Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Invest early to reap long term benefits: Wiseinvest

Below is an edited transcript of his interview. Also watch the accompanying video.

Q: An investor wants to invest Rs 2,000 per month. How can he allocate that money?

A: It is good that he is planning to invest so early for his child's education, which is what I think every investor who is looking to achieve his long-term goal should be following this strategy. When you invest for the long-term specially, when you have a time horizon of 15-20-25 years, power of compounding plays a very important role and there to get the best out it among other factors a very important factor is to start early. So I think he is on the right track as far as the investment strategies or planning is concerned.

But since he has three dependents, my recommendation to him would be that he should make sure that he has adequate risk cover in the form of life insurance as well as health insurance. He has a policy Jeevan Anand, but I am not too sure whether this plan will give him the adequate quantum of cover that he wants. In case there is a shortfall a term plan and also for health plan, he can look at a family floater plan before start investing for this objective.

As far as his investment is concerned, since he has a time horizon of 25 years he can definitely invest in equity funds, especially because he is going to be investing every month so he can set a SIP in two good quality well diversified equity funds. He can consider HDFC Equity and Canara Robeco Diversified Equity Fund . These are two good funds for him. Assuming an annualized return of around 12% over the period of 25 years, he can hope to build a corpus of around Rs 34 lakh. But since his target is Rs 1 crore he will have to increase his amount to Rs 6,000 per month. If he can't do that currently, he should ensure that as and when is possible in future he should try and increase the amount so that he can reach closer to his target.

Q: An investor can invest Rs 12000 per month. I have a Jeevan Anand policy and its yearly premium is Rs 25000 per annum. I do have two mutual funds, one is HDFC Top 200 and I am investing Rs 2000 per month in that and I am investing Rs 2000 per month in HDFC Premier Equity . My time horizon is around 15-20 years and my goal is around Rs 40-45 lakh. How should I allocate the money?

A: Let me just begin with the risk cover you said you have LIC plan Jeevan Anand which is a good plan but I am not too sure whether it will give you the adequate risk cover or not. You need to make sure that you life insurance cover that you have is atleast 10 times your annual income and also make sure that you have adequate risk cover in terms of health, so one should take care of these two things.

As far as your goal is concerned, since you have a time horizon of 15 years, you can definitely invest in equity funds. You are already investing in two quality equity funds; one is HDFC Equity which is multi cap fund and HDFC Top 200 which is predominantly a large cap fund.

My recommendation is that you can include one more quality midcap in your portfolio, which is IDFC Premier Equity . So if I assume a return of around 12% over the next 15 years and if you continue this process for this entire period, you can hope to get a corpus of around Rs 66 lakh. You mentioned about your target is to create a corpus of Rs 50 lakh for buying a house and a car, make sure that you take in inflation into account because if you are talking about today's value then your requirement after 15 years is going to be much more. Like I said, this can only create a corpus of around Rs 66 lakh, I am talking about total investment of this new investment and the two which he is already doing, so rework on the target and see if you can increase some amount, so that you can achieve your targets.

Monday, April 20, 2015

How Are IAC’s Websites Performing?

With shares of IAC/InterActiveCorp (NASDAQ:IACI) trading at around $49.78, is IACI an OUTPERFORM, WAIT AND SEE or STAY AWAY? Let's analyze the stock with the relevant sections of our CHEAT SHEET investing framework:

C = Catalyst for the Stock's Movement

IAC was written about in our newsletter on March 8, 2013 and rated an OUTPERFORM. At that time, the stock was trading at $43.57. Therefore, it would have been a good investment. However, is that still the case today?

IAC impressed last quarter with a year-over-year revenue increase of 15.90 percent, and a year-over-year earnings increase of 55.60 percent. On a larger scale, revenue has consistently improved on an annual basis, and earnings have made tremendous improvements since 2008 and 2009. Earnings did drop in 2012, but this shouldn't be cause for concern. IAC is in a much better place than it was several years ago. It's now more strategic when it comes to acquisitions and capital allocation.

NEW! Discover a new stock idea each week for less than the cost of 1 trade. CLICK HERE for your Weekly Stock Cheat Sheets NOW!

IAC is trading at 26 times earnings, which is higher than the industry average of 22 times earnings. However, margins are respectable. Profit margin is 6.15 percent, and operating margin is 12.19 percent. IAC does yield 1.90 percent, which is a nice bonus, especially considering peers like AOL (NYSE:AOL) and Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) don't offer any yield.

IAC does have an 8.80 percent short position. This doesn't add up considering the fundamentals. However, this isn't the type of stock that would hold up well if the market were to falter. Many bears out there are shorting expensive stocks in anticipation of a market correction. It's not likely that the majority of these shorts are going after IAC for other reasons. After all, IAC has delivered consistent profits, top-line growth is good on an annual basis, the brand portfolio is highly diversified, monetization methods are effective, the balance sheet is healthy, there is international growth potential, and the Internet is still growing in regards to popularity. Furthermore, analysts like the stock: 14 Buy, 3 Hold, 1 Underperform.

The company culture at IAC is subpar. According to Glassdoor.com, employees have rated their employer a 2.9 of 5, and only 49 percent of employees would recommend the company to a friend. That said, there is an enormous disconnect here. Despite those poor numbers, an impressive 86 percent of employees approve of CEO Greg Blatt. It looks as though leadership is good, but there are problems on lower management levels.

Now for the fun part. Let's see how well some of IAC's sites are performing.

 

The information below is based on stats from Alexa.com.

Ask.com

Global Rank: 27

U.S. Rank: 19

Pageviews-Per-User (past three months): Up 13.7 percent

Time-On-Site: Up 5 percent

Bounce Rate (only one pageview per visit): Down 2 percent

 

About.com

Global Rank: 85

U.S. Rank: 36

Pageviews-Per-User (past three months): Down 0.87 percent

Time-On-Site: Down 3 percent

Bounce Rate (only one pageview per visit): Up 1 percent

NEW! Discover a new stock idea each week for less than the cost of 1 trade. CLICK HERE for your Weekly Stock Cheat Sheets NOW!

OKCupid.com

Global Rank: 693

U.S. Rank: 189

Pageviews-Per-User (past three months): Down 0.96 percent

Time-On-Site: Down 2 percent

Bounce Rate (only one pageview per visit): Up 16 percent

 

Tutor.com

Global Rank: 88,437

U.S. Rank: 23,898

Pageviews-Per-User (past three months): Up 9 percent

Time-On-Site: Down 5 percent

Bounce Rate (only one pageview per visit): Down 6 percent

 

CollegeHumor.com

Global Rank: 3,309

U.S. Rank: 1,458

Pageviews-Per-User (past three months): Down 13.87 percent

Time-On-Site: Down 11 percent

Bounce Rate (only one pageview per visit): Up 12 percent

 

CitySearch.com

Global Rank: 3,507

U.S. Rank: 1,002

Pageviews-Per-User (past three months): Up 8.0 percent

Time-On-Site: Up 8 percent

Bounce Rate (only one pageview per visit): Down 3 percent

 

Urbanspoon.com

Global Rank: 2,155

U.S. Rank: 636

Pageviews-Per-User (past three months): Down 0.89 percent

Time-On-Site: Even

Bounce Rate (only one pageview per visit): Up 1 percent

 

DailyBurn.com

Global Rank: 28,115

U.S. Rank: 8,666

Pageviews-Per-User (past three months): Down 8.79 percent

Time-On-Site: Down 8 percent

Bounce Rate (only one pageview per visit): Down 2 percent

 

Chemistry.com

Global Rank: 7,648

U.S. Rank: 1,371

Pageviews-Per-User (past three months): Up 19 percent

Time-On-Site: Up 9 percent

Bounce Rate (only one pageview per visit): Up 9 percent

 

Vimeo.com

Global Rank: 140

U.S. Rank: 112

Pageviews-Per-User (past three months): Down 2.19 percent

Time-On-Site: Down 3 percent

Bounce Rate (only one pageview per visit): Up 3 percent

 

 

Match.com

Global Rank: 356

U.S. Rank: 92

Pageviews-Per-User (past three months): Down 7.09 percent

Time-On-Site: Down 8 percent

Bounce Rate (only one pageview per visit): Up 11 percent

 

 

Shoebuy.com

Global Rank: 6,700

U.S. Rank: 1,481

Pageviews-Per-User (past three months): Down 1.31 percent

Time-On-Site: Down 4 percent

Bounce Rate (only one pageview per visit): Up 3 percent

 

Overall, website performance is average. There haven't been many significant changes in either direction.

Let's take a look at some more important numbers prior to forming an opinion on this stock.

T = Technicals Are Strong

IAC has performed well over the past three years. Is this trend likely to continue?

1 Month Year-To-Date 1 Year 3 Year
IACI 2.34% 6.49% 13.73% 120.4%
AOL -9.98% 18.74% 52.01% 94.07%
YHOO -1.60% 32.66% 72.55% 72.66%

At $49.78, IAC is trading above its averages.

50-Day SMA 48.95
200-Day SMA 45.04
NEW! Discover a new stock idea each week for less than the cost of 1 trade. CLICK HERE for your Weekly Stock Cheat Sheets NOW!

E = Equity to Debt Ratio Is Normal

The debt-to-equity ratio for IAC is normal. Debt isn’t a concern.

Debt-To-Equity Cash Long-Term Debt
IACI 0.33 679.57M 580.00M
AOL 0.05 467.80M 104.20M
YHOO 0.00 3.01B 36.00M

E = Earnings Have Been Steady

Earnings have substantially improved over the past several years. However, there was a slight setback in 2012. Revenue has improved over the past three years.

Fiscal Year 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Revenue ($) in millions 1,445 1,376 1,637 2,059 2,801
Diluted EPS ($) -1.09 -7.06 0.94 1.85 1.71

Looking at the last quarter on a year-over-year basis, revenue and earnings improved.

Quarter Mar. 31, 2012 Jun. 30, 2012 Sep. 30, 2012 Dec. 31, 2012 Mar. 31, 2013
Revenue ($) in millions 640.60 680.61 714.47 765.25 742.25
Diluted EPS ($) 0.38 0.47 0.43 0.43 0.61

Now let's take a look at the next page for the Conclusion. Is this stock an OUTPERFORM, a WAIT AND SEE, or a STAY AWAY?

Conclusion

IAC isn't the most loved company on the street, which is evidenced by that 8.80 percent short position. However, IAC continues to deliver on the top and bottom lines. As long as that remains to be the case, IAC is an OUTPERFORM.

Is Investing in Oracle Good or Bad News?

With shares of Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ:ORCL) trading at around $34.16, is ORCL an OUTPERFORM, WAIT AND SEE or STAY AWAY? Let's analyze the stock with the relevant sections of our CHEAT SHEET investing framework:

C = Catalyst for the Stock's Movement

We'll begin with the most important quote of all, which was written on Glassdoor.com by an Oracle employee:

"Company is global and is focusing on hiring outside the US. Even though the margin is very high, this company is bent on increasing its margin every quarter, even at the expense of employees and customers."

NEW! Discover a new stock idea each week for less than the cost of 1 trade. CLICK HERE for your Weekly Stock Cheat Sheets NOW!

This might be bad news for employees, but it's good news for investors.

The next quote relates to Oracle Cloud, which has 25 million users per day. Oracle recently announced the latest release of Oracle Service Cloud, which will offer robust support for mobile. Stephanie Arnette, Global Lead for Oracle Customer Experience, Accenture, stated:

“Oracle Service Cloud is a core component of our Application Services for Oracle Customer Experience Suite, which help clients leverage investments in their CRM systems with lower costs and increased flexibility. Our expertise in Software as a Service implementations supported with cloud factories, tools, and methods, combined with a longstanding alliance with Oracle, have allowed us to build our Oracle Service Cloud implementation capabilities that provide our clients with a strong framework for success. We’re excited to see continued investments from Oracle with the May 2013 release, including robust mobile capabilities that can help our clients stay competitive.”

David Vap, Group Vice President Product Development, Oracle, said:

“The new release of Oracle Service Cloud with Oracle RightNow Mobile Agent App specifically addresses and solves important pain points for the mobile employee. Organizations will discover increased efficiency through untethered access to real-time, up-to-date contact records and service history information, ensuring interactions with customers are timely, relevant, and engaging. This helps reduce time to resolution, in turn driving customer satisfaction and building customer loyalty through strengthened relationships.”

In regards to Oracle and Dell's recently expanded strategic alliance, Marius Haas, president of enterprise solutions for Dell, stated:

"Dell is growing fast in the datacenter and gaining market share across the world in our three core businesses. In part, this success is due to the fact we are focused on building and optimizing Dell infrastructure to help customers run their core mission-critical workloads. Today's agreement with Oracle greatly expands this commitment. By combining Oracle's strong position in the database and business applications markets with Dell's leadership in industry-standard servers, data center storage, and networking, we're combining the best of both worlds to deliver innovative solutions to customers that deliver superior performance, lower costs, and increased value."

Oracle President Mark Hurd, stated:

"This partnership with Dell is an extension of Oracle's engineered systems strategy where we simplify IT and reduce integration costs by delivering hardware and software together. We believe that by working together, Dell will gain significant market share by delivering to its customers an integrated, optimized solution designed to deploy business critical applications. This is just the beginning of a lot of great things to come."

The chart below compares basic fundamentals for Oracle, International Business Machines (NYSE:IBM), and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT).

ORCL IBM MSFT
Trailing P/E 15.89 14.22 17.96
Forward P/E 11.69 11.24 11.38
Profit Margin 28.46% 16.05% 21.58%
ROE 24.29% 82.86% 22.58%
Operating Cash Flow 13.72B 19.32B 30.61B
Dividend Yield 0.70% 1.80% 2.60%
Short Position 1.10% 1.60% 1.20%

Let's take a look at some more important numbers prior to forming an opinion on this stock.

T = Technicals Are Strong

Oracle has been a steady performer for many years. Over the past year, it has outperformed IBM and Microsoft. However, Microsoft has been the big winner in this group year-to-date. It should also be noted that Microsoft offers the highest yield at 2.60 percent whereas IBM yields 1.80 percent, and Oracle yields 0.70 percent.

1 Month Year-To-Date 1 Year 3 Year
ORCL 2.19% 2.37% 32.46% 53.13%
IBM 1.20% 8.50% 10.87% 69.52%
MSFT 5.15% 32.94% 26.66% 41.15%

At $34.16, Oracle is trading above its averages.

50-Day SMA 33.52
200-Day SMA 33.72
NEW! Discover a new stock idea each week for less than the cost of 1 trade. CLICK HERE for your Weekly Stock Cheat Sheets NOW!

E = Equity to Debt Ratio Is Normal

The debt-to-equity ratio for Oracle is close to the industry average of 0.30. Debt management isn’t a concern.

Debt-To-Equity Cash Long-Term Debt
ORCL 0.45 33.41B 19.75B
IBM 1.74 12.06B 33.40B
MSFT 0.19 73.79B 14.76B

E = Earnings Have Been Steady

Earnings and revenue have consistently improved on an annual basis. Notice that Oracle turned a profit in 2008 and 2009. That was no easy feat.

Fiscal Year 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Revenue ($) in millions 22,430 23,252 26,820 35,622 37,121
Diluted EPS ($) 1.06 1.09 1.21 1.67 1.96

Looking at the last quarter on a year-over-year basis, revenue declined and earnings improved. The last quarter wasn’t impressive on a sequential basis. That said, Oracle’s revenue and earnings both tend to fluctuate in a somewhat predictable range. This isn’t a growth play; it’s a slow and steady play. As long as the profits continue to roll in, all is well.

Quarter Feb. 29, 2012 May. 31, 2012 Aug. 31, 2012 Nov. 30, 2012 Feb. 28, 2013
Revenue ($) in millions 9,039 10,916 8,181 9,094 8,958
Diluted EPS ($) 0.49 0.69 0.41 0.53 0.52

Now let's take a look at the next page for the Conclusion. Is this stock an OUTPERFORM, a WAIT AND SEE, or a STAY AWAY?

Conclusion

Oracle has steadily increased revenue and earnings on an annual basis. The stock is trading at 16 times earnings, whereas the industry average is 26 times earnings. The stock is more resilient than most throughout the broader market, margins are high, there is a 0.70 yield, operating cash flow is strong at $13.72 billion, 80 percent of employees approve of CEO Larry Ellison, and analysts love the stock: 27 Buy, 15 Hold, 1 Sell.

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Show Me the Money, Capital Senior Living

Although business headlines still tout earnings numbers, many investors have moved past net earnings as a measure of a company's economic output. That's because earnings are very often less trustworthy than cash flow, since earnings are more open to manipulation based on dubious judgment calls.

Earnings' unreliability is one of the reasons Foolish investors often flip straight past the income statement to check the cash flow statement. In general, by taking a close look at the cash moving in and out of the business, you can better understand whether the last batch of earnings brought money into the company, or merely disguised a cash gusher with a pretty headline.

Calling all cash flows
When you are trying to buy the market's best stocks, it's worth checking up on your companies' free cash flow once a quarter or so, to see whether it bears any relationship to the net income in the headlines. That's what we do with this series. Today, we're checking in on Capital Senior Living (NYSE: CSU  ) , whose recent revenue and earnings are plotted below.

Source: S&P Capital IQ. Data is current as of last fully reported fiscal quarter. Dollar values in millions. FCF = free cash flow. FY = fiscal year. TTM = trailing 12 months.

Over the past 12 months, Capital Senior Living generated $31.4 million cash while it booked a net loss of $5.3 million. That means it turned 9.9% of its revenue into FCF. That sounds OK.

All cash is not equal
Unfortunately, the cash flow statement isn't immune from nonsense, either. That's why it pays to take a close look at the components of cash flow from operations, to make sure that the cash flows are of high quality. What does that mean? To me, it means they need to be real and replicable in the upcoming quarters, rather than being offset by continual cash outflows that don't appear on the income statement (such as major capital expenditures).

For instance, cash flow based on cash net income and adjustments for non-cash income-statement expenses (like depreciation) is generally favorable. An increase in cash flow based on stiffing your suppliers (by increasing accounts payable for the short term) or shortchanging Uncle Sam on taxes will come back to bite investors later. The same goes for decreasing accounts receivable; this is good to see, but it's ordinary in recessionary times, and you can only increase collections so much. Finally, adding stock-based compensation expense back to cash flows is questionable when a company hands out a lot of equity to employees and uses cash in later periods to buy back those shares.

So how does the cash flow at Capital Senior Living look? Take a peek at the chart below, which flags questionable cash flow sources with a red bar.

Source: S&P Capital IQ. Data is current as of last fully reported fiscal quarter. Dollar values in millions. TTM = trailing 12 months.

When I say "questionable cash flow sources," I mean items such as changes in taxes payable, tax benefits from stock options, and asset sales, among others. That's not to say that companies booking these as sources of cash flow are weak, or are engaging in any sort of wrongdoing, or that everything that comes up questionable in my graph is automatically bad news. But whenever a company is getting more than, say, 10% of its cash from operations from these dubious sources, investors ought to make sure to refer to the filings and dig in.

With questionable cash flows amounting to only -4.9% of operating cash flow, Capital Senior Living's cash flows look clean. Within the questionable cash flow figure plotted in the TTM period above, stock-based compensation and related tax benefits provided the biggest boost, at 6.4% of cash flow from operations. Overall, the biggest drag on FCF came from capital expenditures, which consumed 27.9% of cash from operations. Capital Senior Living investors may also want to keep an eye on accounts receivable, because the TTM change is 3.4 times greater than the average swing over the past 5 fiscal years.

A Foolish final thought
Most investors don't keep tabs on their companies' cash flow. I think that's a mistake. If you take the time to read past the headlines and crack a filing now and then, you're in a much better position to spot potential trouble early. Better yet, you'll improve your odds of finding the underappreciated home-run stocks that provide the market's best returns.

Is Capital Senior Living the best health care stock for you? Learn how to maximize your investment income and "Secure Your Future With 9 Rock-Solid Dividend Stocks," including one above-average health care logistics company. Click here for instant access to this free report.

We can help you keep tabs on your companies with My Watchlist, our free, personalized stock tracking service.

Add Capital Senior Living to My Watchlist.

Sunday, April 5, 2015

Brookfield: Pullback creates opportunity

Gordon PapeThe shares of Brookfield Infrastructure Limited Partnership (BIP) recently took a double hit. The first came from an unexpected issue of $341 million worth of new equity at $37.75 (prices in U.S. dollars).

The company vaguely said the money would be used for "investment opportunities, working capital and other general corporate purposes." The shares reacted predictably, retreating to the new issue price. The selling was further exacerbated by the sudden spike in Treasury bond rates.

Meanwhile, the Bermuda-based partnership reported mixed first-quarter results with funds from operations (FFO) totaling $160 million ($0.80 per unit) compared to $108 million ($0.58 per unit) in the first quarter of 2012.

The bad news was the partnership reported a net loss of $28 million for the quarter compared to a profit of $14 million the year before.

Several factors contributed to the loss, the most material of which was breakage costs associated with its Australian Railroad's execution of a long-term financing that capitalized on the historically low interest rate environment.

In a major move, Brookfield announced it is selling its remaining 25% position in Island Timber, a Canadian forestry company, for $170 million.

There was no immediate announcement as to how the proceeds would be used. But combined with the assets from the equity issue, Brookfield now has a substantial war chest available for new acquisitions.

Although the share price was affected by the interest rate spike, this is a security with growth potential. Plus, management has targeted annual distribution increases in the 3% to 7% range and has actually exceeded them so far.

If they are able to attain this goal, the increase in payout will help to cushion Brookfield's share price in a rising rate environment.

At the current price, the shares yield 4.8%, a significant improvement over 4.2% just a few weeks ago. Take advantage of the price pull-back to establish a new position or add to your current one.

Learn more about this financial newsletter at Gordon Pape's The Income Investor.