Editor's note: This article is a stock pitch made by a member on CAPS, The Motley Fool's free investing community. The pitch is published UNEDITED and is the opinion of the CAPS member whose pitch it is, in this case: ikkyu2.
Each week, Motley Fool editors cull a top stock idea from the pitches made on CAPS, The Motley Fool's 180,000-member free investing community. Want your idea considered for this series? Make a compelling pitch on CAPS with a minimum length of 400 words. Want to follow our weekly picks? Subscribe to our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter.
| Company |
Corning |
| Submitted By | ikkyu2 |
| Member Rating | 98.85 |
| Submitted On | 11/12/2011 |
| Stock Price at Recommendation | $15.58 |
| Star Rating (out of 5) | ***** |
| Headquarters | Corning, N.Y. |
| Industry | Diversified electronics |
| Market Cap | $22.8 billion |
| Industry Peers | 3M Becton Dickinson TE Connectivity |
Sources: S&P Capital IQ, Yahoo! Finance, and Motley Fool CAPS
OK, let's see what [Corning] has got:
1) $24B market cap, $6B in current assets, $4B in debt. Back out the net cash and trailing P/E is about 6.5.
2) 30% sales growth y-o-y for the last 2 years, although sales took a nasty dip in 2008 so the subsequent comps were easier. Still a nice 20% increase in 2010 sales over 2007 sales; and margins slightly improving over the whole time as well.
3) Management expects double digit profit growth to continue over the next 2 years. CEO and CFO have been with the company about 3 decades each, and are buying stock at $14-ish.
4) This quarter, raised dividend (now about 2% yield) and authorized stock buyback around $13.50. Price is now $15.19.
5) Inventories shrinking as we head into a holiday season that might be a good one.
6) Best-in-breed when it comes to specialty glasses of all kinds. Household word due to their Visions cookware; also make flatpanel TV screens, smartphone screens, etc. Competition has to explain why Corning's product is too expensive or isn't as good in every case; and in some cases (i.e. iPhone 4 glass, which isn't Gorilla Glass) competition is clearly inferior. Corning has set the standard in glass for nearly a century.
I think we're looking at a pretty basic discounted cyclical value play. Anyone with a long term investment horizon ought to be happy to get this company at this price.
Follow this!
Want to follow our weekly picks? Subscribe to our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter.
