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Fin858

Fin858
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  • National Beverage Company: Stealth Value [View article]
    I'm not sure the current majority owner of the firm and CEO, Nick Caporella, will sell the firm. If you read up on his history in business, he is a very head strong person and does his own thing. Nick is the sole shareholder in IBS Partners, a firm that owns 33.3MM shares of FIZZ.
    May 13 12:55 PM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • National Beverage Company: Stealth Value [View article]
    Great write-up. Little small cap gem here. Solid returns and the CEO is a character. Really parades out the stars and stripes...

    I would add some things:

    CEO has control of the company through his 70%+ ownership of the common. While that means he probably wont screw the minority guys from a financial perspective, other issues could come up.

    They are skewed away from cola CSDs and cola has been losing share while other non cola CSDs like seltzer and fruit drinks have been growing in the US.

    Upside to margins but still capped since they own bottling assets that KO and PEP often divest.

    disclosure: long a bit of FIZZ
    May 10 02:48 PM | 2 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Apple (AAPL): FQ1 EPS of $13.81 beats by $0.37. Revenue of $54.51B (+18% Y/Y) misses by $220M. 47.8M iPhones, 22.9M iPads, 4.1M Macs, 12.7M iPods. Expects FQ2 revenue of $41B-$43B, below $45.6B consensus. Shares -4.3% AH. (PR[View news story]
    Not looking good...
    Jan 23 04:35 PM | 4 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Yum Brands (YUM) warns on China, expecting same-store sales there to be off 6% in Q4 vs. an earlier forecast of -4% thanks to the effect on KFC sales in late December from the poultry contamination issue. The company continues to expect full-year EPS of $3.24. Shares -3% AH. [View news story]
    It's not cannibalization. YUM and MCD were cited in the Chinese press for using two chicken suppliers whose chickens tested above normal for antibiotics. Govt tests later proved current supplies as being acceptable. Both YUM and MCD dropped those two suppliers.

    Damage has been done and YUM could see some soft china comps in the next 6 to 12 months but LT ramp in China is still in the early innings. Tomorrow might be an interesting entry point. I think FV is 80/share.
    Jan 8 12:07 AM | 1 Like Like |Link to Comment
  • The Secret Of Warren Buffett's Alpha [View article]
    http://tigger.uic.edu~olegb/research/mremp.pdf
    Jan 7 09:26 AM | 1 Like Like |Link to Comment
  • Philip Morris (PM -0.1%) presented at the Morgan Stanley Consumer & Retail conference today with execs highlighting the firm's estimate that the global cigarette market will grow at a moderate pace of up to 1.1% even with smoking rates in the U.S. dropping off. The company reiterates its previous outlook for 2012 EPS of $5.12-$5.18. Naturally, share repurchases are still a major focus of the company and the company says it sees "significant intrinsic value" in continuing its aggressive buyback pace. (webcast[View news story]
    Seriously, this has to be the 4th or 5th time this mistake has been made on this site.

    PM does not sell Malboro in the US, MO does.

    PM is only exposed to developed market such as the EU, Australia and Canada.
    Nov 13 03:53 PM | 1 Like Like |Link to Comment
  • The other half of the Einhorn Chipotle thesis, Yum Brands (YUM), snoozes the news that Chipotle expects subdued growth for next year, trading flat AH. Though Einhorn finds YUM pricey and says he isn't long, traders are starting to wonder if maybe a surge in Taco Bell sales won't feed the company's bottom line after all. [View news story]
    Well since 90% of YUM restaurants in the US are franchised, those traders who think that share gains at Taco Bell will benefit YUM's bottom-line are idiots. Any share shift in the US will moderately benefit YUM's profits if at all.
    Oct 18 04:58 PM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Despite narrowing net interest margins, reported bank profits should still be solid thanks to housing's rebound. Mortgage origination income helps, but the big boost will come from improving credit quality. At 1.66% in Q2, mortgage charge-offs remain nearly triple their 20-year average. Then there's loan reserve releases - mocked by some, they nevertheless are earnings that boost capital (maybe allowing bumps in dividends and share repurchases). [View news story]
    People who think loan loss reserve releases are BS can never be pleased.

    Going into the start of a credit downturn they point to loan loss reserves going up and say,"SEE, SEE, credit quality is getting worse, they are reserving. Delinquencies are going up, woe is me!" Of course they count loan loss reserves in how a bank is doing.

    But when delinquencies start falling, credit starts to improve and the bank, who over provisioned, starts to release reserves they complain that the bank shouldn't do that.

    Can never make them happy...
    Sep 27 04:46 PM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Keep an eye on the ruble, write the WSJ's Bernard and Cignarella, as the dollar/ruble exchange rate sits at a key technical level (believe it or not, the overwhelming majority of currency punters trade on these things). If the commodity-influenced ruble can't continue to strengthen, it may show investors think the Fed's latest QE won't have much effect. [View news story]
    *effect
    Sep 21 11:30 AM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Moody's has a positive outlook on European tobacco companies for the next 12-18 months, when the agency expects operating profits to grow 6%. Emerging-market growth and price inelasticity will continue to provide good cash flow and offset "declining sales volumes in mature markets and mounting regulatory pressures." (PR)  [View news story]
    i think you are confused.

    When something exhibits price elasticity it means for each unit price change, the quantity change will be more than that unit amount.

    Price inelasticity means that for a given unit price change, the quantity demanded will not change as much as that unit amount.

    Tobacco has relatively high price inelasticity. This means if the companies raise prices 5%, unit volumes will not fall by 5% they will fall less than that, say by 1%. This is beneficial to long term profitability.
    Jul 24 03:23 PM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • May Consumer Credit: +$17.1B vs. +$8.5B expected and $10.0B prior (revised). The month saw the biggest jump in consumer credit since December. Non-revolving debt (student loans, car and personal loans) up $9.1B, while revolving debt (credit cards) increased $8.0B.  [View news story]
    its the MoM change if you annualized it.
    Jul 9 03:25 PM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • May Consumer Credit: +$17.1B vs. +$8.5B expected and $10.0B prior (revised). The month saw the biggest jump in consumer credit since December. Non-revolving debt (student loans, car and personal loans) up $9.1B, while revolving debt (credit cards) increased $8.0B.  [View news story]
    I really don't like posting on some of these threads because of all the mis-information (see above) that just permeates the responses.

    Your wages # of 0.2% I am assuming is from the MoM that the BLS gives. You are then comparing that to an annualized rate given by the Fed. Nice one.

    Additionally, you fail to acknowledge that mortgage debt is by far the largest debt Americans hold, and that value is falling by some 2% YoY.

    If you actually standardized the data, looked at it apples to apples and compared that to personal income, you would actually find that Americans are still currently deleveraging from 2007.
    Jul 9 03:23 PM | 3 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Tobacco names trade lower, as voters in California decide on a potential $1-a-pack tax on cigarettes (Previous: I, II). Though a new tax would hit firms in much different ways, the high-profile battle is considered a trend-setting event in the overall war against Big Tobacco that affects all players. The industry spent $47M to try and defeat the bill, while supporters raised $12M - including $500K from NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg. MO -0.6%, RAI -1.0%, LO -0.7%, PM -0.3%[View news story]
    PM doesnt sell cigarettes in the US at all
    Jun 5 12:45 PM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • "Wall Street is capitalism in its purest form, and capitalism is predicated on bad behavior," rants William Deresiewicz in the NYT. "Shafting your workers, hurting your customers...Leaving the public to pick up the tab. These aren’t anomalies; this is how the system works," Deresiewicz writes, adding that capitalist values are antithetical to democratic one.  [View news story]
    I wanna met the capitalists this guy is describing.

    If you hurt your customers they will likely go elsewhere. If you "shaft" your workers, they will go elsewhere and you won't have any more labor.
    May 14 12:42 PM | 4 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Consumers had been focusing on paying down their debt, but the latest debt data suggests the household deleveraging process may be winding down after consumer credit surged $21.4B in March, the biggest jump since Nov. 2001 in both dollar and percentage terms. Higher-than-expected student loans and credit card use accounted for the March jump.  [View news story]
    This is more than offset by the deleveraging still taking place in the mortgage market, a market over 6x the size of revolving and nonrevolving credit.

    Gotta put it in perspective.
    May 7 06:02 PM | 1 Like Like |Link to Comment
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