Big Five Sporting Goods Fundamental Analysis

As I mentioned in this blog's investment thesis, I believe fundamental analysis can work for long term stock picking of companies that are cash flow generators and valuation targets. This entry is the first one I have done concerning fundamentals since GMR.

Big Five Sporting Goods is a stock I used to follow in a previous life as a buy side analyst. On top of meetings with management I visited their very impressive state of the art distribution center. This kind of due diligence work can help prevent the small chance of a fraudulent company, or help you preemptively find those "something's not right" moments. However, this company seems rock solid and one that I am looking at from a longer term fundamental buy position.

I have done some deeper analysis, but attached I have 4 simple summaries of how to value a company fundamentally. The first picture shows the financials of the past year and a half and some simple valuation metrics in the bottom.



As can be seen, the company creates around $0.45 per share in free cash flow, which theoretically could all be paid out to shareholders as dividends. Another valuation metric is Price to book value. Anything that is 1 or below means that the company is currently valued at its liquidation price...so if the company had to liquidate everything in a desperate moment, this is likely the price it would get. However, this is rare and typically a worse case scenario valuation. Most companies trade above 1.0 book value.

The next excel screenshot shows what the company could be worth to a private equity company or other buyer. Typically public companies cost more because of the public "premium" that the markets create. Assuming a 7.0x EBITDA valuation is likely conservative.





The next photo shows a simple discounted cash flow model with a Gross PP&E terminal value discounted to today's assumed price. One scenario assumes zero growth and the other assumes a 10% growth. Typically DCF models are conservative in that they assume a longer time horizon for an event to occur, which makes the discounted value of that event worth less (in this case a 10 year horizon generating only $3.42 in current value - note that if the event was moved up to year 5 then the terminal value would create $6.00 of present value). I have assumed a 12% discount rate which is likely conservative given the current market and low interest rate environment.





Averaging all of these valuation methods together, comes up with an $11.10 price which is significantly higher than the current $6.88 price. Alternatively, the lowest and most conservative valuation yields a $5.96 price which should provide a decent floor for the stock price.

The risks include the Free Cash Flow falling and/or the values of PP&E and Inventory on the books are overstated. However, The conservative case takes most of this into account by assuming no FCF growth in the next 10 years as well as an event that doesn't occur for another 10 years.

My experience with Big Five, its ownership, and management are the intangibles that add peace of mind to my thesis that Big Five Sporting Goods is likely undervalued at these prices and constitutes a "buy".

Good Luck

The S&P Currency Ratio Charts

After my posting yesterday I was thinking again about how much currency affects stock prices (answer: a great deal much!). To prove the effect, I came up with the attached chart which measures the performance since the October 2007 top of the S&P500 as well as its performance based in other marketable goods other than the US Dollar. The way to think about the chart is the conventional S&P 500 measurement is 1 S&P500 priced in $1 US Dollar or $SPX/$1. But, you can swap out the denominator in the equation to compare the $SPX in other liquid assets such as 1 canadian dollar, or one euro, or one barrel of oil, etc.

The reason this is relevant is because the markets are global. People from all over the world invest in the United States and vice versa. As such, people like me in the United States are affected by currency fluctuations. As a net importer most of the products purchased are from other countries (oil, electronics, many others). The exchange rate affects us more than we likely even know as a result. A truly localized economy wouldn't be affected by such things and would have a rather constant exchange rate, but that just isn't the world we live in.

In the attached chart I show the S&P500 in solid blue which is the S&P chart most people are familiar with. However, all the other line charts are also the S&P500! But, how can that be?!?!?!



The difference between the blue line and the 5 others is the blue line is the S&P500 as measured in US Dollars, the typical view found everywhere. The dashed lines are the S&P500 measured in other currencies (Red=Euro, Pink=Yen, Purple=Canada), an atypical view rarely if ever viewed or talked about. The thin black line is the market priced in a barrel of Oil and the Gold line is the market priced in an ounce of Gold. As you can see there are some major differences in price when the measurement tool is swapped out.

From a currency standpoint, the market priced in Yen (purple dashed) is only up about 20% since the March 2009 $730 equivalent level. Compare this to the S&P in dollars (blue line) which is up over 50% since then and sits at over $1200. The S&P/1 Canadian Dollar is fairing a little better, but still below the US Dollar priced S&P. The Euro is most similar to the USD based S&P, just slightly below, which means the Euro since then has behaved similarly to the US Dollar.

The S&P priced in oil is the outlyer of the group with wild swings. From the October 2007 high, the S&P priced in Oil is also lower at around $1075 from $1350...so still down around 20% which is similar to the S&P priced in dollars.

The final line in gold is the S&P priced in gold. This is currently making a new low below that of March 2009. Another way to think about it is this is how much 1 S&P500 is worth per 1 ounce of gold. This is very telling and means that Gold has significantly outperformed the US Market since the 2007 high and that priced in gold equivalent the S&P 500 is actually lower than it was in 2009. The next chart (below) is even more telling and shows that ratio since the year 2000 top.

There are many inferences one can draw from these graphs, but the primary theme is that a major reason the stock market is even as high as it is, is because of the weakening US Dollar and as a result a significant decline in the purchasing power of the American consumer. So, the stock market is up, but the American consumer's purchasing power has fallen, thus leaving them with less money at the end of the day. Just because the S&P is at a certain level, that same level doesn't buy you near what it used to and doesn't mean things are "better".

Another way to look at this is from a constant dollar perspective. The market's are quoted at current currency rates, but an investor who invests in the year 2000 invests in year 2000 dollars and is then at the mercy of both the numerator (stock performance) and the denominator (currency) over time. Therefore performance could and should be measured on a constant dollar basis (also known as purchasing power).

On that same chart from 2000 (below) that shows the S&P500 priced in gold, I also track the USD's trade weighted performance.

In March 2000 the trade weighted dollar index was around 106. Today it is around 74. Suppose that someone bought at the top in March 2000 when the S&P was at $1500 and the dollar was at 106. Now suppose that person sold today at S&P $1200. That would be a loss of $300 or 20% on the S&P...not that horrible on the surface. So that person cashes out and now wants to buy something with his $1200 cash, but he finds that his $1200 is not near what it was in 2000. In fact, on an average basis it now buys 30% less (106-74=32/106=30%) than it did in the year 2000. So in reality that investor has likely actually lost around 50% in their purchasing power over the 11 year period. They would have been much better off buying something that held its value better, however, they lost on both fronts.

This is best shown on that same chart with the S&P priced in Gold. That ratio has fallen a staggering 87% from a ratio of 5.3 S&P's per 1 oz Gold in March 2000 to only .66 S&P's for 1 ounce of gold today. Assuming Gold is a good measurement of purchasing power (which I do not totally agree with, but I think directionally it provides a good starting point), this shows that investing in the stock market since 2000 has actually set you back SIGNIFICANTLY...a lot more than the surface 20% decline implies!

Current Elliott Wave Count and Japan 1989 Comparison

Well, it looks like it is finally here. The next leg of the biggest bear market in most people's lifetime may finally be upon us. However, for most investors the probabilities are not yet high enough to justify a short position...not yet, anyways...there should be plenty of opportunities.

Attached is the latest wave count I am following. Encroachment into the Flash Crash territory of 2010 killed a lot of the bulls's hope of this being a new bull market up from the March 2009 lows. However, I would like to see a monthly close below $1190 to give even more probability to this count being correct from a longer term perspective. A new low around or below $1100 is needed before I can fully get excited about the new leg down. Once that occurs we should see a big rally back to where we are around now. At that time will be a good spot to get short and close longs. The market will have revealed more cards to us by then.

From a near term perspective I equate August's action to that of January 2008. Both of these months saw "hammer" candlesticks and ended big moves down from multi-year highs in the indices which subsequently rebounded some of that move. They also both occurred 4 months after the respective recent price highs. The first and last weeks of February of 2008 were strongly down with the culmination of that move down occurring March of 2008. If things are playing out similarly, then I expect September to be pretty volatile as well.

Linkable Real Time Chart : http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$SPX&p=M&yr=5&mn=0&dy=0&id=p72172925866&a=242864511



Finally, I would like to use Japan's last 3 decades as a roadmap to our current situation (some of the reasons I lay out on the chart below). Japan is the only major example of a deflationary environment in recent history and its size, importance, etc mimic the US's situation fairly well with some supporting arguments on the chart.





The key to me in the whole deflationary scenario is the country's currency situation. Just like the United States, Japan's stock market exploded as its currency declined in the 1980's...this makes sense as I have laid out in other postings about the $USD (see list of $USD labels to the right). Also, Japan's market peaked roughly when their currency bottomed. Since then, the market has declined significantly, deflation has taken hold, and its currency recently made new highs near all time stock market lows. Boiling it down to one point, I expect the US dollar to rally for the distant future keeping a lid on stock prices, supporting the deflation and low interest rates argument, and behaving similarly as Japan did the last few decades.

Keep in mind, one days volume on the foreign exchange markets is around $4 trillion...it absolutely trumps the stock market.

Why this "downdraft" can get worse

The put call ratio is a contrarian indicator often used to help mark extremes in sentiment. The thought is that when people buy more puts than usual (and more calls than usual) then sentiment may be at an extreme. Right now a lot of people are looking at the spike up in put buying and concluding that the market's selloff may be extreme. They also may conclude as a result that the selloff will soon be over. However, I have other thoughts.


Im not that concerned about the put call from a bear perspective for a few reasons...

1) We aren't near 2008 panic levels from both an actual and a moving average standpoint. The 75 day Moving Average (blue MA line) is at .71 and it peaked above .8 during 2008 a few times. It stayed above .71 for over a year then. The actual put/call of 1.11 and 1.08 thus far was seen back in 08 and peaked even higher at 1.35, 1.18, 1.16 then in April and December of 2008. Notice the recent spikes were even higher than the Flash Crash telling me this is something worse.
2) The rise of the ratio has been faster than in '08, but our starting point was a lot lower (complacency a lot higher it seems). Also, the fall in stocks over the past month was extremely fast...much faster than the kickoff after 2007's top. The fact that the put/call ratio was so low in the first place were warning signs that bulls were getting too comfortable.
3) Some of the highest put/call ratio readings were actually nearer to the highs than the lows. Maybe this hints at some major smart money bets as some have discussed yesterday/today.
4) Where we are currently from a moving average perspective is mid 2009 as well as all of 2007, so not that high. The point being we may be extreme from a short term perspective because of the quick rise and very low starting point, but it doesn't look so bad to me on a longer term and leads me to think that the Moving Averages of this ratio could stay here (and likely go higher) for quite some time. This would imply a high vix and continued stock sell off.

I would like to see this index come back down below .5 a few times before I would get comfortable being a bull. Notice that in all of 2008 and most of 2009 this index never went below .5...fear was present the whole time.

Good Luck.

TITN - Mirrors of 2008?

This stock was requested by a friend. From a technical standpoint Titan looks a lot like it did in 2008 when it topped. The chart is pretty self explanatory and lists the 5 reasons I think an investor should be cautious. A lot of damage was done when the gap from April was filled last month. However, there is a little hope as the stock has climbed back above that area rendering the gap and subsequent fill neutral at this point.

I would still be cautious as there are many negative technical signs such as the volume spikes, the waning momentum (divergences) as well as the looming all time price high just above at $34. A new all time high would likely put me in the bull camp for this stock.

A positive is that it was able to buck the trend in 2008 at least longer than most of its peers. Also, the recent price rise has taken it back above midterm support. Perhaps this stock again will show relative strength in a broad sell off. Time will tell.

Good Luck

Time to Overweight Bonds?

This chart helps show good times to change weightings between stocks and bonds. Right now the markets are at a critical juncture and if the downtrend line gets broken to the top then that would be a confirmation signal that treasuries should be overweighted and stocks underweighted. This would be set until a confirmed trend can be established at which another trendline could be used to help show the next flip flop.

Good luck! Click on the title above to see a live updated chart.

S&P500 apparent 18 month cycle

I did this chart after the late 2004 vertical line (cycle low). The vertical lines are all the exact time distance apart (roughly 18 months) and are created by connecting previous market turning points like the 97 and 98 lows and the 99 high. These 3 points are all the exact distance apart and we can use that knowledge looking forward to predict when potential market turning points will be. So basically I use the charting program that overlays equidistance vertical lines with the length of time I decide.

After bringing the chart forward to today's date, incredibly the cycles are still working well and have aligned directionally with the 07, 09, and 2010 lows. All I did to this chart is update the time range and the charting program projects the cycles outward. The next cycle point based on this will be 18 months from June 2010, or December 2011.

The market will let us know if it is likely a high or a low.

Click on the title heading to see an updated chart.

Good luck!

Google Armageddon?

This chart is one I found online and decided it was so good looking I'd recreate it.

With today's bad Google news and subsequent big selloff afterhours, I decided it could be extremely relevant. Not much needs to be said that isnt on the chart...

If this is true though then 2011 should be as crazy or crazier than 2008. The hope is that the pink line of support will hold and keep the uptrend intact.

Good Luck.

Gold versus Silver? Which one?

Gold and Silver are all the rage right now!!! Sell your gold and silver advertisements are in every mall, infomercial, and financial website!

Regardless of my position on gold and silver, an investor still should choose wisely between them. Looking at the chart above, you can see why. Currently Gold is significantly underperforming silver. In fact it hasn't been this undervalued to silver since the early 80s. This can mean a lot of things (for instance what occurred in the early 80s? - hint, they both started to free fall).

However, if you must own one of them right now. Gold looks to be the far better choice. Eventually this ratio will find parity which could mean it rallies back up to at least the midpoint on the chart of around 50x. This means gold should be 50x the price of silver, or silver should be 1/50 the price of Gold. With a current gold price of $1450 silver, based on these historical standards should be around $29.

Either way, a move up or down in the metals, Gold seems to be the better choice right now.

Good Luck

A Lesson in Dow Theory

Attached is a chart of the Dow Transports and then the Dow Industrials in order to show how the 100 year old Dow Theory works. On the chart I have two captions pointing out two different timeframes. The black lettering is the shorter time frame and shows both the Dow Jones Industrials and Transports printing a high, a low, and then a new high. Because both of these resulted in new highs above the previous high (in Novemeber and December 2010), they confirmed a shorter term Dow Theory buy signal.

On the longest time frame, however, neither index has made a new high above the previous high (2007) and thus neither index has confirmed the long term buy signal.

The Transports are getting close to making a new high. If that occurs then we will look toward the Industrials to confirm the hew high by surpassing its 2007 high. Obviously this has a long way to go and will leave a lot on the table, but that's the way a trend following technique works.

If the Industrials fail to confirm the new high, and go on to post a high, a low, a lower high, and then a lower low (all below the 2007 top), that will be a Dow Theory Non-Confirmation and a pending sale signal. If that occurs and then the Transports do the same, that will be a Dow Theory all out sell signal, on the shorter black time frame.

Dow Theory can work at all time frames, but for this analysis I have just used the 2 longest time frames.

For more on Dow Theory and how it helped foreshadow the 2008 bear market in a January 2008 post, click on 'Dow Theory' to the right in the Labels Section.

Good Luck!

Bear case losing ground...again.

The bear scenario laid out in the previous blog post (in blue) is day by day losing it's probability of occuring. After today's move we are at a do or die point (which actually makes for the best trading opportunities). A straddle at today's close would help capture either one of these scenarios which both call for significant moves in the upcoming weeks.

Bottomline is a downturn must occur as soon as possible (tomorrow or Monday). Any significant move up will likely put the bear case to bed and result in new highs. Right now it is up in the air if the market will continue up to new highs in a final 5th wave or if the bear market will finally begin again (yes, I have been waiting for it for awhile).

The other option (not on the chart) is that this move down and now smaller move up is an A,B of an A,B,C which would suggest eventually the market moves lower (but only in a corrective mode before moving on to new highs).

Good Luck

Where I think we are in the grand scheme of things

Well, the rally from the March 2009 lows has certainly been impressive. I think it has taken many "bears" by surprise, including me. The top in April 2010 was definitely a spot the market could have turned south (as it did thruout the summer). However, after the August decline, which could have easily been the start of our next major move down, the market did not continue down further. It decided we needed another elongated move up. This was about the time of QE2, which may or may not have had a positive impact on the stock market and "worked" from that perspective.

I will drive myself crazy if I tried to figure out all the possible reasons for the elongation of our cyclical bull in our secular (11 years now) bear. All we need to know at this point is it happened, so what's the next move? Keep in mind that it took 25 years for the market to make new highs above its 1929 price and Japan is still trying to get there after 21+ years now.

After 9 months of seemingly unabated uptrend, the market is once again at a turning point. The real question now is, are we in a 4th wave correction or was the Egypt and then Libya conflicts the topping point?

The attached chart shows my current expectations in blue with a close alternate in red. The next few days and weeks will let me know. Any break below $1220 on the $SPX really raises the probability of a continued, larger move down. The alternative is that the move up from the July 2010 lows was not impulsive and was an A wave of a larger A,B,C (with the C needing 5 waves for completion - shown in Red).

This is a lot of technical jargon to swallow, so the key takeaways are drawn on the chart. In blue, the market has topped and is just starting its long, hard fall. This expectation assumes most other asset classes will also fall (as the dollar rallies) since markets almost always are interrelated. Also, there are numerous technical factors supporting this including volume, momentum, and the fact that we haven't had a good sized pullback in almost a year.

The alternative which I will look at as viable until disproved is shown in red and assumes at least a new moderate high is made before a decent decline.

The $1220 area remains key. If it is breached then the likelihood of a continued decline raises significantly. If it holds then the red alternative becomes my primary expectation.

Good Luck.

A lesson in International Finance

Attached is a chart of Symrise AG, based out of Germany and traded on the German exchanges. I apologize that the chart isn't near as clean as the stockcharts.com charts I usually use, but stockcharts.com doesn't have access to the European exchanges yet (just US and Canada). However, Tradestation is great for use with foreign currencies as will be shown.

I want to talk briefly about the difference between a US traded stock and a foreign stock trading thru its ADR (American Depository Receipt) on the US markets. The ADR for all intents and purposes is the share ownership of the underlying asset. However, the key difference is that the ADR must adjust for exchange rates between the ADR and the home country's security price. The chart above will show you how big a difference it can make!

The top chart is of the Symrise ADR traded in the States. The second chart is the price of the Euro. The 3rd chart is a nice ratio chart essentially converting the ADR back into its home country's currency. The final graph is that of the 20 trading day correlation (1 month).

The one thing I don't like about the tradestation platform for charting is the text which is a pain to use, but other than that it has some wonderful functionality such as the correlation graph that I don't have at stockcharts.com.

Ignoring the text for now, the ADR looks to have completed a 5 wave move up from its June lows and topped in November. Notice similar tops occurred on the spread chart. What is nice about the June top is that occurred at a time the Euro was weakening, so the move from Nov 2009 to May 2010 was actually stronger than the ADR would leave you to believe (as the spread chart helps show).

However the main thing I wanted to point out with this ADR (and likely many others) is the recent correlation. Notice the 20 day correlation is sitting at .60 and has been steadily climbing over the past year and a half. This means that more and more of the ADR's return is actually coming from changes in the exchange rate rather than changes in the company's performance. That is important to note so that you don't confuse the reasons for the stock's returns.

This blog heading's title above links to the German traded Symrise AG on bigcharts.com. I have also copied it below. This is helpful in seeing a longer time horizon of the company since the American ADR just started in late 2008. Notice that early '09 was the longer term price bottom. It also looks like a pretty good impulsive move up. The November top does indeed look like a completed 5 wave top assuming a May/June '09 2nd wave and May/June 2010 4th wave. If so then support could be found in the $20 ADR ($16 German exchange and spread chart) assuming a breakdown below $25 on the ADR.



One final point on the spread chart. Notice its current price of 20.05Euros. Compare this to the bigcharts.com German traded price of 20.14Euros...pretty close and lets us know that we did the conversion correctly. You can also go to this site to look up the German stocks...

http://deutsche-boerse.com/dbag/dispatch/en/isg/gdb_navigation/home?module=InOverview_Equi&wp=DE000SYM9999&foldertype=_Equi

Long Term Bond Prices

As the previous post highlighted, the long bond looks to be falling in price. The attached chart is a very long term strategy that will help show when the drop in price is more than just a simple pullback.



The chart has a moving average ribbon of 110, 115, and 120 months. Notice this moving average has provided support 3 times in the past in 1994, 2000, and 2007. Bond prices have not dropped below this moving average since the early 80s bottoming process. Also notice that bonds have dropped the last 6 months in a row. This is not unprecedented, but has rarely occurred in the rally of the past 30 years.

If the moving averages do not hold as support over the next few months, then the long term bond market may indeed be set to fall (yields rising).

These moving averages will become important as the year progresses!

The Long Bond

The long bond looks poised to rally once the next pullback ensues.

Looking at the chart, it seems we had a 5-3-5 move up off the ultimate '08 low to the June '09 high (in blue and red). This is not impulsive, but rather is corrective since it is only 3 moves to the upside. However, the move was huge and likely is the beginning of correcting the ~30 year downward move in yields. As the chart lays out, once that 5-3-5 completed in June of '09 a relatively long sideways retracement brought it back to its almost exact 61.8% retrace in August 2010. From there it has started to rally again in a 5 wave move which looks to be close to completion.

This next move should see the 30 yr topping for a short term (red 1) and pulling back in a 2nd wave retrace before a powerful 3rd wave up again (in red on right of chart). This move at least should take yields over the 5.1% at a minimum.

There is a chance that this chart is more bullish than I have labeled (if for instance the 2010 top was really where Black A should be labeled), but that won't matter for a year or so from now and both counts provide similar results.

In the meantime this means that the long bond yield's risk is to the upside and may mean to target shorter duration products and or take some profits on bonds.