Annual Review
by Travis Johnson, Stock Gumshoe | January 23, 2015 10:50 pm
Taking a quick look and updating my thoughts on (almost) every stock in the "Gumshoe Universe"
This is premium content. To view this article (and to have full access to the rest of our articles), sign up. Already a member? Log in.
Source URL: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/2015/01/annual-review/
Thanks for covering Google, very helpful info and analysis. Google already looked great to me because of their acquisitions of small robotics companies – that’s an industry I want to be heavily invested in. It’s been pointed out that the software networking between robotic devices will be just as important as the robots/devices themselves – and who has better expertise in networking than Google?
Only the price was holding me back, but suddenly it doesn’t look so expensive.
Travis,
Thanks for the superb update as always. I had a fairly large position in MIL which I closed out in June/July for a 3.69% loss. Had a smaller stake in ARCO which I closed out in Aug for a 2.5% loss. Understandable what impacted the share value for both and MIL currently looks attractive , but I think I will stay away for now since I certainly had higher hopes for MIL’s model than what has panned out. I can be patient but MIL is a big underachiever compared to potential in my view.
V/R
Tom
Excellent update on the stockgumshoe universe. May we please also have an update on URS corporation suggested last year as idea of the months. It recently got acquired and has been renamed AECOMM. Would appreciate your analysis of this one
Hello Travis,
In the last few weeks MPW had a secondary offering and dilution of 20%.
Normally this has a negative impact on share price but in this case the share price increased. Any idea what is happening with them?
I believe the secondary was to pay down debt and thus reducing rate height risk but I am only speculating. Can you slueth this out gumshoe style?
As always i apprecaite your thoughts
The secondary was to pay for their big acquisition in Germany, mostly, and it priced very well so it didn’t hurt the shares at all. REITs can’t reinvest their own income, so they have to either borrow (and MPW is near their self-set leverage limit) or issue equity of they want to grow.
Thanks for the update, I actually posted a question about MIL’s nosedive yesterday as I can see no real reason for it’s decline. Thanks for as close to an answer as can be gotten, it’s tough when you see a position you hold is down 40%(not to mention my SAND position that’s down 27%!) but I’ve been there before & have learned the value of patience.
Hello Travis,
I am a new subscriber and I am quite impressed by your transparency
and honest opinion. Your update is excellent and useful.
I would be grateful if you could update also your ETFs and funds.
I think you would have more Irregular Members if you could discuss also investing in ETFs, especially sectors, countries, commodity ETFs, which seems to be
less risky in long terms than stocks
Andrew
Great work Travis….v reassuring analysis.
Travis,
Why no update on SAND here?
Thanks,
– Yogi.
There are a few that I didn’t get to, including Sandstorm Gold (SAND) — will cover those this week. I last wrote about SAND in detail here last Fall, though the price of gold has changed things somewhat since. The major hope seems to be that gold sentiment will bounce back strongly enough for someone to rescue Luna Gold, their biggest stream provider, which is in slowdown mode (processing ore, but not mining) and a bit of a mystery until they release more detailed information, probably in March.
Great to see review for these stocks. I would like to know about AECOM, previously URS corp which you suggested as idea of the month in August 2014. What are your thoughts on their current situation. I think present company is poised for growth, and hence has good prospects. But not sure about how the global economy will effect its business. Would appreciate your views.
Sorry repeating myself here in case you missed my comment earlier.
Now AXS is buying PartnerRe — getting more scale in the reinsurance business. If this were driving the shares down I’d be tempted, but it’s driving up the shares of both companies — I don’t see it as particularly great news, since AXS insurance business seems much more appealing than their reinsurance business, and what has effectively happened so far is that AXS shares are moving up a bit because they’re buying PartnerRe at about 80% of book and investors are anticipating that the combined company will trade closer to book value than that, as AXS has for the past couple of years.
This is somewhat similar to the Markel/Alterra deal a couple years ago that worked out well for Markel even as it increased their reinsurance exposure, but in that case MKL’s real advantage was that they were getting Alterra’s massive portfolio of investments, including the float, and could invest that portfolio much better than Alterra did. No such advantage for AXS/Partner Re, I don’t think, they’re both pretty similar in investment management…. and, perhaps more importantly, the announcement of the deal drove Markel shares down sharply and created a bargain. The announcement of this deal is driving AXS shares up. I don’t know that this is enough reason to sell, but it takes away any temptation I have to buy AXS… at least until I look into the details of the merger more closely and see if there’s something attractive that I haven’t come across just yet.
Sheesh, more updates! Cielo down a bit on the back of a reduced forecast for Brazil GDP growth, since their business trends should be a pretty accurate reflection of the level of consumer economic activity in the country (though I’d argue that the transition to electronic payments helps them a little bit even if growth in overall economic activity slows). Article here, FYI: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-26/ibovespa-falls-with-ambev-as-analysts-cut-brazil-growth-forecast.html
And once their actual numbers came out yesterday (Reuters article here), pretty limited impact on shares despite the fact that results were slightly worse than analysts had expected (though still growing profits). The shares bumped up a wee bit after the conference call this morning, haven’t listened to it yet but it must have been relatively positive.
Sandstorm Gold -T-SSL – Update
http://goldinvestingnews.com/49122/sandstorm-gold-10-royalties-tarsis-tcc-orezone-gold-ore-castle-peak-mining-cap.html?pmc=E-1&MyID=
FYI, Ligand is flying today because of the latest news about Kyprolis from Amgen (Kyprolis better than Velcade, which is a $2.5 billion drug that loses patent protection in a couple years) — Kyprolis is Ligand’s second most important product, they receive a royalty on Kyprolis because Kyprolis is Captisol-enabled. The royalty tops out at 3% for sales over $750 million… starts at 1.5% for sales of $250 million and scales up, Ligand is counting on Kyprolis continuing to advance and (they hope) eventually becoming a front-line treatment for multiple myeloma.