PKD released earnings at 9:00pm $.30 verses estimate of $.13 should be a great day tomorrow for land drillers.
For your sake (I don't personally own any land drillers), I hope you're right. But I wonder. After all, the big winner in the sector today (Tuesday) -- up by 15% -- was a little outfit that just went public a few months ago: Boots & Coots International Well Control (WEL). It has no earnings, a negative p/e, negative ROA & ROE, little cash, and its losses INCREASED last year by 86%! The only thing it apparently has going for it is a big jump in sales last quarter. (The other quarters stank.)
This -- and the internet stock mania -- aroused my curiosity, and to satisfy it I ran a screen on Telescan to get a list of the top 25 price performers this calendar year, with a breakdown on sales, eps, p/e, debt, size, etc.
Well, judging from what came up, in the short run investors don't give a hoot or a holler about earnings. What they want is a penny story stock, preferably one losing money, with hardly any sales growth, and with no cash on hand. Honest to God. All but 3 of the 25 had negative p.e.'s; and those 3 had p/e's of 334,110, and 35. And even after their huge run-up, ten of the 25 were still priced under $5.00.
But if you run a search for the top 25 winners for the past twelve months, you get a very different picture. You get a list of predominantly very respectable and profitable companies.
So -- be patient. Virtue will be rewarded -- but probably only in the long run.
jbe |
