Tuesday, January 29, 2008

(Re)Fine Day

Wow, actually had a big day. It was really helped by the refining section as HOC was up 7% and WNR was up 14%. It goes to what I have been saying for some time... these refiners are extremely seasonal. Margins go down in the fall/winter as driving slows down and increases in the spring/summer. And every year the stock markets acts like this is news. I bought a bunch of estra of both stocks in my IRA to sell in July/August. The trigger today was VLO (Analyst says Valero's earnings a 'clear beat'), which showed that even with slimmed down margins that refiners are making some dough. Even with the bumps, the sector is still cheap in my opinion.

One item that has really caught my eye of late is how much cash some MFI stocks have. They say "cash is king" and it certainly seems like something you'd want to have in a recession, but the stocks have been pounded nonetheless and seem like good values.

IVAC (11.22) - Cash per share = $6.16
SIMG (4.48) - Cash per share = $2.68
PRLS (2.39) - Cash per share = $1.24
TRID (5.02) - Cash per share = $3.41
HLYS (6.35) - Cash per share = $3.32
KSWS (17.69) - Cash per share = $8.13
KSW (6.60) - cash per share = $2.90
KFY (15.13) - Cash per Share = $5.19
HSII (26.82) - cash per share = $12.37

This is in no way a complete list, just some stocks off the top of my head. Look at those numbers again, on many of those stocks, about 1/2 their stock price is backed by cash. Stunning stuff. Gosh, I may run out and buy more of some of these stocks.

1 comment:

Nick said...

I'm not sure if it is still on the list but OPMR is trading for less than the cash it carries on the balance sheet.