Friday 30 November 2012

Ten Years of JG Boswell Fundamentals Now Available

With the addition of 2012 data,  have compiled 10 years of JG Boswell as-reported fundamental data (Balance sheet, Cash Flow, Income Statements, Summary Valuation Data and ratios) in an excel spreadsheet. There were some reclassifications done in 2012, and the spreadsheet includes original and reclassified 2011 data.  If you are interested in obtaining this, please contact us at:cheapstocks@verizon.net for pricing.

Friday 26 October 2012

JG Boswell 2012 Fundamentals

Thanks to the addition of the most recently available year-end data, we've now strung together ten years worth of fundamentals for JG Boswell. Due to the complexity, and growing size of our spreadsheet, we've decided to share some of the data that will put BWEL's current valuation in perspective.

Notable Changes this year; the company is now breaking out and reporting oil and gas lease income, and gains/losses on hedging. 


JG Boswell (BWEL)
10Year Averages Based on Annual Data:
P/E: 25
Price/Sales: 1.56
Price/Book Value: 1.4
Net Profit Margin: 8.22%
EV/EBITDA: 9.57
Dividend Yield: 2.28%
Market Cap: $628 million
Enterprise Value: $769 million

Current Data (2012 Annual)
Price: $865
EPS (Fully Diluted): $58.95
P/E: 14.7
Price/Sales: 1.67
Price/Book: 1.55
Net Profit Margin: 11.37%
EV/EBITDA: 11.43
Indicated Dividend Yield:1.85%
Current Market Cap: $713.1 million
Current Enterprise Value: $918.9million
Cash: $3.2million

*The author has a position in JG Boswell(BWEL). This is neither a recommendation to buy or sell any securities. All information provided believed to be reliable and presented for information purposes only.

Wednesday 3 October 2012

8th Annual Value Investing Congress West--Special discount expires at midnight

Our frienda at the Value Investing Congress are offering Cheap Stocks readers a special 50% off discount code to register for the 8th Annual Spring Value Investing Congress taking place in Las Vegas on May 6 & 7, 2013.  This is the absolute BEST discount they will be offering for the Vegas event and it expires at midnight tonight.



Discount Code: S13CS

Savings: $2,350 (50%)

Discounted Price: $2,345

Discount Expires: Midnight, Wednesday, October 3, 2012


Friday 14 September 2012

Cheap Stocks 26 Net/Net Index First Year Performance

The CS 26 Net/Net Index ended its first year up 36%, versus 30.8% for the Russel Microcap Index.  Despite strong performance, one year is not an adequate time period, in our view to measure success, or failure, and we'll copntinue tracking the index.

During the first year there were four names that were the subject of buyout or mergers, including Big Band Networks, Adams Golf, Parlux Fragrances, and Trimeris.  Post merger companies Perfumania Holdings (PERF), which acquired Parlux, and Synageva BioPharma (GEVA), which acquired Trimeris, remain constituents of the index.

Wednesday 25 July 2012

Value Investing Challenge

The Value Investing Congress and Sum Zero have announced the Value Investing Challenge.  Among other things,the winner, who will be selected by a team of well-known value investors, will receive free admission to the upcoming Value Investing Congress in NY (an event I attend regularly), and a speaking slot at the Congress.

The deadline for submission of ideas is August 19th.

This year's NY Value Investing Congress will take place October 1-2 at the Marriot Marquis.

Hope to see you there!

Monday 23 July 2012

Cabela's (CAB), Avalon Holdings (AWX)

More excerpts from an April interview with the Manual of Ideas.

http://greatinvestors.tv/video/what-makes-cabelas-cab-special-jonathan-heller.html

*The author has a position in AWX. This is neither a recommendation to buy or sell any securities. All information provided believed to be reliable and presented for information purposes only.

Wednesday 11 July 2012

Cresud, St. Joes

http://greatinvestors.tv/video/jonathan-heller-president-of-kej-financial-advisors-is-there.html

Another piece of an April interview I did with the Manual of Ideas.  Subsequent to this interview, shares of Cresud (CRESY) which were trading for around $9 at the time, dipped below $7, and I did establish a new position.

*The author has a position in CRESY. This is neither a recommendation to buy or sell any securities. All information provided believed to be reliable and presented for information purposes only.

Saturday 7 July 2012

Interview on greatinvestors.tv

I was recently interviewed by Oliver Mihaljevic of The Manual of Ideas; here is a snippet of that interview concerning Tootsie Roll Industries (TR). Some faces just were not made for TV.......

Tuesday 26 June 2012

Cheap Stocks 26 Net Net Index Update

A little more than six months since inception, the CS 26 Net Net Index is up 25.17%, 743bps better than the Russell Microcap Index.  It's way too early for a victory lap however; we won't judge ultimate success or failure until we hit the two year mark.

Saturday 16 June 2012

Remembering Clyde: Five Years Later

Today we are re-running one of our favorite all-time posts, which was originally published five years ago today. It was dedicated to my grandfather Clyde in recognition of his 100th birthday.  Today would have marked 105.


Remembering Clyde

June 16th marks the 100th birthday of one of this site’s namesakes, my grandfather, friend, mentor, buddy, and the list goes on. The man exerted a great deal of influence on my life, and our time together -including the day he passed away in my presence 13 years ago- is forever etched in my mind.

Today we jettison the typical Cheap Stocks investment related drivel, and instead pay tribute to a great man who left countless people better than he found them. If he were alive today, he’d be puzzled by his grandson’s website. “Value” to him had to do with doing an honest day’s work, keeping your word, and serving others. “Growth” was about the tomatoes and peas in his garden, and “investing” was related to the time you spent serving others needs. The only stock he ever owned was the 20 shares of Ringling Brothers stock one of his sons purchased for him in the 1960’s. The circus was everything to him— at an early age when the circus was in town he’d work all day helping them to set up just for a ticket to that evening’s show--and his canceled Ringling Brothers stock certificate (Ringling was acquired by Mattel in the early 70’s) is proudly displayed in my home in tribute.

He never made it much past the eighth grade. That’s what happens when you get kicked out of school for knocking your school’s principal on his rear-end. Oh, and by the way the principal happened to be his Uncle Ed. As the story goes, young Clyde was accused of something he did not do, and good old Uncle Ed took a switch to him in the school office. Clyde wasn’t standing for that, and you know the rest—down went Uncle Ed. The incident stood with my grandfather—I recall him telling me on one of our frequent weekend ventures to his old stomping ground in Easton, PA about the dream he’d had the night before; here he was in his late 70’s and he’d dreamt of urinating on Uncle Ed’s grave. The past died hard for him. Being kicked out of school in many ways shaped his future—fueling a success story not measured in dollars, because there weren’t many of those, but measured instead by service to others, hard work, pride in all that he did, and sons and grandchildren who revered him.

He was part of the greatest generation. During World War II the GM plant, where he served as Master Heat Treater, made the conversion from autos to airplanes, and his ingenuity-not learned in any classroom- earned him awards, and helped GM build Grumman Avengers more quickly and efficiently.

After moving to Ewing NJ in the late 1930’s, he and a few buddies realized that this growing area needed a rescue squad. They became educated about wound care and emergency medicine, bought a used Hearse to serve as an ambulance, and The Pennington Road Rescue Squad was born. Born out of guts, ingenuity, fortitude, and a desire to serve others.

My grandmother preceeded him in death, and it was then that we found out what “investing” meant in my grandmother's eyes. It meant hiding cash from her husband. The several thousand dollars in cash we found, including bills from the 1930’s through the 1960’s, bore witness to this. Evidently, the combination of living through the Depression, and fear that my grandfather would give it all away to anyone in need prompted my grandmother to keep a secret stash.

You really couldn’t blame her. A great woman in her own right, she’d seen it all. She’d seen my grandfather stop to help a stranger who’d run out of gas during the war, syphon it out of his tank and into the stranger’s, then run out of gas himself a few minutes later. Anything to help someone in need.

My resume' may be a lot longer than his, not that he ever had one. I had the opportunity to graduate from college, grad school, earn other professional designations, etc. But My grandfather, Clyde, was way smarter, way more accomplished, more ingenious and a better "investor" than I will ever be.

Happy 100th birthday, Clyde. I miss you, think of you often, am grateful for the times we had together, and for the lessons you taught me.

Thursday 24 May 2012

New Column for The Street.com

I've recently started writing a weekly piece for TheStreet.com.  The subject matter will be more mainstream than what you are used to seeing here at Cheap Stocks.

Dividend Growth Reveals the Path to Profits (5/02/2012)
In Search of The Next Berkshire Hathaway (5/10/2012)
Facebook:  "Like" the Web Site, Hate Its IPO (5/16/2012)
What Would Benjamin Graham Buy? (5/23/2012)


Thanks for reading, and have a great Memorial Day Weekend!

Wednesday 16 May 2012

Cheap Stocks 26 Net/Net Index Outpacing Russell Microcap

Eight months since inception, The Cheap Stocks 26 Net/Net Index is up 26.8%, beating the Russell Microcap Index by more than 9%.  It's way too early for a victory lap however; our little index of misfits can be volatile, and in our view, this needs to play out over a much longer timeframe.

At this point, there are eight names in negative territory since index inception; these include Imation (IMN, -20%), Volt (VISI, -5.9%), Axcelis Technologies (ACLS, -17.9%), Opnext (OPXT, -40.3%)mAdvanced Battery Tech (ABAT, -66.2%), Myrexis (MYRX, -3.9%), Gencor (ENC, -4.6%) and Planar Systems (PLNR, -13.2%).

*The author has no position in the companies mentioned. This is neither a recommendation to buy or sell any securities. All information provided believed to be reliable and presented for information purposes only.

Monday 23 April 2012

Cheap Stocks 26 Net/Net Update- Parlux Merger

The Parlux merger with Perfumania, which was completed last week, represents the third major transaction involving a CS26 Net/Net Index member since September's inception.  Parlux shareholders had the option of receiving .5333 shares of Perfumania per Parlux share, or $4 in cash and .2 Perfumania shares. We assumed the latter in the calculation of the Index

Previous transactions for CS 26 companies included the acquisition of BigBand Networks, and Trimeris-Synageva Merger.  Since inception The Cheap Stocks 26 Net/Net Index is up 25.6% versus 21% for the Russell Microcap Index.

Monday 26 March 2012

Adams Golf Acquired

Well, that sure didn't take long!  Adams Golf (ADGF) became the second member of the Cheap Stocks 26 Net/Net Index to be acquired.  Last week, Adidas' TaylorMade unit bought the golf club maker for $70 million, or $10.80 per share.  That puts ADGF shares up 97% since the inception of the CS26 Net/Net Index.  The indexes allocation to ADGF will remain in cash once the deal has been completed.

*The author has no position in the companies mentioned. This is neither a recommendation to buy or sell any securities. All information provided believed to be reliable and presented for information purposes only.

Tuesday 28 February 2012

Adams Golf (ADGO) On Fire

Cheap Stocks 26 Net/Net Index component Adams Golf (ADGO) has had quite a run lately.  It is the second best performer in our net/net index, and is up nearly 70% since index inception (9/13/2011).

There's been some activist activity in the name recently, which has no doubt been helping to move the stock higher.  When CS 26 was launched back in September, ADGF was a $42 million market cap company trading at .99 times net current asset value (NCAV); it now has a $72 million market capn and trades at 1.68 times NCAV.

Adams Golf (ADGO)
Price: $9.21
Market Cap: $71.9 million
NCAV: $42.8 million
Price/NCAV: 1.68
PE: 13.5
Cash/Share: $1.45
Total Debt: 0
Tangible Book Value/share: $7.16

Yesterday, CEO Chip Brewer, who has been with Adams for 13 years, resigned.  Taking the reigns on an interim basis will be company founder, and Chairman of the Board Barney Adams. Today, the company is scheduled to report fourth quarter earnings.  Certainly an interesting week for Adams Golf
*The author has no position in the companies mentioned. This is neither a recommendation to buy or sell any securities. All information provided believed to be reliable and presented for information purposes only.




Thursday 26 January 2012

Cheap Stocks Named to Top 22 Investment Blog List

We were honored to be included in Vuru's list of the best investment blogs. Click here to see the list and associated commentary.

Thursday 19 January 2012

Cheap Stocks 26 Net/Net Index Update- Up 18.6% since inception

Net/net investors are typically not accustomed to instant gratification.  But we are seeing some good early results with the CS 26 Net/Net Index, which is up 18.6% since inception (9/13/2011).  The true test is not the short-term, but a period of at least two years. 

Furthermore, the overall direction of the markets has been higher since we rolled out the Index, and the benchmark Russell Microcap Value Index is up a solid 14.5% during the same timeframe.

We need to see a period of market stress to truly re-test our net/net index approach.  It's way too early to declare this approach a success.  Our previous net/net index experiment, the Cheap Stocks 21 Net/Net Index, which  was cap weighted, and commenced in February 2008, performed fairly well.  The jury is still out on the current incarnation, which is equal-weighted. 

Top performers since inception have been  Synageva BioPharma (GEVA, +287%, formerly Trimeris), Parlux Fragrances (PARL, +67%), ModusLink (MLNK,+49%), and Adams Golf (ADGF, +40%).

Top detractors include Advanced Battery Technologies (ABAT, -66%), Opnext (OPXT, -33%), and Imation (IMN, -20%).


*The author has no position in the companies mentioned. This is neither a recommendation to buy or sell any securities. All information provided believed to be reliable and presented for information purposes only.