It is 1 pm Central time with the market set to close in two hours. The Dow continues to fade, now down 26.38 points to 9397.30 with the NASDAQ clinging to a 2.50 point gain at 1780.05. Today does not look too promising a trading session if you are long the market like I always am.
One other stock caught my eye today as I was skimming through those greatest percentage gainers today: Electronics Boutique (ELBO). I have seen many of these small shops in malls and have sometimes spent time looking for a good video game for my Mac or my PC. Yep, I am prone to spend an occasional evening staring at the computer screen...playing Command and Conquer or some other silly game!
Anyhow, ELBO is beating the tide handily, trading as I write at $32.30 up $3.49 or 12.11%. I do not own any shares of this company.
ELBO reported earnings yesterday....and I believe this is the source of the pop in the stock price. For the second quarter ending August 2, 2003, revenues rose 15% to $302.1 million from $262.6 million last year. Net income was $1.7 million, a 181% increase from net income of $0.6 million last year or on a per share basis, $.07 vs $.02 in 2002.
Morningstar.com shows a pattern of steady growth in revenue starting with $0.5 billion in 1998, $0.6 billion in 1999, $0.7 billion in 2000, $0.8 billion in 2001, $1.06 billion in 2002, and $1.3 billion in 2003.
Free cash flow, while erratic, has recently turned to the positive, with $(44) million in 2001, $8 million in 2002, $(9) million in 2003, and $35 million positive cash flow reported in the trailing twelve months.
Assets and liabilities look satisfactory per Morningstar which reports $118.3 million in cash and $226.5 million in other current assets as opposed to $193.8 million in current liabilities and only $12.1 million in long-term liabilities on the balance sheet.
Yahoo shows that the market cap is a moderate $716.2 million with 24.9 million shares outstanding and only 13.2 million of those that float. No dividend is paid. The p/e is a reasonable 18.71 and the price/sales ratio is inexpensive at 0.52. There are 2.42 million shares out short which represents a bit of an opportunity to those of us that invest long. The short ratio, representing the trading days to cover is 5.75 as of 7/8/03, which suggests a bit of buying pressure supplied by the shorts...which may be in effect today.
I do like this stock a lot, and would consider buying some shares in here if I had some free cash (lol)...anybody want to email me some? Just kidding. Listen, have a great weekend, stop by and visit again and frequently, and if you have a website of your own I would greatly appreciate if you could post a link here for those that might be interested!
Regards to all of my friends.
Bob