Good Earnings News

I knew I had one stock reporting earnings today, but it ended up being a "2fer" as WILC also reported on their weird ad-hoc basis at 1:42 pm.

WILC is not a true MFI stock, but I added it as a value stock last fall and it is now up 128% for me. They reported their earnings at 1:42 (G. Willi-Food Reports Net Income of Nis 5.3 Million for the Second Quarter of 2009 Compared to Net Loss of Nis 2.0 Million for the Second Quarter of 2008PR Newswire(Thu 1:42pm)) and investors who were quick on the draw probably had an opportunity to make some easy money. The stock traded almost 300,000 shares today against an average of 8,000 per day. The stock was up 17% and I suspect you could have gotten 10% of that if you'd seen the release at 1:42. WILC is a distributor of Kosher food and now has a market cap of about 42m. They made $1.6m this quarter and have a strong balance sheet with $27m in cash. They said they expect the 2nd half of 2009 to be better than the first half. They made $3.8m in the 1st half, so if you assume on the year their operating income is north of $8m that would give you an earnings yield of around 8m / 20m = 40%. At a bit over $4 a share, I am still very bullish on the stock if they have really turned the corner. Who knows, if their market cap gets above 50m, perhaps we'll be seeing WILC on the screen down the road.

UEPS also had good news (Net 1 UEPS Technologies, Inc. Announces 2009 Fourth Quarter and Year End Results). They are growing their revenues YoY (just like WILC) which is great in today's environment. And they said they expect to grow earnings 20% in the upcoming fiscal year. Assuming the exchange rate stays as it is today, that would have to be about $2 a share in fiscal year 2010. They also have a strong balance sheet and just repurchased about 15% of their outstanding shares (Net1 UEPS Technologies, Inc. Announces Agreement to Repurchase Brait SA's 9.2 Million Shares for $13.50 Per Share). I see UEPS going well north of $20 a share (which would be a 60% gain for me) by year-end.

Finally I got my order for GTLS filled today at $19.50. I had placed it last week after reading the bullish article regarding the growing need for natural gas storage, which seems to be right up GTLS' alley. So I am thrilled to get them at the low price of the day. And just a year ago they were at $47 a share... I think they are another potential double.

So I am slowly but steadily transitioning my portfolio to be more in line with my stellar mechanical portfolio results. Still have a way to go, but some of the non-MFI stocks in my portfolio (like FSUMF and WILC) have been huge winners.