September 26, 2003 Abaxis, Inc. (ABAX)
Sometimes I wonder what is the point of all of this buying and selling....what makes our approach here any different than Malkiel's (the author of Random Walk down Wall Street), is that I don't think that stock prices over the long term are random. I do think that underlying fundamentals of a stock are what determine its ultimate value. Anyhow, enough philosophizing....I just wanted to share with you some of my thoughts.

Abaxis, Inc. made the list today. This is a small company that may have a lot of room to grow. Although up stronger earlier today, it is still currently trading at $13.40, up $.39 on the day or 3.01%.

According to money.cnn.com, Abaxis (ABAX) "...develops, manufactures and markets portable blood analysis systems for use in any patient-care setting to provide clinicians with rapid blood constituent measurements." By the way, I do not own any shares of this company.

On July 31, 2003, ABAX reported results for their first quarter 2004 period ending June 30, 2003. Their quarterly revenue was $10.3 million, a 39% increase over the same period last year. Diluted earnings per share were $.04 vs a loss of $(.02) last year.

Morningstar.com shows revenue of $13.3 million in 1999, $23.4 million in 2000, $29.8 million in 2001, $30.6 million in 2002, and $34.8 million in 2003. Extrapolating the current quarter revenue (without any sequential growth) would get us to $40 million for 2004.

Free cash flow has improved from $(9.0) million in 2001, to $2 million in 2002 and 2003.

The company has an excellent balance sheet per Morningstar.com with $10.4 million in cash and $13.1 million in other current assets. This is balanced against $5.7 million in current liabilities and $7.5 million in long-term debt.

This is a small cap stock with a market cap of $231.5 million. The trailing p/e is enormous (since the company JUST turned profitable) at 162.61. Price/sales also high at 5.74. There are 17.21 million shares outstanding and 16.7 million that float. Only 109,000 shares are out short as of 8/8/03. No dividend is paid.

This is a very nice stock and might deserve a place in your stable. (I always think of stocks as sort of race horses....occasionally they break a leg and out they go.) The stock isn't cheap but it isn't easy to find these small fast growing firms with clean balance sheets. (imho).

Thanks for stopping by again. Please feel free to drop me a line at bobsadviceforstocks@lycos.com if you have any comments or questions or leave them right here!

Bob