I was doing brief informal reviews of the stocks in my portfolio (in reverse alphabetical order), just for myself, but thought I’d share them, so I collected them the first five I’ve done all on one page and here they are: Please remember that my conclusions may change anytime. As I was doing them for myself they will vary in quality, thoroughness, and length.
Saul
Apr 2016 – SBNY - My Review
This remains one of the best banks in the world. March quarter earnings announced. Very good (but not outstanding) earnings (which were up 23%), great growth in Book Value, incredible Efficiency Ratio of 32.2%. Some concern over their exposure to Taxi Medallion loans, but those are only about 4% of their total loans. They are my 4th biggest position at 8.7% of my portfolio, with a PE of 19 at the current price of $147. (Price has been as high as $162 and as low as $120 in Feb). I’ve been in since January and I bought from $140 to $120 and back. I’ll hold now.
Apr 2016 – SKX - My Review
This company is doing wonderfully, with no obvious threat in sight. It sold off for no particular good reason, except that the price had risen a lot this year. I’m comfortable with it as one of my big three largest, and oversized, positions. It’s currently about 13% of my portfolio, at a price of $29.50, and a PE of 18.7. This is a great company, and selling at a very low price when compared to other companies in the same field. I may add a small amount but it already is a quite large percent of my portfolio.
This may be slightly out of date, but I cut and pasted it from my Mid-Quarter Review in February: SKX had a PE of 19 and was growing trailing earnings at 65%. For comparison, NKE whose revenues last quarter were up all of 4% (compared to Skechers up 32%!), and whose trailing earnings were up 22% (compared to Skechers up 65%), had a PE of 29.
Apr 2016 – SHOP - My Review
They have been doing wonderfully, doubling revenue every year compounded: 24, 50, 105, 205 million dollars. Still no earnings but ttm losses are shrinking every quarter (40, 33, 21, 15, and 13 cents). Revenue seems to be all recurring. They dominate their space. Even AMZN closed their competing product in 2015 and told people to use Spotify. It’s quite expensive with a P/S ratio of about 12.5 (but of course if sales come anywhere close to doubling again, that will be cut in half). It’s very atypical for me, so I’ve kept my position fairly small. It’s my 12th largest position out of 15. Current price is $32.00. I started buying four weeks ago at $26.50 and added up to $30.00. I might add tiny little dribbles more, as it goes up.
Apr 2016 – SNCR - My Review
This isn’t a company that is going to take over the world, but it’s an interesting, relatively unknown, boring sounding, but surprisingly innovative little company that is quite profitable, moving into new areas, and consistently growing earnings and revenue. It’s at a very low PE of 14.5 at its current price of $32.50. It also has started positive Free Cash Flow, which went from $0 in 2014 to over $60 million in 2015. Its cloud revenue, which is recurring, is now over 50%, and growing more rapidly than the legacy activation revenue. They are spending money building out products with Goldman Sachs and Verizon, which will affect EPS negatively in the first quarter especially.
What worries me is whether they will be able to compete with the big boys in the cloud area (AMZN, MSFT, GOOGL, AAPL, etc). The price dropped from $52 to $22.50 on these fears, abut it’s now back to $32.50. I added at $27 and $24 and sold some back at $32. It’s just a 4% position, and I think I’ll hold for now.
Apr 2016 – SWKS - My Review
Although I really like the company, its prospects, and the management, I decided I had had too much of my portfolio in one stock, so I reduced the size of my SWKS position by a third from 21% to 14%. I will now just hold it, especially as the price is only $72, and the PE is 13.