Now this is a change of pace! How about a retail guitar shop? No kidding. This company looks nice to me. I don't own any shares and haven't looked closely before but let's take a gander at these numbers:
Guitar Center, Inc. "...operates a chain of retail stores that sell musical instruments primarily guitars, keyboard, percussion and pro-audio equipment." according to CNN.Money.
GTRC is strumming along nicely today trading at $33.26 up $3.56 or 11.99% on the day.
Like so many stocks making nice moves this time of year, earnings was the reason behind the price appreciation today. Our whole theory of picking stocks with long history of earnings increases is based on the premise that the price will ultimately follow the earnings...and so forth.
The earnings report showed that sales for the second quarter ending June 30, 2003, increased 14.9% to $291.6 million compared to $253.9 million in the second quarter last year. Net income increased 50.0% to $6.2 million compared to $4.1 million in the same quarter last year and on a per share basis the increase was $.25 in 2003 vs. $.18 in 2002.
Morningstar.com shows a steady growth in revenue from $400 million in 1997 to $500 million in 1998, $600 million in 1999, $800 million in 2000, $900 million in 2001 and $1.1 billion in 2002.
Free cash flow has been a bit inconsistent ranging from $17 million in 2000, ($8) million in 2001, ($14) million in 2002 and positive $7 million in the trailing twelve months.
Assets and liabilities are fairly well balanced in favor of assets (in my simplified view of the balance sheet on Morningstar.com)...with $5.5 million of cash and $324.4 million of other current assets compared to $212.8 million of current liabilities and $75.9 million in long-term liabilities. I would rather see more cash and less current liabilities...but the long term debt appears nominal and the company has significant 'other current assets.'
Looking on Yahoo we find that this company has a relatively small market cap of $682.5 million with 23.0 million shares outstanding and 17.5 million shares that float. No dividend is paid. Recently was educated regarding the price/sales ratio of a company on a Yahoo stock chat site....and I confess I am paying more attention to this.
GTRC has a price/sales ratio of 0.61 which is quite reasonable. The p/e is at 25.65 which is reasonable considering the growth...ye olde GARP concept. And good news for those long on this issue...there are LOTS of shorts out there...about 4.78 million representing 27.3% of the float as of July 8, 2003, and it would take 12.82 days of average trading volume for all of those borrowed shares to get covered.
I actually like this company a lot. At least it is not another usual tech stock or medical supply or HMO company....a little variety is nice!
Thanks for stopping by. Hope all of your investments are profitable. Please contact me at bobsadviceforstocks@lycos.com if you have any questions, comments, or words of encouragement!
Bob