Morning News: February 3, 2015
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on February 3rd, 2015 at 6:57 am

Greek Retreat on Writedown May Move Fight to Spending

Erdogan’s Pressure on Basci for Rate Cut Shows No Sign of Letup

Australian Dollar Skids to Six-year Low After RBA Shock

RBI Rajan’s SLR Cut Won’t Boost Lending Now But It’s Reform for Long Term

Apple’s Bond Sales Wave Red Flag on US Interest Rate Outlook

As BP Shows, Corporate Profits Can Be Pretty Much Anything You Want Them To Be

Alibaba and Lending Club Will Loan US Businesses $300,000 to Buy Chinese

Exxon Mobil Revenue and Profit Off 21% on Oil Decline

Disney to Push Back Shanghai Theme Park Opening to 2016

Amazon in Talks to Buy Some of RadioShack’s Stores

Japanese TV Makers Retreat From Overseas Markets

Santander Profits Up on Branch Focus

Lenovo’s Smartphone Challenge: Battling Apple, Xiaomi in China With Motorola

Cullen Roche: Rand Paul’s Federal Reserve Goose Chase

Jeff Carter: A Super Bowl Example of Leadership

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The Shake Shack IPO
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on February 2nd, 2015 at 5:18 pm

Shares of Shake Shack ($SHAK) debuted on the market last week. The shares were priced at $21 and opened at $47. At one point, SHAK got as high as $52 per share.

Investors often ask me about high-profile IPOs and I almost always encourage investors to avoid them. Remember that companies only go public if they think they can get a good price, so their interests are directly opposed to yours.

It’s no surprise that most studies show that IPOs don’t perform well. A few big winners got all the attention.

I honestly don’t see how Shake Shack is worth half this price.

The S&P 500 Total Return Index
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on February 2nd, 2015 at 5:02 pm

Here’s an updated look at the S&P 500 Total Return Index, meaning the S&P 500 plus dividends. Short version: It’s been a good six years but before that was…kinda rough.

The Onion: Warren Buffett Can’t Believe He Has To Live Next To Powerball Winner
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on February 2nd, 2015 at 3:26 pm

From The Onion:

Warren Buffett Can’t Believe He Has To Live Next To Powerball Winner

OMAHA, NE—Shaking his head as workers installed a fountain on his neighbor’s front lawn, business magnate Warren Buffett told reporters Wednesday that he cannot believe he’s stuck living next to the latest recipient of a Powerball jackpot. “Oh, what a treat, I get to be neighbors with some guy who walked into a gas station one day and asked a computer to pick six numbers,” said the multibillionaire investor, closing his window to avoid hearing the electronic dance music blasting from the $600 million prize winner’s poolside speaker system. “A Lamborghini, too? How original. I have no idea where this chump was living last week, but I give him one, two years tops before he blows it all and has to crawl back with his tail between his legs.” At press time, the so-called Oracle of Omaha was instructing his personal assistant to politely decline his neighbor’s invitation to go bison hunting together from his new helicopter.

January ISM = 53.5
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on February 2nd, 2015 at 12:23 pm

At mid-day, the stock market is holding on to some gains. As on Friday, oil is rebounding and that’s helping energy stocks. The Energy Sector ETF (XLF) is doing well again today. It’s had a rough few months.

This morning’s ISM report for January came in at 53.5 which is a bit on the light side. That’s down from 55.1 in December.

The Census Bureau said that construction spending rose by 0.4% in December. We also learned that personal income rose by 0.3% in December while personal spending fell by the same amount. For all of 2014, personal spending rose by 2.4%. That’s the strongest growth since 2006. The PCE price index rose 0.7% over the last 12 months.

Morning News: February 2, 2015
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on February 2nd, 2015 at 7:08 am

Germany Stands to Be Big Winner of Much-Opposed ECB Stimulus

ECB Bond-Buying Plan Has Investors Questioning How It Works

China Jan HSBC Factory PMI Contracts For Second Month, Misses Flash Estimate

China’s Latest Corruption Probe Could Spell Trouble for the Global Banking Industry

Justice Department Investigating Moody’s Investors Service

Settling Case, Standard & Poor’s Backs Off Claims of Government ‘Retaliation’

Oil Futures Swing Higher, Briefly Recapture $50 a Barrel

Obama Proposes $3.99 Trillion Budget, Sets Up Battle With Republicans

Swiss Bank Julius Baer to Cut About 200 Jobs in Cost Saving Drive

Are Changing American Tastes Slowing McDonald’s Down?

Hard-Charging Uber Tries Olive Branch

How We’re Spending Our Windfall From Cheap Gas

For French Investors, Euro Disney Nightmare

Jeff Miller: Weighing the Week Ahead: Will the Data Deluge Signal Economic Weakness?

Edward Harrison: Why Quantitative Easing and Negative Interest Rates Will Fail

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The S&P 500 Nears Its 200-DMA
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on January 30th, 2015 at 9:17 am

The S&P 500 reached its all-time intra-day peak of 2,093.55 on December 29.

A 5% drop would take the index to 1988.87. The S&P 500 has reached three recent intra-day lows: on January 14, then on January 16 and again yesterday. Those lows were, in order, 1,988.44, 1,988.12 and 1,989.18. Eerily close. Still, the S&P 500 has not yet closed at a 5% loss, but it’s gotten close.

The S&P 500 is also getting close to its 200-day moving average. Going by yesterday’s close, the 200-DMA is now 1,973.85.

GDP Grew 2.6% in Q4
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on January 30th, 2015 at 8:52 am

The government just reported that the economy grew at a 2.6% rate in Q4. Honestly, that’s not that great. But considering that Q2 and Q3 were pretty good, it’s nice to see us not give it all back. In fact, the last three quarters were the best for real GDP growth since the last two quarters of 2003 and Q1 of 2004.

Here’s a look at the trailing three-quarter growth rate (not annualized):

We’re somewhat back to normal! Interestingly, nominal GDP grew by 2.54%, a bit less than RGDP. That’s what deflation does.

For the year, RGDP grew by 2.42% which was our best showing since 2010.

We need the last three quarters to repeat themselves for another four years, and inflation to return to 2%. That would be very good.

Moog Earns 86 Cents per Share
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on January 30th, 2015 at 8:20 am

Moog (MOG-A) just reported fiscal Q1 earnings of 86 cents per share. In October, they gave full-year guidance of $4.25 per share and sales growth of 1%. Now Moog is lowering their EPS guidance to $3.85, but $3.95 with share buybacks. Bottom line: Good execution, poor environment.

Moog Inc. today announced first quarter sales of $631 million, down 2% from a year ago, the result of negative foreign currency effects. Net earnings of $35 million increased by 10% and earnings per share of $.86 were 23% higher, in part the result of the Company’s on-going share repurchase program.

Aircraft segment sales, at $266 million, were unchanged from last year. Commercial aircraft sales increased 10% on strong OEM production which included $62 million in sales to Boeing and $23 million in sales to Airbus. Commercial aircraft aftermarket sales of $30 million were slightly higher than a year ago.

Military aircraft sales were down 8% to $126 million. OEM sales were down 14% as production on fighter aircraft programs slowed and activity on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter was lower. Military aftermarket sales were nominally higher, at $51 million.

Space and Defense sales of $100 million were unchanged from a year ago. Defense sales were 6% higher and space market sales were down 4%, the result of a decrease in demand for satellite avionics products.

Industrial Systems sales of $133 million were 7% lower than last year, mostly driven by the stronger U.S. dollar. Industrial automation products were down 2%, while sales of simulation and test systems were down 16%. Energy products were down 10% in total, with wind energy controls unchanged from a year ago.

Components Group sales, at $100 million, were 3% lower than a year ago. Industrial automation sales, at $24 million, were 7% higher. Sales into aerospace and defense markets were mostly unchanged. Medical components sales were down $2 million, or 10%. Sales of energy market products were down $2 million from the elevated levels of last year.

Medical Devices segment sales of $31 million were down 3% with lower sales of pumps and administration sets mostly offset by an increase in sales of OEM sensors.

Twelve month consolidated backlog was $1.4 billion, unchanged from a year ago.

Projections for fiscal 2015 were also updated. The company is reducing its sales forecast for the year by $95 million which will result in sales of $2.57 billion, net earnings of $157 million and earnings per share of $3.85. This updated guidance does not include the impact of additional share repurchases. The completion of the Company’s previously authorized 9 million share repurchase program during FY’15 would result in earnings per share guidance of $3.95.

“Overall Q1 was a mixed quarter for the company,” said John Scannell, Chairman and CEO. “On a positive note, earnings came in slightly ahead of our forecast and cash was very strong. However, during the quarter we started to feel the impact of three macroeconomic headwinds, the strengthening of the U.S. dollar, the industrial malaise outside the U.S. and the sharp and sustained drop in the price of oil. As a result, we are introducing some caution in our forecast and revising our outlook for the remainder of fiscal ’15 downward. Despite these challenges, we are still forecasting fiscal ’15 to be another year of strong cash flow and record earnings per share.”

CWS Market Review – January 30, 2015
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on January 30th, 2015 at 7:08 am

“Go for a business that any idiot can run—because sooner or later, any idiot probably is going to run it.” – Peter Lynch

The strong U.S. dollar is finally making its presence felt on the income statement. So far, the reported earnings for our Buy List stocks have been quite good. However, this week, two of our big-name tech stocks, Qualcomm ($QCOM) and Microsoft ($MSFT), got pinged for big losses as their outlooks weren’t as rosy as Wall Street had hoped they’d be. In both cases, the rising dollar has taken a bite out of earnings, and they’re not alone. I’ll have more details on those two in a bit.

Overall, earnings season is going OK, but not great; 77% of the companies that have reported have topped earnings expectations. Of course, we have to remember that estimates for Q4 were pared back a lot in the last several weeks. Looking at the top line, 58% of the earnings results so far have beaten their sales expectations. Right now, it looks like earnings are growing, but at a very subdued pace.

But the real drama continues to be in the forex and bond markets. This week, the Federal Reserve said it was going to be “patient” in its desire to raise short-term interest rates. The bond market took the clue, and the yield on the 30-year Treasury plunged below 2.8% to its lowest yield ever (see above). The dollar seems unstoppable, and I think the euro and the dollar could soon reach parity for the first time in 12 years.

In this week’s CWS Market Review, I’ll tell you what the Fed’s “patience” means for us and our portfolios. I’ll also go over our recent earnings reports. Despite the bad news from Qualcomm and Microsoft, we had some solid results as well—CR Bard just capped off an outstanding year. Later on, I’ll preview the five earnings reports we have next week. (You can see our complete Earnings Calendar.) But first, let’s look at why the Fed may not be touching interest rates at all this year.

The Federal Reserve Says “It Can Be Patient”

The Federal Reserve met again this week and on Wednesday afternoon, the central bank released its latest policy statement. The Fedspeak was largely the same as the one from December, but they added several optimistic edits. In fact, it was probably the Fed’s most cheerful outlook for the economy in years. (Central bankers are rarely optimistic.) It’s taken a while, but things are clearly improving. The fewest number of Americans filed for first-time jobless claims in nearly 15 years.

For the last several months, the Fed has hinted that short-term rates will start to rise sometime in the middle of this year. Gradually, I’ve grown to doubt that timetable. Now it appears that the Fed and the bond market are catching on. I think it’s now very possible that we won’t see a rate increase until 2016. In fact, Morgan Stanley just pushed their expectations for a rate hike to Q1 of next year. Of course, even when rates do rise, they will still be well below the rate of inflation.

The key sentence in the Fed’s policy statement read: “Based on its current assessment, the Committee judges that it can be patient in beginning to normalize the stance of monetary policy.” That’s about as exciting as central bankers get, but the message is clear: Until wages pick up, the Fed simply isn’t going to do much of anything.

What does the continuation of low rates mean? It’s very good for stock investors. If rates are going to stay low, even modest dividend yields of 2% or 3% are very inviting. It’s simple math. Ford Motor ($F), for example, recently raised its dividend by 20%. The automaker currently yields 4%, which beats most anything you’ll find in the bond market. (I’ll have more on Ford’s earnings in just a bit.)

This entire dynamic is due to the Strong Dollar Trade. Actually, the dollar got even stronger against the euro after the left-wing Syriza party won in Greece. The rising dollar has put the squeeze on commodity prices. This means that right now, we’re experiencing deflation. On Monday, gasoline prices rose for the first time in 123 days. That won’t last long. Last month, U.S. oil inventories rose to their highest level for December since 1930. On Thursday, West Texas Crude briefly dropped below $44 per barrel. A lot of Energy and Materials stocks are in rough shape.

Wall Street had been expecting the dollar to take a bite out of Q4 earnings, but I think they were surprised by how large the impact was. In October, Wall Street expected the S&P 500 to post Q4 earnings growth of 8.5%. That’s now down to 1.1%. The strong dollar is having its greatest impact on U.S. manufacturing. We can see evidence of that in the last two durable-goods reports, which were quite weak.

Firms are already cutting back on capital spending. Caterpillar ($CAT), for example, which is a Dow component, said they’re cutting their spending plans. Even consumer-products companies are feeling the heat. Procter & Gamble ($PG) said the strong dollar could reduce their earnings this year by $1.4 billion; nearly half of that is due to the Russian ruble. I also suspect that a lot of companies are jumping in on the strong-dollar excuse so they can temper expectations for the rest of this year. Now let’s take a look at some of our Buy List earnings reports from this week.

Our Recent Buy List Earnings Reports

For the most part, our Buy List stocks have reported good earnings, but the market hasn’t always reacted positively. On Monday, Microsoft ($MSFT) reported Q4 earnings of 71 cents per share. That exactly matched Wall Street’s estimates, but the stock dropped more than 9% on Tuesday.

The problem was their forecast for the rest of this year (Microsoft’s fiscal year ends in June). PC sales have been somewhat sluggish, and Microsoft’s commercial software was surprisingly weak. That had been a recent bright spot for the software giant. Microsoft also cited—I hope you’re sitting down—the recent strength of the U.S. dollar as a negative factor. They said currency exchange will lower revenues by 4% this quarter. The company said they were expecting sales declines in China, Russia and Japan.

While this news is disappointing, most of the key factors such as currency and geopolitics are outside of MSFT’s control. I like Microsoft a lot, and I think Nadella has done a commendable job. To adjust for this week’s pullback, I’m lowering my Buy Below on Microsoft to $45 per share.

Our other tech dud was Qualcomm ($QCOM). But like Microsoft, the results were quite good. For Q4, Qualcomm earned $1.34 per share for Q4, which topped estimates by nine cents per share.

The problem was guidance. Qualcomm had previously said to expect full-year 2015 results of $5.35 per share. Now they say it will range between $4.75 and $5.05 per share. Sales will range from $26 billion to $28 billion. On Thursday, the shares dropped 10.3% to close at $63.69. Ouch!

Qualcomm said that a major customer decided against using their Snapdragon chip in a flagship phone design. The company has long had the field to themselves, and they’re starting to face some competition. I have faith in CEO Steve Mollenkopf and his team. Qualcomm is still a good buy, but I’m lowering my Buy Below to $66 per share.

On Tuesday, Stryker ($SYK) reported Q4 earnings of $1.44 per share. That was one penny below expectations. For all of 2014, the company made $4.73 per share.

For Q1, Stryker expects earnings to range between $1.05 and $1.10 per share; for the entire year, they see earnings coming in between $4.90 and $5.10 per share. Wall Street had been expecting $1.17 per share for Q1 and $5.14 per share for the whole year.

Shares of Stryker actually climbed on the light guidance. I think investors understood that aside from the dollar, Stryker’s business is going quite well. This is a good stock. Stryker remains a buy up to $98 per share. I think it’s very likely that Stryker will do a big deal this year.

CR Bard ($BCR) continues to be one of our brightest stocks. This week, the medical-devices company reported Q4 earnings of $2.29 per share. That was five cents better than estimates. Sales rose to $867.2 million, which beat expectations by $9.5 million.

CEO Timothy M. Ring said, “Two years ago we announced a strategic investment plan with the objective to shift the mix of the portfolio to faster growth through investments in emerging markets and new product development. We said at the time that we expected the early returns from those investments to begin in the back half of 2014. We are pleased with the performance of our investment plan so far, as we delivered accelerating organic revenue growth throughout 2014. We remain focused on executing our plan with the objective of improving the long-term growth profile of the company in a profitable manner that adds value for shareholders.”

For all of 2014, Bard earned $8.40 per share. That’s a very nice increase from $5.78 per share in 2013. The stock has doubled for us in just over three years. This week, I’m raising my Buy Below on CR Bard to $184 per share.

Last week, I said not to place too much emphasis on Ford Motor’s ($F) Q4 earnings report. The results later this year will be far more important, but Ford had a decent Q4. They earned 26 cents per share, which beat estimates by three cents per share.

Ford’s core business continues to be trucks sold in North America, and that’s going well. The bad news for Ford is Europe, which appeared to be improving. Ford is turning things around in the Old World, but not as quickly as they had expected.

The most important news for us is that Ford is sticking by its 2015 forecast for a pretax profit between $8.5 billion and $9.5 billion. That’s very good news. Until now, I’ve kept a wide range for our Buy Below price, but I want to tighten that a little bit. This week, I’m lowering my Buy Below on Ford to $16 per share, but this is in no sense a downgrade.

Next Week’s Buy List Earnings Reports

We have five more earnings reports due next week. On Tuesday, AFLAC and Fiserv will report. Cognizant Technology Solutions follows on Wednesday. Then two of our new stocks, Ball Corp. and Snap-on, will report on Thursday. As always, check the blog for the latest updates.

AFLAC ($AFL) has been one of our more frustrating stocks because the company has done very well from a standpoint of operations. It’s an efficient and well-run company. However, their financial results have been greatly impacted by the sinking yen. AFLAC does a ton of business in Japan, and the government there has been trying to bring down its currency relative to the U.S. dollar. That means that AFLAC’s profits get stung when the money is translated from yen into dollars.

In October, AFLAC said it was expecting Q4 operating earnings to range between $1.28 and $1.37 per share. But that was assuming the yen stayed between 105 and 110 to the dollar. It’s currently at 118.23. For 2015, AFLAC aims to increase their operating earnings by 2% to 7% on a currency-neutral basis.

Three months ago, Fiserv ($FISV) raised their expectations for Q4. They now see quarterly earnings between 86 and 90 cents per share. That means full-year 2014 earnings of $3.34 to $3.38 per share, up from $2.99 per share for 2013. The shares hit another new all-time high this week. I’ll be curious to see if they provide guidance for 2015. Fiserv is one of my favorite long-term holdings.

Cognizant Technology Solutions ($CTSH) had an outstanding earnings season three months ago. From October 20 to November 7, the shares rallied 23%. The IT outsourcer raked in 66 cents per share for Q3, which was seven cents better than estimates. Quarterly revenues jumped 11.9% to $2.58 billion.

For Q4, Cognizant sees earnings of at least 63 cents per share. Wall Street had only been expecting 59 cents per share. That would bring full-year earnings to at least $2.57 per share. CTSH also said they expect revenues to range between $2.61 and $2.64 billion. That was above the Street’s forecast of $2.59 billion. Last Friday, the shares hit an all-time high of $56.62 per share.

Ball Corp. ($BLL) is a brand-new member of our Buy List. The company is the largest producer of recyclable beverage cans in the world. Ball also has an aerospace unit that makes parts for NASA. They’re somewhat boring, but very profitable. Ball has beaten earnings for the last five quarters in a row. Wall Street currently expect 85 cents per share for Q4.

Snap-on ($SNA) is another new stock for us. They’re a maker of high-end hand and power tools. They also make lots of machines for car repair, like hydraulic lifts and tire changers. Snap-on makes products for the marine, rail and aviation industries. In November, Snap-on raised their dividend by 20.5%. Wall Street’s consensus for Q4 is $1.81 per share.

That’s all for now; there are still more earnings reports to come next week. On Monday, we’ll get the ISM report for January. On Tuesday, the report on factory orders comes out. This leads up to the big January jobs report on Friday morning. The unemployment rate for December was 5.6%, which is a six-year low. The number for January may be even lower. Be sure to keep checking the blog for daily updates. I’ll have more market analysis for you in the next issue of CWS Market Review!

– Eddy