ChoicePoint "provides identification and credential verification services to businesses, individuals and government agencies." Sounds like a very timely stock with all of the national security issues at the forefront.
On April 22nd, 2003, ChoicePoint reported first quarter "core" revenues for the quarter ending March 31, 2003, at
$184.0 million compared to $158.6 million in the same quarter last year an increase of 8%. Operating income increased 17% to $51.8 million from $44.2 million last year. Free cash flow was $18.6 million for the first quarter.
It should be noted that on June 3, 2003, CPS reported "taking a more conservative approach to forecasting full-year revenue and now expects 2003 core revenue growth to be in the 10% to 12% range." This doesn't appear to be too bad a news report indeed. This was reported on Yahoo.com.
By the way, I do not own any shares nor do any members of my family as far as I know.
Morningstar.com shows a wonderful progression of revenue growth from $466.1 million in 1998, to $507.9 million in 1999, $630.9 million in 2000, $694.0 million in 2001, $791.6 million in 2002.
Free cash flow has improved yearly at least since 2000 when it was reported at $96 million improving to $109 million in 2001 and $149 million in 2002 with $153 million in the trailing twelve months.
Assets and liabilities appear to be fairly well balanced although current liabilities are a bit steep. Cash and other current assets come out as $25.6 million and $186.5 million respectively, with $229.3 million reported in current liabilities and $88.3 million in long term debt. With the excellent free cash flow, this debt appears grossly manageable.
I think this stock is a very interesting pick and deserves some attention perhaps as an addition to your portfolio! As always, I look forward to your questions, comments, and words of encouragements at Bobsadviceforstocks@lycos.com!
As always,
Bob