re: Japan NEWS
Borb,
I finally got rid off my NJR (6911.J) around 730 Yen.. Still like this company with its low PSR (0.60) and a forward PE of 11-12. However it's US peers: ADI, CRUS, LLTC, NSM, FCS are all on a downward spiral and a PSR of 0.60 is not ultra cheap but just cheap and I wanted to pocket a nice gain...
NIEC (6974.J) www.niec.co.jp a globally organized maker of power semiconductors was finally initiated coverage on, by 2 japanese brokerage houses. I wrote it up around 250 Yen. It's now around 320 Yen. Here's the nice proof: one "Strong Buy" and one "Buy". exp. EPS for FY2003 is 28 Yen, for FY2004 is 26 Yen - means forward PE around 11.4 and PSR still under 0.30. It's funny that it took the herd so long to realize this gem in front of us all. Bear in mind that power semis (IRF, SYXI, APTI, POWI, ONNN, CREE, etc.) is a booming area right now due to its proximity to consumer electronics providing a nice baseline for high-precision low power sources plus the materially improving industrial market demanding high-voltage & high-power expertise which is in short supply and once humming again, commands nice $$$$. All those thyristors, triacs, schottky-barrier diodes, FREDs, rectifiers are back en vogue. No "Moore's law" here, no "integration" required but other expertise is critical here (you can read Huber-Mill's report of the "Powercosm" as a good source of info). And NIEC is right within. Yesterday I also bought ONNN in the US after they upped guidance to cash-flow positive this quarter. This stock was up today. Incredible..
Finally, I found a new interesting stock at a great valuation: Topcon - ticker is 7732.J. This is a major maker of ophtalmologic instrumentation. Very advanced apparatus for use in Lasik, eye-diagnostics and other medical-equipment related to ophtalmology. Then they have an "industrial laser" franchise comparable to Nasdaq: RSTI (rofin Sinar) for applications like laser welding and marking. Plus - and this IS very significant - they also make semiconductor equipment: metrology instruments and scientific instruments like electron-microscope etc.. Very cheap stock: Price/Sales around 0.23. Sales have been growing, EBTIDA margin too. And their after tax earnings forcasts a big swing up for the current fiscal year after some special charges in FY2002 - they are supposed to earn 22 Yen per share in 2003 and the stock trades around 370 Yen right now. Here's the link to their web-presence: www.topcon.co.jp - this is an affiliate of the "Toshiba" group which is the biggest shareholder here. It's also one of my favourites now..
rgrds
CROSSY |
