Fellow owners of Maverick Tube, again down over 3% today: What is wrong with this stock?
Or rather, what is wrong with the people who are not buying it?
Do they know something we don't?
In a way, I hope so. Otherwise, I shall have to conclude that the market is completely, not just partially, irrational.
True, MAVK did disappoint with earnings this past quarter. But it produced positive earnings surprises in all four of the preceding quarters, and even this quarter earnings were up (just not as up as expected). It has a projected 5-year growth rate of 37.5, a company growth ratio of 5.2 (which translates into a peg ratio of less than .20), rock-bottom valuation ratios, etc., etc. The pipe & tube industry is supposed to be "hot" (according to Smart Money, anyway), and so forth and so on. So, what is everybody waiting for?
Folks over at Yahoo's MAVK message board attribute MAVK's inexorable decline in stock price to the company's alleged ineptitude in dealing with analysts & with the public.
If so, why did this not hurt its stock price last year (pre-November)? MAVK's price rose more steeply than that of any other oil service company I could think of graphing it against. And then fell more steeply, of course. And continued to fall, long after everyone else took up the crutches and walked.
Saying that it is a "volatile" stock is no answer, either. Volatility is not inherent in a stock as such; it's people that make it volatile.
Meanwhile, I own another stock (Schering Plough) that is grossly overvalued by practically any standard you can devise -- yet it continues to go up just as steadily as Maverick goes down. (I won't even mention the trash penny stocks that are so popular these days.)
Is there some kind of behind-the-scenes dope/gossip/rumor/whatever, that can help explain this phenomenon? Who's got the dirt, in other words, on Maverick Tube? Or is there any?
Thanks!
jbe |
