Q3 2009 Earnings Call

October 22, 2009 5:00 pm ET

Also, yesterday, the company announced an accounting restatement related to YB's rewards program (see here, small non-cash impact). Shares retraced part of Friday's up move yesterday.

Q2 2009 Earnings Call

July 30, 2009 5:00 pm ET

Certain "niche franchise Internet companies" such as Blue Nile (NILE, $42.02) and The Knot (KNOT, $8.13) also rallied, up 63% and 17%, respectively, while others such as Stamps.com (STMP, $8.42) were flat to slightly down.

Q1 2009 Earnings Call

April 23, 2009 5:00 pm ET

Q4 2008 Earnings Call

February 12, 2009 5:00 pm ET

With the quarterly earnings season winding down, we at eChristianInvesting take this opportunity to look back at how e-commerce companies performed against Wall Street’s expectations.

It was pretty tough to find any real winners in the e-commerce sector this quarter. Shutterfly (SFLY) and 1-800 Flowers (FLWS) did manage to beat reduced analyst estimates, but even they reduced their guidance expectations. There were certainly plenty of losers though – with VistaPrint (VPRT) and Bidz (BIDZ) leading the way. The common theme even among all retailers was that the economy was getting much tougher and they were reducing guidance as a result.

Q3 2008 Earnings Call

October 23, 2008 5:00 pm ET

Stamps.com is scheduled to report third quarter 2008 results after the market closes on Thursday, October 23. Based on our analysis, we at eChristianInvesting are expecting STMP to report disappointing results that miss Wall Street’s consensus expectations.

Analyst Expectations

We are forecasting revenues of $20.5 million and EPS of $.13. This would represent a 1% increase in revenues from last year’s $20.3 million in the same period. The current analyst consensus calls for revenues of $21.1 million and $.14 EPS. On July 23, the company gave full year guidance for revenue of $80 - 90 million and EPS of $0.55 – 0.65. Management indicated that they were beginning to see some weakness in their business due to macroeconomic conditions on their 2^nd quarter earnings call.

In their 13F-HR filing for Q2 2008, Bruce Berkowitz and his cohorts at the Fairholme Fund continue their shift from energy into healthcare:

• Fairholme opened huge (relative) positions in Pfizer (PFE), Forest Labs (FRX) and UnitedHealth Group (UNH). The UNH position echos Seth Klarman’s endorsement. I don’t follow the pharma industry too closely but it seems as if Berkowitz traded Glaxo (GSK) and Bristol Meyers Squibb (BMY) for PFE. I’ve been seeing more positive financial press coverage on Pfizer so perhaps momentum is building toward looking past Lipitor’s pending patent expiration. Read his thoughts on PFE here. I took a quick Google Finance look at Forest Labs and that stock looks promising. Great cash flows, rock-solid balance sheet with no debt but maybe some patent and pipeline issues — I’ve added this stock to my watchlist.
• Berkowitz also added substantially to their Sears (SHLD) and United Rentals (URI) positions. Berkowitz’s thoughts on Sears and its chairman, Eddie Lampert, are well-known. SHLD seems to be a pseudo-value-investing watermark position — all the cool kids own it. I’ve glanced at it briefly but haven’t put in the time to value its real estate and branding assets.
• Fairholme continues the reduction of their energy exposure as Berkowitz discussed back in March 2008 on Bloomberg. The Canadian Natural Resources (CNQ) position was reduced significantly and if you watch the interview in the link provided, he talks about costs rising as fast if not faster than revenues for producers like CNQ. In fact, I’ve discussed this aspect of energy investing in the past — what I call the “receding horizon” effect, especially in the oil sands area (which is why I have only backdoor oil sands exposure via Devon). Curiously, he also sold off a good chuck of St Joe’s (JOE), which he had been talking up fairly recently. I don’t know whether the thesis on JOE has changed or if he just saw better opportunities.

Robert Rodriguez oversees the First Pacific Advisors family of funds [FPA], of which he handles the main fund with others running the others. Q2 2008 holdings are revealed for all funds in the latest 13F filing:

Despite the fact that you may not ever come close to catching up to Warren Buffett’s wealth does not mean you shouldn’t follow his investing style - which entails regularly purchasing or investing in excellent companies selling for less than they’re worth. Oddly, many investors mistakenly believe that the only hope for securing life-changing wealth is to get in early on “the next big thing.” Besides, how would one go about discovering this? It should come as no surprise that successful business-focused value-oriented investors seem to have historically had a lock on this outcome, often cornering the next big thing as a matter of practice, and not luck.

Nothing compares to the kinds of gains investors have enjoyed in “under-the-radar” stocks over the past decade. Disciplined, business-focused stock picking will get you far closer to your retirement goals than almost any other investment vehicle known to man.

Q2 2008 Earnings Call

July 23, 2008 5:00 pm ET

Stamps.com (STMP) is scheduled to report Q208 results after the market closes on July 23. Based on our analysis, we at eChristianInvesting are expecting STMP’s to report disappointing results that miss the Street’s consensus expectations.

We are forecasting revenues of $20M versus analyst consensus of $21M. This would represent a 7% drop in revenues from last year’s $21.4M in the same period.

Q1 2008 Earnings Call

April 23, 2008 5:00 pm ET

Q4 2007 Earnings Call

February 13, 2008 5:00 pm ET

The company saw a big decline in their photostamps business despite higher marketing spending. It isn't immediately clear why this business has fallen off. But it appears that Stamps.com will refocus on their PC software business.

Stamps.com looks fairly cheap. Pro-forma free cash flow minus option expense is about $0.78/share. The company has no debt and about $4.70 in cash per share. They have been and will likely continue to aggressively repurchase shares. Stamps.com enjoys a safe little competitive niche. The business enjoys huge margins with big returns on capital.

Stamps.com has significant deferred tax assets valued at about $102 million, most of which don't begin expiring until 2018. These tax assets are not listed on their balance sheet as the company is making the worst case assumption that they are all forfeited. At present they are paying almost zero taxes. It is possible that the company loses these assets if a shareholder owning more than 5% of the company makes a big shift in their holdings.

TRANSCRIPT SPONSOR

Stamps.com, Inc. (STMP)
Q1 2007 Earnings Call
April 19, 2007 5:00 pm ET

Through an agreement with the United States Postal Service, Stamps.com enables customers to directly purchase and print out approved postage right from their homes or offices. The majority of their revenues are derived from their PC Postage service, which allows customers to print out postage in the form of a bar-code, generating $16.9 million in sales in the most recent quarter, an increase of 15% over the prior year’s comparable period.

PhotoStamps, a service patented by Stamps.com, accounted for the rest of the company’s revenue and is the faster growing segment, generating sales of $8 million in Q4 2006, an increase of 35% versus Q4 2005. As a whole, Stamps.com reported sales of $25 million and net income of $4.7 million or $0.20 per share in the 4th Quarter and earnings of $0.69 per share for the full year 2006.

TRANSCRIPT SPONSOR

Stamps.com, Inc. (STMP)
Q4 2006 Earnings Call
February 15, 2007 5:00 pm ET

Executives