Caliper Life Sciences (CALP: 6.36 0.00 0.00%) recently announced preliminary financial results that breathed some life into the stock. Estimates are moving higher as a result.
CALP currently has a Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) and continues to expand into new markets.
Company Description
Caliper Life Sciences develops advanced instruments and outsourcing services for pharmaceutical, biotech and other research institutions and companies.Positive Announcement
On Jan 13 Caliper released preliminary fourth-quarter results that made investors quite happy. Revenue came in at $36 million, which brings the full-year mark to $124 million. That is a 10% organic growth rate.
Caliper's gross margin expanded by over 800 bps, allowing them to surpass goals for 2010. The company raised its 2011 guidance and is now expecting the top line to improve 12-20%.
Estimates Move Higher
Both analysts polled by Zacks raised their full-year estimates for this year on the news. Caliper is expected to break even this year; up from a 9-cent loss they were expecting 3 months ago.
Next year's forecasts are averaging 3 cents, up from a 2-cent loss. While the earnings figures are not impressive on the surface, the upward momentum is encouraging. In 2009 Caliper lose 12 cents.
M&A Activity
On Dec 21 Caliper said it completed a previously announce deal to acquire Cambridge Research & Instrumentation, Inc for $20 million in cash, assumed debt and common stock. The move will help Caliper break into the tissue imaging and digital pathology market.
The Chart
The recent news and raised guidance gave shares of CALP a jolt. There is a level of resistance here, but given the upward estimate revisions there is a good chance that we see a new high soon.
Print 
PDF US Listed Japan ETF’s Not as Cheap as You ThinkInvesting in Japan has been on my mind the past week, but so has the crowd. What this means is that American investors have not been fleeing.A quick way to judge this is to simply compare the drop of the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) Index compared to the ETF’s that trade on the US exchange.The first three days following the disaster, the TSE fell 22%. Compare this to the iShares MSCI Japan Index (EWJ) which fell around 12%. Small cap Japanese ETF’s JSC, SCJ and DFJ fell roughly 14% a piece.This is a big disparity and shows that the crowd is very willing to pick up shares in Japan.Despite the 14% fall, the current prices really only go back to Dec 2010 levels which is not cheap to begin with. Add the currency risk into current prices, and Japan is not the bargain you think.Are Japanese Stocks Cheap for US Investors?As a quick example, assume that Panasonic (PC), at the 52 week high price of $16, is fairly valued. The point of this exercise will be to see whether current prices reflect value for US investors. I am not able to purchase stocks off the TSE and my assumption is that most people cannot as well.Geoff Gannon made a great point about currency risk and how the overvalued Yen affects an investment.How?Currently, 1 USD will get you 80 Yen but by looking at the conversion rate over the past 2 years, it looks like the appropriate rate should be 1 USD for 95 Yen.Geoff took the normal rate to be 1 USD : 109 Yen, so my value is even more conservative.Using the 95 Yen value, the Yen at the moment is 19% overvalued. In other words, Japanese stocks could lose 15% of its value simply based on currency conversion alone.Apply this 15% drop to Panasonic and the theoretical fair value comes out to $13.60. At the current price of $12, the potential upside for Panasonic is 13%. Not the best opportunity you may have been thinking about.If you include a 25% margin of safety, since EVERY investment requires a margin of safety, then the buy price is $10 which Panasonic does not satisfy.Japan has Historically been CheapYou could argue that the original fair value of $16 for Panasonic is much to low to begin with. If I perform the above calculation in reverse, the fair value of Panasonic would have to be $20 for the current price to offer value.The problem however, is that Japan has always been cheap. If you believe that Japan is cheap now, then you should have believed that Japan was cheap before the earthquake.If you did not have any positions in Japan before the disaster, it just means that you had better places to put your money. Put another way, it wasn’t that cheap.Consider that when deciding whether your next Japanese stock is a value trap or opportunity of a lifetime.Don’t let me discourage you though. I am looking through a list of Japanese ADR stocks hoping to find a no brainer.Since I can not purchase stocks on the TSE, my best bet is to find an ADR. The universe is much smaller, but there are still plenty of ideas and you have a much better chance of finding a diamond with individual stocks rather than the Japanese ETF’s or closed end funds such as JOF.Japanese ADR’s to StudyThis site provides an outdated list of Japanese ADR’s and I have removed the stocks that no longer trade in the US.Download the Japanese ADR stocks for excel. It has over 70 stocks you can look through. Most of them have zero volume on the OTC but it will be a good exercise to go through them.For more Japan investing thoughts, here are some additional links that may interest you.Can Turtles Fly blog also has a post up on JapanBuy Japan / Investing in Japan Q&A by Geoff GannonDisclosure: None
I created these predefined value stock screens in order to keep a constant flow of ideas coming in and to somewhat automate my investment process. The best way to find truly original and off the wall ideas would be to go through every company starting from the A’s in the SEC database, but for most people, this is unrealistic.Through these screens, based off my own research and study, I hope to produce ideas that are not producible with just a free standard screener.The screens are essentially the same as last year, except some parameters have been tweaked and adjusted to account for more realistic trading. A lot of the OTC stocks have been filtered out and I would like to do the same with the Chinese stocks , but that is a hard ask at the moment.The most obvious point jumping out at me is the negative results of the insider buys and share buyback screen. Something I’ll have to look at and see why.On the other hand, the CROIC and NNWC increasing stock screener is continuing last year’s outstanding performance where CROIC returned 44.9% and NNWC increasing returned 43.8%.You can read more about the details of each screen from last year’s performance discussion.User Interface Changes to ScreenersIn case you have not checked out the new site design, the screener section has some changes.The screens are now being displayed as an embedded spreadsheet so that you can easily copy and paste into your own spreadsheet.
Positive for the year, but lagging behind. Not concerned as my portfolio contains some clearly undervalued but illiquid stocks, making short term performance difficult to judge.What’s with Mr Market?First quarter is out of the way, and with the events that have rolled out in just the first three months alone, I am left scratching my head at how the market is doing so well. While Mr Market obviously feels optimistic, I remain on the cautious side and hesitant in adding new or big positions.Had you told me at the beginning of the year that three major international events (Egypt, Japan, Libya) would be taking place, I would have concluded that buckets of opportunities would exist. Looking at where we are now, Mr Market has recovered and moved on from all three major events.As the market continues on up, it is times like these where sitting and waiting patiently is one of the hardest things to do.Retail Holdings (RHDGF)Throughout the first quarter, I have mostly been monitoring positions and adding on drops.One such addition in March was Retail Holdings (RHDGF). RHDGF announced that it had decided not to pursue the sale of its Bangladesh subsidiary citing “turbulent equity market conditions”.This news brought the stock down 16% and goes to show how inefficient the market is when it comes to international micro cap stocks. Despite the cancellation of the sale, the value of the company remains the same yet it went on sale for a few days before returning to a somewhat more reasonable level.Even at the current price at $15.70, RHDGF is undervalued by as much as 40%. With the CEO owning 20% of the company, special dividends distributed between 2007 to 2009 and management stating that they are looking to monetize assets and return it to shareholders, you have a very shareholder friendly management who understand the value of their business seeking to unlock the value.(I mentioned this on the old school value facebook page by the way)Here are two excellent analyses of RHDGF.Sum Zero analysis of Retail HoldingsDollars for Thirty-Cents: Retail Holdings N.V.Meruelo Maddux Properties (MMPIQ)This bankruptcy special situation investment sure is taking many turns.Greedy management is now sneakily requesting an amendment to the Plan or Reorganization in which they will be able to appoint all seven board members, effectively hoping to eliminate any non insider influence. Debtors are voting to accept the request as it will only benefit them if equity holders disappear.I bought more MMPIQ when it dropped to 40c and will be sending a letter to the Judge ASAP objecting to such amendment requests.If you are a shareholder of MMPIQ, send your letter to the judge ASAP and speak up. Here is a sample letter.Books-A-Million (BAMM)BAMM is having an awful year so far with the falling out of the traditional book retailer sector. Borders group has filed bankruptcy and the perception for brick and mortar bookstores is not getting any better. But it leaves me to think that it has been overdone.BAMM still remains profitable on a full year basis and consistent . Despite a slowdown in the fourth quarter, BAMM should be able to able to produce FCF above $15m when the annual report comes out. On this basis, BAMM would be trading at a P/FCF of 4. Flipping it over, the FCF yield is 25%.At $4, the valuation is becoming ridiculously low. Even with zero growth, given the level of consistency and the health of the company, BAMM should be at a minimum of $6. That’s a potential 50% gain from current levels.But with such negativity surrounding the entire sector, it will take a couple of years before the value becomes recognized or even accepted by the market.Gravity Co (GRVY)The year end result shows that revenue and subscription revenue decreased primarily from Rganarok Online. But the decline has been expected for many years, which is why GRVY has been acquiring games in order to further diversify their income.The effect of this can be seen if you compare the non consolidated financial statement with the consolidated. The addition of the new games is offsetting Ragnarok’s decreasing revenue and better still, GRVY remains in excellent financial health. However, with the acquisitions, the once clean financial statement has now become messier as extra entities make their way into the consolidated financial statement.Cash has obviously gone down with the new game purchases but overall the balance sheet remains healthy with no long term debt.Intangibles has increased 28% which is a large jump. Should any of the newly acquired games fail, expect intangibles to written down.A cause for concern is that accounts receivables increased 32% and accounts payable jumping 70%. While it is too soon to be alarmed at such increases, it does require monitoring.The other big news to anticipate in the second quarter is the long awaited launch of the sequel to Ragnarok Online. This is the big catalyst that I have been waiting for. Thankfully, the current price offers a solid downside protection with an even bigger upside.Brief NotesBOLT: Additional information on their new acquisition is out. Seabotix looks like an interesting company but at the moment, it won’t add too much to BOLT’s operation. Now that i have the new details, I’ll be looking to unload BOLT at the right price.YNGFF: Dropped significantly lately and the company successfully converted existing warrants. The deal wasn’t the best for the company but it certainly is MUCH better then further diluting shareholders to raise capital. It looks like the company was in desperate need for cash but once they complete winterizing the mining facilities, production can go on all year round without any downtime during the winter season.Gold is not likely to drop any time soon and at $1400/ounce, YNGFF will be a very profitable investment in the future. Will take at least 1 year before production can be achieved and to see the levels that I am expecting.RDI: Land on the balance sheet remains hugely undervalued. A simple waiting game. Selling at book value but the land value understates current worth.Disclosure: Long RHDGF, MMPIQ, BAMM, GRVY, BOLT, YNGFF, RDI