Sigma Designs
First-quarter sales came in at $65.2 million, up 27% year over year. GAAP earnings of $0.04 per share represented a marked improvement over last year's $0.09 loss per share. And Sigma's balance sheet is mighty strong: Nearly half the current share price is supported by $5.02 of cash equivalents per share. Back out the cash cache, and Sigma trades at an astounding five times forward earnings.
That would make sense for a dying business in an obsolete market, like Blockbuster in the old-school video rental market -- these companies must reinvent themselves or die trying, and the market is betting on the latter.
But it's a different story for Sigma Designs. Its media-crunching processors are shipping into the red-hot market for Internet-based set-top boxes, which deliver TV broadcast feeds from plain data streams. The largest customer is AT&T
There's a lot of growth and good, steady business going on here, and analysts expect Sigma's earnings to grow by 20% a year over the next five years. Sigma is a longtime Rule Breakers recommendation and a five-star CAPS stock. I thought it looked cheap six months ago, and Sigma has only gotten cheaper. If this isn't an entry point, I frankly don't know what is.
I'm heading over to CAPS right now to rate Sigma Designs "outperform" for the next few years. That should give our dear, "efficient" markets some time to adjust to the reality of Sigma's healthy business. Feel free to follow my lead -- it only takes a couple of clicks, and it won't cost you a dime.