Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Quick Comments

FTO had what I felt were stellar earnings this quarter. they were projected to earn 12 cents and TSO and ALJ early this week actually lost money. What did our freinds at Frontier do? Simply made 44 cents a share. They have top rate management. I have no idea why they are only $27 a share as they had a minimal pop today. I may back up the truck tomorrow, after reading their transcript (Frontier Oil Corp. Q1 2008 Earnings Call Transcript) I am pretty bullish. These guys should easily moved into mid 30s by summer.

Lehman downgraded IAR to a sell today, dropping their target price from $4 a share to $3 a share. Given that they had just made 76 cents a share and popped over $4.50, I was scratching my head at their call. I pulled up their research note. They essentailly said that ad sales were down 5% and internet sales were only up 7% (below their expectations). Based upon this, they said that IAR will only earn $2.50 this year and $2.25 next year per share. I would be estactic with those types of earnings... I just want to stay out of bankruptcy. But the head scratcher was then how they justified a $3 target price for a stock they think will earn $4.75 a share next year... they used a P/E ratio of 1.2. Where the heck did that come from? Is there another stock in the world they give such a low ratio to? Geesh. 5 seems a bit more reasonable, but that would get them over $10 a share.

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