Listened to the conference call last night. All in all, I thought it was an OK job, but there was not much new, and it seemed to me that BF did not want to get into a lot of forecasting about 1999. But then, there were a bunch of weak questions as well.
As Raymond's chart points out, the stock price has done extremely well over the past 4 years. People who say that this stock gets no respect and NEVER goes up obviously have not been in it very long. Trust me, never is a long time. If you haven't held a stock over a year, you are not a long term investor. If you are, what the closing stock price was on 2/25/99 is not important. Strange, people are all angry at a $22 closing stock price yesterday, when 6 months ago, they cheered a $18 price.
I will not try to time sales and purchases of THQ, even when I think I know where the stock may be going. I am not that good and if I wanted to play hunches, Vegas is only a plane ride away. The only thing I will do, is be miserly and attempt to buy THQ when others are panicking and disgusted with the stock price.
Finally, regardless of what EPS figure you use to calculate the earnings growth, BF affirmed 20% revenue growth and by calculation, operating income growth. Just because some of that operating income may not fall to the bottom line because of changes in the tax rate, does not mean fundamental growth is gone. And for what it's worth, I think that they will still achieve $2.40 in EPS for the year.
And assuming that, I happily still own my share of the business.
Kory |
