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“The One Thing Every Energy Company Desperately Needs” Money Map

By Travis Johnson, Stock Gumshoe, October 4, 2008

I started yesterday to look at the latest teaser ad from Keith Fitz-Gerald and his Money Map Report — the basic theme of this ad is that the sovereign wealth funds have tons of cash, and Keith thinks he can predict where that money will go.

He teased three companies in that ad — the first one we looked at yesterday was Precision Drilling Trust (PDS), a Canadian income trust that operates as a contract driller and oilfield services company. You can see that article here if you missed it.

This second one is related to the energy business, too, though it’s in a different neighborhood. Here’s what he tells us in the tease:

“Here’s your opportunity to jump on a diamond in the rough that’s about to go up 498%.

“The company I have my eye on is the largest builder of power networks in the world. But that’s not the point. It also provides essential services and equipment. Without them, ExxonMobil couldn’t get off the ground. Here’s why…

“This company has cornered the market on a new transformer that’s safer than anything currently available. It can be used in all kinds of oil and gas applications: furnace control, surface measurement, offshore installations – you name it.

“In fact, it’s the first and only transformer in the whole world that has a near zero failure rate – 0.001.

“How much do you think companies like PetroChina or ExxonMobil would pay to have this ultra-safe technology working for them? Well, judge for yourself…

“The Chinese government just spent $440 million with this company to build a high-voltage electricity line.

“It will be the largest power link on the planet. It spans 1,240 miles, running from Xiangjiaba dam in the west to Shanghai in the east. Without it, Shanghai’s mighty industries would grind to a screeching halt.

“Besides being the longest transmission line in the world, the link will operate at twice the capacity of any power generator in operation today. This represents the biggest breakthrough in capacity and efficiency in 20 years.”

He also gives a couple clues about specific contracts that have been signed:

Chile just spent $35 million with it to acquire gearless mill drives for their natural resources operations.

“Italy gladly forked over $86 million to have this company design and construct a new oil processing plant in an offshore field.

“Spain just contracted to have Europe’s first large-scale solar energy plant built.

“And this is just the beginning. There are more contracts coming down the pipeline than I can list here – over 27 new contracts worth over half a billion dollars.”

Fitz-Gerald calls his special report about this one the “Power Money Builder” … so what is it?

This spins in the Thinkolator for just a moment before I can reveal that we’re talking about …

ABB (ABB)

I’ve written about this company before — it was a Mark Skousen pick last year, back when the shares looked a little pricey. And to be honest, I was shocked when I looked it up and saw that it’s now trading at less than $18 a share. The ABB name comes from the two companies that formed this massive conglomerate, Asea in Sweden and BBC (Brown Boveri) in Switzerland, and they are primarily known for being the largest supplier of engineering and other services to the world’s electric power companies. Those numbers and contracts mentioned in the tease are accurate, but they do get swallowed pretty quickly by sales that are well over $30 billion a year.

There are certainly reasons why ABB shares have gone down — they are very exposed to the rapid growth of infrastructure around the world, both in developing and developed markets, and they also do a lot of business in services to oil, gas, and mining companies — and we all know the kind of hangover those companies are experiencing with this year’s collapse in commodity prices from their ridiculous highs. All that, and they also design robotics systems for factories, so we’re talking about a lot of cyclical industries.

But still, this does seem a bit overdone. I haven’t researched the company in detail in recent months, but I don’t know of any smoking guns that would cause us to worry seriously about their financial health or long term viability (there may be — you should certainly check if you want to buy shares). And despite the fact that their fates will almost certainly rise and fall to some degree with the level of global economic growth, I would imagine that the desperate need for electrical grid upgrades in the developed world, and for expansion of electricity production in emerging markets, should mean that they will continue to have a pretty solid order book going forward. Their current backlog stands at almost $30 billion, which is impressive but represents only about three quarters of sales at their current pace.

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If you’d like to see the reasoning behind Fitz-Gerald’s recommendation of ABB, it’s probably safe to assume that he’s on the same page as his Money Map colleague Horacio Marquez — you can see a very bullish article about ABB from Horacio here.

So — ABB is certainly a cyclical company, and by most accounts the cycle is painful at the moment. They’re not alone in this, GE and Siemens and the other big energy infrastructure companies have also taken big hits this year. Still, the opportunity to buy ABB at these prices has to be at least a little bit tempting. They are still growing, as of their last quarterly report — double digit growth in revenues, close to 30% earnings growth, enough to get them a decent “grade” from momentum and growth guys like Navellier (he gives it a “B”), but they’re also just plain cheap in many ways. Especially if you think, as many people do, that any slowdown in the economy that significantly slows down US imports is going to cause China’s leaders to flip the switch and start pouring billions more into their infrastructure development, if only to keep the masses employed.

Oh, and if the dollar is going to continue to recover against the euro, the shares could probably get cheaper without the company doing anything. Currency fluctuations can play a pretty big role in ABB’s business, thanks to their global footprint, and in some quarters you’ll see that their performance looks dramatically better in dollars than it does in their local operating currencies, and that can certainly turn around.

So, after doing just a quick fly-over ABB’s numbers, I’m still struck by how cheap the company looks right now. That doesn’t mean that the shares can’t continue to go down, of course — they also looked cheap by many measures back at $25, and at $20 as the financial world fell apart over the Summer. The shares are going for about half the price they commanded back in early June … and they come with a decent dividend yield of about 2.4%. ABB looked awfully expensive when it was trading at a trailing PE of 30, just over a year ago when everyone thought there was no end to the buoyancy of all infrastructure-related stocks … and trading at a PE of 8 or 9 today, it looks foolishly cheap. The analysts are not exactly jumping all over themselves to urge you to buy the shares, but perhaps that’s a good thing — there’s plenty of room for upgrades if folks lose some fear or the world economy doesn’t fall off a cliff (Citi just upgraded them to hold — woohoo!)

I would guess that in a few years we’d look back and see that a price somewhere between the extreme highs of three months ago and today’s price was the “right” one, but in the current environment it’s awfully hard to think of anything that one would find truly shocking.

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elissa S.
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elissa S.
October 4, 2008 12:06 pm

Gumshoe, one more observation about ABB: The previous CEO did an excellent job for ABB, but recently ( within the last six months or so) resigned very suddenly, and so there is new leadership there. Cramer advised dumping ABB until the new management proves itself. While I don’t take much stock in Cramer, he has been known to move markets when his followers sell en masse. Regards. have a great weekend.

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ralph becker
ralph becker
October 4, 2008 12:08 pm

This is not about the above subject. I would like to know what you think about CPST? it looks like a company with a great product,a green product, with plenty of orders and more coming. Only co. I know the turbines have a bearing surface with no lubrication, they use air as a coolant and bearing lubricant and a seeming endless number of maintnance free hours of run time.Lots of happy clients

elissa S.
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elissa S.
October 4, 2008 12:43 pm

Ralph- I believe Capstone hasn’t been profitable. It also has fluctuated from over $4.00 per share to the low $1.00+ level. I believe there is a lot of short selling on this one. They are getting orders and they have little debt, but they are trying to raise capital by issuing an additional 21 mil shares with the warrants , priced at $1.92 per share.
Proceed with caution and best of luck!

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Wave-Rider
Wave-Rider
October 4, 2008 5:13 pm

Hi Gumshoe
ABB started 5 waves up in Jan 2003 – topping at $32 in Nov 07. The 3-wave retracement began then dropping to $25 in Wave A down, rising to $33 in Wave B up and is now dropping in Wave C down – should stop somewhere around the bottom of the 4th wave down on the original upside movement.
It gets tricky here – I am still new to Wave counting and there are retracements in April > June 06 $12 & Jan > March 07 $17 that could be the 4th down.
I am picking the $12 option as the 3rd wave up cannot be the shortest – and if this is the case I would steer clear for a while yet.
We are in a bear market – so unless you are actively trading the swings, buy & hold is going to kill you over the next year or two

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TimothyI
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TimothyI
October 4, 2008 6:26 pm

I agree this stock is undervalued, but I also agree with a target of $11 to 12, based on both Elliott wave analysis and on the target or the double-top pattern formed last fall and this spring. Based on these technicals I’m going to place a limit order at $12.00 and add a stop just below the mid-2006 low of $10.11, then wait for the fundamentals to kick in.

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spreadtrader
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spreadtrader
October 4, 2008 7:52 pm

ABB? This is what I said about the stock in the Gumshoe forum on August 21st:

“If you own this stock, you may want to protect the position with puts. Looks like it could be headed to 17.00, then 13.50. It may bounce up a bit, to say 25.00……but don’t wait too long.”

On September 2nd it traded at 25.25 and closed Friday at 17.70. In this market, 13.50 is a “when” not “if” proposition. So sayeth Fibonacci.

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Myron Martin
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Myron Martin
October 4, 2008 8:17 pm

ABB has been very good to me! It was first recommended in one of the newsletters I subscribe too when it was around $7.00! I sold all but a 100 shares at better than a triple putting the remaining free shares in my RRSP and have twice sold “covered calls” and plan on doing so again. I believe long term prospects for ABB are excellent and the analyst who recommended it was very positive on the management change as he felt the original CEO was far too conservative and not taking advantage of acquisition opportunities..

I would certainly consider buying more if the price drops even further, in fact maybe i will just go ahead and put a $15 limit order in for the next month, doubt I can go wrong long term if it gets filled. Myron martin

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ponce
ponce
October 5, 2008 3:18 am

ABB is my story of “A big Fish That Got Away”. Some 4 years ago I was a subscriber to the OXford Club. ABB was in the Oxford portfolio. I knew ABB is a good company specially when they acquired the T&D division of Westinghouse the main competitor to GE. Their stock then was like penny stock @ around $5. Knowing that ABB is heavy in electric power industry which in the USA is conservative and low growth, I did not buy even though I felt the stock was undervalued. It was my BAD because I did not consider the power growth in developing countries where ABB got a lots of contracts. Well, I’ll keep an eye on that fish.

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Rick
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Rick
October 5, 2008 5:37 am

I’ve read the new CEO of ABB mentioned the possibility of acquiring a few companies. I’ve been following ticker CBE and was wondering if buying a stock which they may acquire might be a better bet. However, right now I see more downside to CBE and ABB as I believe the markets will be heading much lower in the next 2 to 3 weeks. Anyone have any opinions on acquiring stocks like CBE that ABB might acquire and that the new CEO even mentioned that he might acquire? If ABB takes over other companies, is this typically when the parent companies stock price is higher?

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Henry Chakoian
Guest
October 5, 2008 8:45 am

LOts of recos for MLPs for income. Just remember that one of the Pres. candidates pledges to increase corp taxes, ala Canada and income trusts.I feel that the MLPs are in the crosshairs.
Thoughts?

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Yelsew
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Yelsew
October 6, 2008 7:22 pm

This “new” transformer they are talking about is actually a pretty neat item. It is an adjustable frequency transformer that will/can be used in place of the HVDC inter ties that are required to tie the out of sync grids together. They can also be used in areas that have severe freq differentials and keep the voltage supported. Now how much business will this equate to?? in the U.S. I can’t see it as huge, there are less than a dozen HVDC inter ties that I am aware of, but if they use them to open the transmission grid in more points than they have now?? might be that it impacts the bottom line. Many utilities are very interested in the technology as it would be a perfect fit to quickly open up access to the transmission grids. Of course I am usually wrong on these things, so I would just ignore my comments.

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