"Any one have any ideas why Tidewater is down big and TMAR, a smaller competitor, is up big today?"
Darn good question -- and one that I was asking myself today. I own TDW myself, and it is down about 30% from the time I bought it. Out of sheer stubbornness, I have held on to it, because, from one point of view at least, it is much more undervalued than TMAR. (I pay much attention to free cash flow: TDW has a great free cash flow ratio -- 14.2 -- while TMAR, like most oil service stocks, has negative free cash flow.)
As for the difference in price action today, it could possibly be due to the mention in Barron's, as has been suggested. But other boat companies are also up today, although none of them had quite the boost that TMAR did.
I did a comparison chart (using Telescan), to see if I could spot any pattern. What I saw was that TMAR is, quite simply, more volatile than TDW. (Note that the boat companies, as a group, have done even worse than the drillers since the whole sector started to crash.) By October, TMAR had appreciated more than the other boat companies; by the beginning of this month, it had fallen lower. For the past six months, TDW has performed much better price-wise than TMAR, or HMAR, or any other of the boat companies I checked it against.
So maybe "The Market" has concluded that TMAR deserves a little recognition, and that TDW has received too much, for the nonce.
There doesn't seem to be any news that would explain the discrepancy that concerns you (and me). On the other hand, who the heck knows what goes on behind the scenes?? |
