I am always looking for a good deal, whether that means buying an extra box of Golden Grahams when they're on sale or pouncing on undervalued stocks. The idea that anybody would sell a stock for less than its worth may seem silly, but legendary value investor Ben Graham (no relation to the cereal) tells us, by way of allegory, how we can look out for these situations.
In The Intelligent Investor, Graham introduces readers to a wacky chap named Mr. Market. Mr. Market's game is to pay you house calls on a daily basis to offer to sell you interests in businesses he owns or to buy from you interests in businesses you own. Sometimes Mr. Market will show up at your door very excited and offer you premium prices for your holdings, while at other times he'll be inconsolably depressed about the future and will offer to sell you what he has for as low as pennies on the dollar.
So to find some of the stocks that Mr. Market is depressed about, I've turned once again to The Motley Fool's CAPS investor community. Each of the companies below had been given a five-star rating (the highest) by our community of investors just 30 days ago:
|
Stock |
30-Day Return |
One-Year Return |
Current CAPS Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Excel Maritime |
(23.6%) |
(78.9%) |
***** |
|
Hornbeck Offshore |
(20.0%) |
(48.9%) |
***** |
|
Dawson Geophysical |
(14.0%) |
(58.5%) |
***** |
|
Akamai Technologies |
(12.2%) |
(20.6%) |
***** |
|
Schlumberger |
(7.1%) |
(42.2%) |
**** |
|
Corning |
(6.9%) |
(24.1%) |
***** |
|
Baker Hughes |
(5.6%) |
(52.0%) |
***** |
Data from Motley Fool CAPS as of August 19.
As the table shows, most of these stocks are all still very well-regarded by the CAPS community despite their underperformance over the past month. While these are not formal recommendations, they could be great places to kick off further research. I'll even get you started with some thoughts on Excel Maritime.
Why so blue?
It's earnings season, and that means the potential for earnings disappointments. But that's not what happened to Excel -- or at least it would appear so on the surface. For the second quarter, the company reported total revenue of $174 million versus $205 million in 2008. It also reported earnings per share of $1.05 for the quarter, down 66% from the prior year, but apparently well above the $0.08 that analysts were expecting.
However, Excel's accounting leaves a lot of question marks for investors as the results included a significant amount of non-cash gains, including $75.3 million in amortization adjustments from an acquisition that the company made. What remains clear through all of this though is that results are down from last year, the time charter rate that the company got during the quarter was off by about a third, and that Excel's debt load is still a significant concern.
As my fellow Fool Christopher Barker pointed out, the results from Excel, along with some of its competitors, raise big questions for the dry bulk shipping sector.
What the bulls say
In spite of the questionable second-quarter results, Excel Maritime is a big hit on CAPS with a perfect five-star rating thanks to 1,798 outperform ratings.
What's driven CAPS members to give Excel such a big vote of confidence? Let's see what Ag81 had to say when giving the stock a thumbs up back in June:
Call me contrarian, but...... I like Excel at this price. Commodities are slipping, driving down the price of carriers like Excel. Still, they are financially strong, have a hefty percentage of the company owned by insiders, and pay a ridiculous 16% dividend right now. It's also about 75% below it's 52 week high. Lots of room for this one to come back with strong enough fundamentals for me to take a flyer on this one.
It's important to note that the fat dividend that Ag81 refers to is no more -- at least for now. Earlier this year the company suspended its dividend to help shore up its financial position.
But here's the important question: Do you think the recent drop has created a good buying opportunity? Or are there too many challenges facing Excel? Let the community know what you think -- head over to CAPS and share your thoughts with the other 135,000 members currently part of the community. Even if you'd prefer to pass on Excel, you can check out a couple of the other stocks listed above, or any of the 5,300 stocks that are rated on CAPS.
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