Predicting Friday’s Pick by a Newsletter of “one of the truly great businesses”

by Travis Johnson, Stock Gumshoe | September 5, 2012 12:09 pm

Dan Ferris says, "If I could only own one business for the rest of my life, this might be it."

It’s probably no surprise that the Stansberry & Associates newsletters probably get more attention from Stock Gumshoe than most of the others — they’re right up there with the Motley Fool[1] when it comes to the size of their mailing lists and the response from our readers to their promos, so everything they do and everything they push tends to float to the top of our our “to do” list … if for no other reason than that more Gumshoe readers are asking about these promos than any others.

So today we’re looking at another teaser from the Stansberry folks — but this time it’s a bit different. Dan Ferris[2] runs the Extreme Value[3] newsletter for Stansberry, which is, as you’ve probably guessed, a value-focused letter, and he often has picked stocks I’ve liked in the past … and this week, in letters to current Stansberry subscribers, he’s been teasing his next pick without the high-hype video “presentation” that we usually get.

He makes the point that he’s been reluctant to add new picks to the Extreme Value portfolio because his standards are so stringent — he says he’s only recommended two new stocks in this newsletter all year. And that he’s got a new one to recommend to his readers in the issue that will come out on Friday.

And then, of course, he throws out enough clues to tantalize us just a wee bit, and to get folks interested in signing up for a subscription to his $1,000 letter. So since even his own subscribers don’t know what the pick is yet, we can try to really challenge the Thinkolator and see if we can predict what his pick will be … let it never be said that your friendly neighborhood Gumshoe turned down a challenge!

Here are the clues we get in Ferris’ note, which follows a brief musing about the importance of “intangible” assets, using the example of Apple and essentially (though not in so many words) making the point that powerful companies with staying power have powerful market position, brands, loyal customers and other irreplaceable assets, even if those assets aren’t necessarily things that could be easily quantified or broken up or melted down:

“… the most valuable type of asset โ€“ and the best vehicle for compounding wealth at high rates of return for a long, long time โ€“ is a business that sells a highly valuable and desirable intangible.

“And I’ve found just such a company for my Extreme Value subscribers….

“I’ve been watching this company for years. And it had always been too expensive to recommend, until now….

“It consistently generates 30%-plus returns on capital (adjusted for excess cash)…

“It gushes free cash flow and requires little reinvestment to keep it growing at a double-digit annual rate…

“It has raised its dividend every year for almost two decades. For the last 10 years, the dividend has grown more than 20% a year…

“It has no debt and more than $1 billion in cash…

“Employee compensation is uniquely structured to inspire great performance… and it works…

“In short, this is my dream business. If I could only own one business for the rest of my life, this might be it.”

So what is it? That’s a fairly tough list of clues, but I’ve got it narrowed down a bit … and then he throws out a couple more tidbits:

“This one-of-a-kind company dominates its industry in two important ways that will hold the competition at bay and keep it in the No. 1 spot for a long time.

“It’s one of the greatest wealth-generators on the planetโ€ฆ growing shareholder net worth at more than 17% a year for a decade. It generates almost $3 of market cap for every $1 of earnings it has retained during that time. It’s like a bank account that safely triples your money every 10 years.

“And the price is finally right. This business normally trades at sky-high earnings multiples because everyone knows it’s highly valuable. But now, investors have become skeptical about the global economy… the 2012 presidential election… rising taxes… the European crisis… and China[4]’s economic slowdown…

“So the valuation has fallen to its lowest level in 15 years. Investors don’t understand how none of this matters. This business will seem like the greatest bargain on Earth in another couple years.”

What, then, will Ferris be picking next time around? Well, I have to admit up front that due to the squishiness of some of those clues we’ll have to still call this one a guess, but the top contender identified by the Thinkolator to be this pick is … Expeditors International of Washington (EXPD)[5]

Why EXPD? Well, it has indeed been a dominant company in its little niche of freight forwarding and services for many years, and it has grown the dividend by an average of better than 20% a year for a decade, with raises every year for “almost 20 years” (17 years now), it does have about a billion dollars in cash and no debt, it has been expensive for a long time but has never been as cheap as it is today, it does have a unique compensation system that has served them very well … and, to top it off a bit, I’m sure this high-return, high-multiple business has been staring Dan Ferris in the face and frustrating him with its persistent high valuation for many years, since it’s headquartered not too far from his home turf in the Pacific Northwest. There are some other companies that come close to matching Ferris’ clues, including Caterpillar (CAT)[6], but none that I’ve sifted through match as well as EXPD.

I can tell you that the stock has also tempted me for a long time, but in the past I always found it too expensive to consider — so I appreciate Ferris calling it to my attention with this tease (assuming I’m right about his pick), since I hadn’t noticed the downturn in the share price and the valuation this year.

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Expeditors does something that seems like it should be a simple, commoditized business — it does freight forwarding and express shipping and customs management for its customers, who include manufacturers and infrastructure companies and any number of other folks who need to move stuff around the world but who can’t or don’t want to efficiently deal with managing the logistics themselves. That might mean someone shipping a bridge span from Chicago to Shanghai, someone who wants to move half a container of furniture from Indonesia[7] to New York City, a manufacturer that needs to efficiently ship thousands of laptops overnight around the country, or pretty much anything you can imagine. Here’s how they describe themselves on their website:

“Expeditors is a global logistics company headquartered in Seattle, Washington. As a Fortune 500 company, we employ over 13,000 trained professionals in a worldwide network of over 250 locations across six continents. Expeditors satisfies the increasingly sophisticated needs of international trade through customized solutions and seamless, integrated information systems. Our services include air and ocean freight consolidation and forwarding, vendor consolidation, customs clearance, cargo insurance, distribution and other value added logistics services.”

The unique compensation structure is a system that incentivizes their regional and local office staff and management both by using commissions, and by using each office’s earnings to set bonuses for the local workers. So local employees are highly incentivized both to bring in new shipping customers in their local area, and to keep existing customers happy and using EXPD services more heavily. This isn’t a breakthrough in compensation, obviously, but it does bring incentives for the whole company in line with what the company needs to grow and perform, with great clarity for everyone involved, and it’s apparently unique in the industry.

Expeditor’s also does a better job than most companies of interacting with investors — including frank commentary from management, and published answers to questions from regular investors, you can get an idea of their filings and commentary from the recent items published on their investor relations page[8].

Expeditors is indeed in a cyclical industry — they ship stuff around the world, so when business is good for the world their business grows, and when trade slows their business becomes more challenging. Given their history of consistently increasing cash flow and managing through several weak trading environments in the past (their only dip in free cash flow and earnings in the past decade came in 2009, and bounced back to growth immediately), and the fact that they are currently as cheap as I’ve ever seen them (they’re still priced at a premium to the market, but I’ve never noticed them having a forward PE below 20 before), I’ve bought a few shares of this myself and will start watching it more closely — so this one will go into my personal portfolio right now.

This is not the kind of tiny stock that I would expect to get a bump from either this note or from Ferris’ recommendation (assuming the Thinkolator’s guess is correct on this one), but just in case I’ll clarify that I will not only not trade these shares for the requisite three days (that’s my general rule) but I will promise to hold these for at least a week to make sure I don’t benefit from any possible bounce — that’s just to ease your mind, I have no intention of selling the stock and will be watching it in the coming quarters to see if the company continues to do as well as it has for the past 20 years, with an eye toward building this into a larger position someday.

Endnotes:
  1. Motley Fool: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/motley-fool/
  2. Dan Ferris: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/dan-ferris/
  3. Extreme Value: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/extreme-value/
  4. China: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/china/
  5. Expeditors International of Washington (EXPD): https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/expd/
  6. Caterpillar (CAT): https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/cat/
  7. Indonesia: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/indonesia/
  8. investor relations page: http://investor.expeditors.com/index.asp

Source URL: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/reviews/extreme-value/predicting-fridays-pick-by-a-newsletter-of-one-of-the-truly-great-businesses/


43 responses to “Predicting Friday’s Pick by a Newsletter of “one of the truly great businesses””

  1. Fabian says:

    Look at HR comment about the letter on the right pane; watch the trend. Don’t buy now.

  2. Sharon Logue says:

    I use Vector Vest a lot to get a good feel about a stock, and have to admit, they are really good at keeping me out of bad trades. One of the mantras they beat into subscribers is never buy stocks going down. EXPD has 2 strong resistance lines overhead at 36.83 and 37.07. ADX is at 17.90, so I would wait until this one shows some strength; and it may punch out a double bottom at 34.21 before it reverses again.
    If they can use the Panama Canal 2014 open for larger ships, as a strategic advantage, and port on the East Coast, they may be well be able gain some traction. Right now Vector Vest rates them as a Hold with a 34.20 stop at 2% growth a year. A new entry into this category is STB, Student Transportation; it may be interesting to watch both of these for 3-6 months.
    Vector Vest rates RRTS and CHRW much higher in this industry.

  3. Anonymous Questions says:

    When does Ferris release his pick on Friday?

  4. Venture Shadow says:

    On one hand you missed it, Gummy. One the other hand I prefer your pick. Dan’s pick has no moat or any clear uniqueness. It must have uniqueness to succeed as it has, but the nature is not apparent.

    So I congratulate you for outdoing Dan. Yay, Gummy!!

  5. seamles says:

    When is your personal portfolio updated with new buys? I just checked and didn’t see EXPD on it. Just curious. Thanks!

  6. apl16 says:

    Hey, Travis;
    I hope your time off was fun and relaxing.
    Do you have an estimate of the growth of EXPD?…..BTW, I’ve owned STB for about a year. It is a rather straight forward business in my thinking, with a good dividend.
    So far, so good.
    Off topic, A nice little bump for Africa Oil this morning. Any reason for it, Travis?

    John

  7. sooku says:

    Maybe the stock is down on concerns about decline in imports as US manufacturing supposedly takes off again? If that is the case, this is definitely a buying opportunity.

  8. tomt says:

    These picks by Dan Ferris are great as long as you don’t mind having your portfolio based in US dollars going forward. The world economic stats are not encouraging for this stock near term. Seems like debasing currencies and accruing greater debts has not work out as hoped.
    I expect the majority of folks feel differently or indifferently about our economic future, and like Dan, assume the rest of the world will always welcome more MCD, WMT , and other US “world dominators”. I’m not as confident in this expectation as I am that other nations desire their own successes. That said EXPD seems very well positioned in world trade, and
    patience may provide a compelling price for this enterprise.

  9. George says:

    “If I could only use one stock evaluating service for the rest of my life, this might be it.” ๐Ÿ˜‰

  10. karwil says:

    Hi there,
    sorry, but im a bit confused. What is this stock evaluation service you are talking about?

  11. Ed says:

    I ran a 3, 2, 1 year and ytd chart on EXPD VS AGNC and AGNC handily beat it in all cases. Not included was the hefty dividend that AGNC pays each quarter, $1.25. I am long in AGNC and will stay with it.

  12. SAGACIOUS says:

    I subscribe to Ferris’s 12% letter. He is a conservative investor with solid picks, emphasizing WDDG’s–World Dominator Dividend Growing stocks. He was right on his advice to hold Walmart, when the masses began to flee in the face of its Mexican scandal, as Walmart has soared to new highs after only a brief dip on that bad news. I’d rate his low end newsletter as one of the better financial advisories for people looking for slow, but consistent, long-term wealth building. However, one of the guiding principles at Stansberry is making money on stocks that go “from worse to bad”, which requires a distinct and sustained uptrend after hitting new lows, so if this trend is not yet in place for EXPD (and the thinkolater is correct), I would concur with those who recommend waiting until that trend is indeed in place before investing.

  13. Lorne Cutler says:

    Dan Ferris says, “If I could only own one business for the rest of my life, this might be it”

    So what’s to stop Mr. Ferris from never owning another business for the rest of his life. No one forces you to buy stocks. I know from listening to the election news that there are some weird laws in the U.S. but I am not aware of one that makes you buy multiple stocks on an ongoing basis. Pony up Mr. Ferris and don’t buy another stock and sell whatever else you have!

  14. Anonymous Questions says:

    You sent me this about EXPD on the same day I got this :

    http://www.investorplace.com/2012/09/stocks-to-sell-cgnx-expd-gs-intc-lsi-mrk/3/

    Some buy, some sell, I guess that’s what make a market

  15. Stocks like EXPD are tough to gauge and trade. Possibly a better trade for EXPD would be to consider options. EXPD has an excellent history but presently the chart looks like a very long decline in progress. In 2009 at the height of the “end of the world” EXPD traded to around $24.00. For those interested in owning shares an easy put credit spread of selling the Jan $35 put for $1.45 or higher on weakness in the stock and then buying the Jan $27.50 put for .30 cents would put them in the stock at $33.85 which would be a new low for the past few years. With a dividend of $1.12 currently that would work out to 3.3%. By doing small positions, an investor could work toward building up a larger position in EXPD if they believe the stock will make a comeback in the new year. By taking your time and continually following the movement in the stock (ie stock moves higher buy the put protection side of the credit spread, stock moves lower sell the put credit side for best premiums) an investor could built a nice and continually lower valuation position.
    For those who are convinced the stock is going to move a lot lower they could do a call credit spread and sell the Jan $40 call for 1.30 and buy the Jan $45 for .25 cents. It all depends on your goal and outlook. Think the stock is heading lower, play the calls, think it is moving back up, play the puts.
    By doing spreads you use very little capital and you know your risk up front. There’s a lot of profit potential in the stock and it just depends on the outlook of the investor.
    All my trades are on my website at fullyinformed.com
    Teddi Knight

  16. John M. Chenosky, PE says:

    EXPD??? Word Dominator entry at P/E 22.68 and 1.5% dividend, I think not!!
    Too many at higher dividends like a new choice of mine, Conoco/Phillips, COP, over 5% at my entry of ( $54.68 ).
    I am a retired engineer not a stock broker. And I need two (2) rolls of paper before I take a stock dump.
    COP is a womb to tomb OIL DOMINATOR which in my opinion as a ChE is now the preferred way in this market. I’ve been wrong before, but I think this is a great company and a stock to hold for the foreseeable future.

  17. Jack Kelleher says:

    Did anyone find out what stock Mr. Ferris actually did pick?

  18. jay_ says:

    Check out this “Six stocks to sell”, includes EXPD.

    http://investorplace.com/2012/09/stocks-to-sell-cgnx-expd-gs-intc-lsi-mrk/3/

    Just thought you would find it interesting.

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