I’m always interested to see what kind of big-growth ideas are being teased, particularly in a market that already feels so expensive, so a Cabot pitch caught my eye again this week — this time it’s from Mike Cintolo for Cabot Growth Investor, and this is what grabbed my attention:
“My Expectation: A 25% Jump on Earnings and a Double in the Next 12 Months”
That sounds good, right? The push is that you need to be in before earnings are announced, because the company is “set to jump on earnings again” like they did last quarter. So what’s the stock.
Play along and see if you can ID it…
“… this company’s big data has THREE MAJOR advantages over its competitors by being able to:
“1. Directly target potential customers wants and needs
“2. Personalize advertisements to both their current customers and future ones
“3. Tap into over 2 billion customers
“All with just a few clicks of a mouse—and without any programming needed of any kind.
“Which is why the company’s stock price has risen 352% since we added it to our holdings four years ago.”
Other clues about this “big data juggernaut” that Cintolo says is “rocket-fueled?” Here you go:
“In June, the company not only registered 45% revenue and 69% earnings growth but also registered its fourth earnings surprise in a row—stunning Wall Street again.
“… the stock has registered gains of 46% year to date.
“On top of that, 37 top analysts raised their earnings expectations for both 2017 and 2018—giving it one of the strongest BUY ratings on Wall Street.”
OK, so clearly this isn’t a secret contrarian idea — most companies don’t have anywhere near 37 analysts following them — but that’s no surprise, Cabot’s strategies mostly focus on growth and momentum, and those stocks are always pretty well known, the only “secret” is that you have to “buy high” and “sell higher” instead of trying to buy low, since they never get really cheap.
So which one is this? It is, you’ll be un-shocked to hear, Facebook (FB)… which certainly has just about as much data as anyone (with the possible exception of Alphabet), though it’s rarely referred to as a “big data” company. Yes, Facebook did grow revenue by 45% in the June quarter (announced in late July), and earnings per share were up 69% (overall earnings ...