Yesterday I had occasion to think about a company called Anaren Microwave, symbol ANEN. I proceeded to look at its performance over the last year to compare it to the "average" performance of the semi-equips. Guess what I found? If you wish to take a trip with me, follow the trail of URLs below.
First, go to the Yahoo site and look at the current status of the stock including a one year graph of price performance.
quote.yahoo.com
This stock was at approximately 35 in October 1997 - it lost almost 5 percent yesterday to close at 12 1/2. At yesterday's close it amounts to a loss of 64 percent since October. Very similar to an "average" semi-equip stock.
Next, let's go to the DailyStocks site and look at past performance along with the latest 12 month performance.
dailystocks.net
This picture shows a stock that is really doing well. The performance over the last rolling 12 months has been very good. It shows rising sales and earnings, a PSR ratio of 1.99, a PBR ratio of 1.58, and a PE ratio of 15.4.
Now, let's see what Zack's has to say about this company.
dailystocks.net
A really outstanding review. The rating is 1.3, which includes 3 strong buy and 1 moderate buy recommendations. The company is ranked 8 out of 77 in its group. Consensus earnings estimates for this year and next year are good.
Now I ask you, is this a stock that looks like it deserves to lose 64 percent in price from last October? I don't think so, and apparently the company doesn't think so either. The following is an announcement of management buy back of stock.
biz.yahoo.com
Management will make a lot more money on "playing the market" than investing their cash in growing the business.
To me, this was an interesting review. It shows that the semi-equips are not the only group of stocks are suffering.
Just to contrast the above with Dell and Microsoft. Dell has a PE of 72, a PSR of 4.9, and a PBR of 47. Microsoft has a PE of 68, a PSR of 19, and a PBR of 20. |
