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Strategies & Market Trends : YEEHAW CANDIDATES -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ken W who wrote (3540)	11/2/2003 2:18:51 PM
From: Sergio H	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 23958

Ken, thank you. I like CMKG as a value play also. Let's go ahead and add CMKG at Monday's opening. Coincidental that you mentioned Fresh Express. This weekend's Barrons: <Keep On Truckin' Tech stocks? Forget 'em. They're way overpriced. The bubble is back -- it's a joke. People haven't learned a thing! That's Scott Black grousing. Barron's Roundtable member and proprietor of Boston-Based Delphi Management, Scott gets downright agitated when he talks about techs, and he's not a heck of lot more sanguine as he surveys the broader investment landscape. Indeed, he echoes Eric Ende's complaint. "This market is so picked over," he sighs. "All I'm finding is the occasional small, really obscure name." Okay, coming up, one small, obscure, but rather intriguing, name -- the only small-cap Scott is really keen on: Frozen Food Express. Based in Dallas, Frozen Food is the largest publicly traded temperature-controlled trucking company in North America. Don't get too excited, it's not all that large. Sales are under $400 million and the company's market cap -- with the stock at $5.75 -- is about $100 million. The company serves some 7,000 customers across the U.S., Mexico and Canada. Its customer base is diverse: The 10 largest customers chip in only about one-third of sales. Its terminals are sprinkled across the country, in places like New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, Salt Lake and Modesto. The company ships all sorts of stuff that needs to be kept cold: meat, seafood, candy, drugs, medical supplies, dairy products. After several punk years, Frozen Food's business -- thanks in part to more than one competitor going under -- is definitely showing signs of life. As its 66-year-old chief exec, Stoney M. (Mit) Stubbs, who owns nearly 10% of the company, put it last week: "We are definitely seeing better demand for our freight services across the board." And backing up Stone's encouraging words, Frozen Food reported a 15% rise in third-quarter sales, while net per share jumped to 10 cents, from a 4-cent loss in the year-earlier span. For all of 2003, Scott reckons net should come in at 26 cents. And in 2004, earnings will at least double to 50 cents or so, although if the economy perks up fairly quickly, he sees something closer to 63 cents. At $5.75, the stock is selling at 1.2 times the company's tangible book value of $4.70 a share. The balance sheet, especially for a trucking company, is sturdy, indeed. Long-term debt, net of cash, is only some 35 cents a share. In 12 months or so, if his upbeat earnings scenario plays out, Scott looks for close to a double.>