Saturday, August 2, 2014

Top Industrial Disributor Companies To Own In Right Now

Since 1991, Fidelity Charitable has made more than $14 billion in grants to some 160,000 nonprofit organizations recommended by account holders in its national donor-advised fund program.

On Monday, the organization issued a report detailing the demographics and giving patterns of some 94,000 individuals who advise on DAFs at Fidelity.

At present, Fidelity’s DAF program has 57,774 giving accounts, many of which have more than one individual with advisory privileges. Donors come from all 50 states, and range in age from 20 to 100.

The average primary account holder is 62 years old and sets up an account at age 54. Forty percent of donors have maintained a giving account for more than a decade, and 13% have had an account at least 15 years.

In 2012, donors recommended grants totaling $1.6 billion across all charitable sectors. The number of grants per giving account averaged about seven. The average grant size was $3,773, though more than $900 million was granted in amounts of $50,000 or more. 

Top 10 Gold Stocks For 2015: Copart Inc. (CPRT)

Copart, Inc. provides online auctions and vehicle remarketing services in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The company offers a range of services for processing and selling vehicles over the Internet through its Virtual Bidding Second Generation Internet auction-style sales technology, to vehicle sellers, primarily insurance companies, banks and financial institutions, charities, car dealerships, fleet operators, and vehicle rental companies. Its services include online seller access, salvage estimation services, estimating services, end-of-life vehicle processing, virtual insured exchange, transportation services, vehicle inspection stations, on-demand reporting, DMV processing, flexible vehicle processing programs, member network, sales process, dealer services, direct services, and u-pull-it services, as well as CoPartfinder, an Internet-based used vehicle parts locator that provides vehicle dismantlers with resale opportunities for their purchases. Th e company sells its products to licensed vehicle dismantlers, rebuilders, repair licensees, used vehicle dealers, and exporters, as well as the general public. Copart, Inc. was founded in 1982 and is headquartered in Fairfield, California.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Geoff Gannon] wo companies in its industry that are public. The other company is part of a kind of conglomerate car sales company. That other company, KAR Auction Services (KAR), was much more explicit in detailing the competitive position of Copart and Insurance Auto Auctions. It even gave market share data.

    This is common. Often one company will choose not to give names or put percentages on certain competitive facts. The other company will do so. And even when that is not the case, the two companies will often make statements that ��when taking together ��can give you rough indications of certain realities that neither company entirely intended to provide.

    The same is true for certain suppliers and customers. Although this is complicated by size. Very large customers of small companies are not good sources of information. But smaller companies often provide better insights into the larger suppliers, customers, etc., they deal with. That's because ��due to their small size ��more information is material and is explained in detail.

    I have found situations where one company simply says who the customer is that they are supplying. While the other company explains what product that supply goes into, the purchase amount, whether it is an exclusive arrangement, etc.

    So it is always important to ��at a minimum ��read the 10-Ks, 14As, and (where available) S-1s of every public company in the industry. This will give you a lot of insight into the competitive situation. Sometimes it is helpful to also look at customers and suppliers. However, this is not true of very large customers and suppliers because they will not discuss the specific area you are interested in.

    For example, Honeywell is a large customer of George Risk. It would do me no good to study Honeywell to learn about George Risk. Honeywell is a huge company. What they buy from George Risk is irrelevant to their shareholders. So they do not discuss it.

    An exception to this is

  • [By Geoff Gannon] t business. If you haven�� read about it, you should look into it. It�� a good name to know in the event stocks fall at some point in the future and offer you a chance to buy at a good P/E.

    Anyway, Copart sells cars. That�� all it does. It has a tiny bit of the business in the UK that involves buying and selling cars. But normally it�� not a principal. It�� just an agent. A broker. It doesn�� ship cars. It doesn�� buy cars. It just stores and sells cars. Copart is a great business. This is especially true because they achieve very high returns on their net tangible investment even though they choose to own rather than leases most of their locations. They own acres and acres and acres of land on which they store cars. You can find the addresses for their locations on their website (each car has a location associated with it that will pop up if you click on the car). Copy and paste that location into Google Earth. You��l be amazed at what you see. Anyway, they carry all this land which they then cover in cars and still they earn good returns on their tangible investment in the business without relying on the use of a lot of leases. So, it�� a very good and very interesting business.

    Now, if I said Copart sold cars, you�� probably think that their revenues and earnings and free cash flow should rise and fall with U.S. car sales.

    If you look at the past 10 years for Copart and for U.S. auto sales you��l see this is not true. Not even a little bit.

    Why is this?

    Well, there�� this one tiny little detail I hid from you about Copart. Copart doesn�� sell new cars. Copart doesn�� sell used cars. Copart sells wrecked cars. They sell salvage.

    So, if you think of Copart as being in the auto retail business ��which they obviously are ��you��l have an entirely incorrect understanding of the company. That�� true even if you understand the wider industry of car dealers pretty well. Copart sells cars. But they

  • [By Geoff Gannon]

    The same rule applies here that I mentioned with Copart (CPRT) in an earlier article. Although Wal-Mart is an inferior business to Copart from a pure ROI standpoint, it�� still earning good returns on its investment.

  • [By Geoff Gannon] facility. They have to either buy somebody out (in which case you might not penalize them in free cash flow) or buy and develop a new salvage yard from scratch (in which case, almost all FCF calculations will punish them for this cap-ex).

    But, if you really believe that Copart can achieve anything like a 27% return on net tangible assets (my estimate of what they��e done in the past) ��should you be penalizing them at all?

    Isn�� a $1 increase in inventory, receivables, and/or land that is going to earn 27 cents a year worth every bit as much as if it was paid out to you (or was sitting in cash at a bank)?

    So, aren�� earnings for a company that earns a 20%+ return on tangible investment clearly worth every bit as much as free cash flow?

    I would say yes. If and only if you believe the future return on the earnings retained by the business today (the marginal return) is in a sense comparable to the average return in the past.

    Don�� confuse how fast a car is moving at this instant with how much distance it�� covered in the past hour.

    The past average is just the past average. It is not the same as what the company will earn on the next dollar of capital it puts into the business.

    But it can be used as a guide. Especially for wide moat businesses.

    Like any rough guide ��you want to leave a big margin of safety. So, if you think you can make 10% on the money in your brokerage account and the company you are investing in has an average unleveraged return on tangible net assets of 12% - that�� pretty much a wash. I can�� say that money is better off with the company than it is with you. And I think ��absent tax concerns ��it would make perfect sense to hope the company paid that cash out to you.

    At a 20% unleveraged return on tangible net assets I�� feel differently. The evidence points to the company having a better chance to earn more on the capital inside the business than you�� be able to ea

Top Industrial Disributor Companies To Own In Right Now: Cleveland BioLabs Inc.(CBLI)

Cleveland BioLabs, Inc., a biotechnology company, engages in the discovery, development, and commercialization of products for cancer treatment, and protection of normal tissues from radiation and other acute stresses. Its products include Protectan CBLB502, a radioprotectant molecule with multiple medical and defense applications for reducing injury from acute stresses, such as radiation and chemotherapy by mobilizing various natural cell protecting mechanisms, including inhibition of apoptosis, reduction of oxidative damage, and induction of factors that induce protection and regeneration of stem cells in bone marrow and the intestines; Protectan CBLB612, a modified lipopeptide mycoplasma that acts as a stimulator and mobilizer of hematopoietic stem cells to peripheral blood, providing hematopoietic recovery during chemotherapy and during donor preparation for bone marrow transplantation; and Curaxins, which are small molecules intended to destroy tumor cells by simultan eously targeting two regulators of apoptosis. The company has a strategic research partnership with Roswell Park Cancer Institute to develop its anticancer and radioprotectant drug candidates; a strategic partnership with ChemBridge Corporation to access a chemical library of 214,000 compounds; and a strategic alliance with The Cleveland Clinic Foundation (CCF). It also has a cooperative research and development agreement with the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences; the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc.; and CCF to evaluate its radioprotective drug candidates and their effects on intracellular and extracellular signaling pathways. The company was founded in 2003 and is headquartered in Buffalo, New York.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Lisa Levin]

    Cleveland BioLabs (NASDAQ: CBLI) plummeted 32.65% to $0.7610 as the company reported that BARDA has terminated negotiations related to its proposal for further development of Entolimod.

  • [By Lisa Levin]

    Cleveland BioLabs (NASDAQ: CBLI) shares tumbled 34.67% to touch a new 52-week low of $0.74 as the company reported that BARDA has terminated negotiations related to its proposal for further development of Entolimod.

Top Industrial Disributor Companies To Own In Right Now: First Solar Inc.(FSLR)

First Solar, Inc. manufactures and sells solar modules using a thin-film semiconductor technology. It also designs, constructs, and sells photovoltaic solar power systems. The company?s solar modules employ a thin layer of semiconductor material to convert sunlight into electricity. Its integrated solar power systems activities include the project development; engineering, procurement, and construction services; operating and maintenance services; and project finance. The company sells solar modules to project developers, system integrators, and operators of renewable energy projects; and solar power systems to investor owned utilities, independent power developers and producers, and commercial and industrial companies, as well as other system owners. It operates in the United States, Germany, France, Canada, and internationally. The company was formerly known as First Solar Holdings, Inc. and changed its name to First Solar, Inc. in 2006. First Solar was founded in 1999 a nd is headquartered in Tempe, Arizona.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Bill Maurer]

    First Solar (FSLR):

    First Solar makes this list both for its latest update as well as the long-term trend. Another 2.35 million shares short were covered since the last update. In the past 11 months, more than 20.6 million shares have been covered, nearly 65% of the peak value. Short interest in First Solar is at its lowest point in a year and a half, as you can see from the chart below.

  • [By Tyler Crowe]

    If we were to pinpoint a company that�embodies�this�success�as of late, it's First Solar (NASDAQ: FSLR  ) . It just sold a 139 megawatt facility to�utility�giant -- and large coal consumer -- Southern (NYSE: SO  ) , and recently signed a power purchase deal with El Paso Electric (NYSE: EE  ) that will supply El Paso with electricity for half what it pays for power from coal. These deals also come with the announcement that the company upped guidance earlier in April which sent share prices up by 46% in one day.�

Top Industrial Disributor Companies To Own In Right Now: Key Tronic Corporation(KTCC)

Key Tronic Corporation, doing business as KeyTronicEMS Co., together with its subsidiaries, provides electronic manufacturing services (EMS) to original equipment manufacturers primarily in the United States, Mexico, and China. Its EMS services include product design, surface mount technologies for printed circuit board assembly, tool making, precision plastic molding, liquid injection molding, automated tape winding, prototype design, and full product builds. The company also manufactures keyboards and other input devices for personal computers. Key Tronic markets its products and services primarily through its direct sales department aided by field sales people and distributors. The company was founded in 1968 and is headquartered in Spokane Valley, Washington.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Lisa Levin]

    Computer Peripherals: This industry rose 2.21% by 10:15 am ET. The top performer in this industry was Key Tronic (NASDAQ: KTCC), which gained 0.3%. Key Tronic's trailing-twelve-month ROE is 14.57%.

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