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Strategies & Market Trends : Value Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ditchdigger who wrote (54740)	1/6/2015 6:52:18 PM
From: E_K_S	2 Recommendations Recommended By Asymmetric Mattyice Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78525

Kirby Corporation (KEX) This one could be considered a potential value play and even at/near a 52wk low, it could go lower. Its Marine Transportation segment provides transportation services for the inland and coastal markets. This segment transports petrochemicals, refined petroleum products, black oil products, and agricultural chemicals by tank barges; and is involved in the coastal transportation of dry-bulk cargoes. I suspect all their transport services are fee based so they have limited exposure to the lower oil prices w/ the only impact possibly in future lower growth in volume transported. I do like their diesel/marine service business , next to trains transporting product by boat/barges is very efficient and those diesel engines need updating and repair services. Their PE of 15 is about market average not at bargain territory (10 or less). An ROA of 7.5% is not a screaming buy but I do like their 11.28% profit margins along w/ 19.14% operating margins. Quarterly revenue growth of 23% and earning growth of 11% is quite good. Based on this (eg PE = growth rate), I would pay as high as a 11 PE which translates to a market price of $54.00/share. Finally, I like that their long term debt is quite low when compared to their annual net income. At 2.35x their annual net income this easily covers their long term debt and meet Buffets rule of 4x or less. The one thing is there is no dividend so I would wait for my price of $54.00/share. Maybe this one will be taking out w/ the other oil related service companies and come into my buy range. I do like their AG business exposure: (1) transport of Ag chemicals from their web site: The Kirby Inland fleet of 874 active tank barges and 254 active towboats has a total liquid cargo capacity of 17.3 million barrels. The primary cargoes transported by this fleet are chemicals, petrochemical feedstocks, gasoline additives, refined petroleum products, liquid fertilizer, black oils, and pressurized products. Maybe they could also expand to transporting AG crops like corn, wheat/grains and or other crops similar to what trains do now. I will put on my watch list and if/when it hit my price level, it could be a good buy and hold candidate. Little foreign exposure too, mainly domestic U.S.. EKS