Bob, COHU has really been doing well the last few months. It hit a low of 14.80 this past April, and is now trading at 25+, a gain of about 70 percent. There is a reason for this - it is called old fashioned earnings and a projection of even better earnings for the future.
Just for fun, I looked up the quarterly earnings for COHU going back to 99, and I put them into a little table below.
- COHU
- 99 00 01 02 03 04 05
Q1 0.07 0.47 0.06 -0.03 -0.04 0.10 0.30
Q2 0.24 0.62 0.00 0.04 -0.01 0.32 0.25
Q3 0.36 0.47 -0.22 -0.03 0.02 0.24 0.42
Q4 0.58 0.23 -0.04 -0.03 -0.10 0.11 0.43(E)
TOTAL 1.25 1.79 -0.20 -0.05 -0.13 0.77 1.40
HIGH P 31.75 61.75 23.55 30.65 23.20 22.90 25.91
LOW P 10.57 12.63 13.05 9.78 13.01 13.70 14.81
At the bottom the 4 quarters are summed, and the high and low price for the year are tabulated. The big year was 00 when the sum of the 4 quarters came to 1.79. The Q4 estimate for this year is 0.43, if that is achieved, yearly earnings will be 1.40. This is not far from the 1.79 of 00, and furthermore, next year's estimate is presently at 1.62.
With all that good performance lately(rising from the "ashes" of 01, 02, and 03), and projections for even further earnings increases next year, is it any wonder that the stock price is rising nicely. Even though the price is presently in the 25+ range, how far can it be to the 60+ range it was selling for in 2000?:)
Don |
