GME

When narrowing the market to a focus group of stocks to choose from, The Applied Finance Group (AFG) has a core set of principles we concentrate on to develop a group of stocks that are more likely to outperform the market.

ValueExpectations.com emphasizes evaluating a company’s ability to earn a spread above their cost of capital using a very robust measure of corporate performance, Economic Margin. After evaluating a firm’s ability to create wealth VE.com then determines what price we are paying for the company using a modified discounted cash flow model. If we had to simplify performance, a very elementary way to evaluate performance can be Return on Invested Capital ROIC and valuation which can be simplified by using earnings yield. This is the approach Joel Grenblatt uses in his book, The Little Blue Book that Beats the Market.

In January VE.com highlighted a list of stocks based on Joel Greenblatt’s Magic Formula Investing Strategy from 1998-2004 Greenblatt’s simulated returns were 30.8% a year, relative to a 12.4% annual return for the S&P 500 and was only down in one year in that time-span.

In our article posted on January 9, 2009 we listed our best 30 “Magic Formula” companies which has earned returns comparable to the tests conducted by Mr. Greenblatt. From Jan. 9, 2009 to Dec. 14, 2009 the 30 companies we recommended from our “Magic Screen” have returned a solid 32.06% spread above the S&P 500. Since our last “Magic Formula” portfolio was successful we have decided to run the screen again for a new list of companies to see just how consistent this strategy is.

To stay updated on companies AFG believes are attractive investment opportunities register for ValueExpectations.com It's Fast and Free!

A look at Greenblatt’s formula for successful “Magic Formula Investing”:

1. Establish a minimum market capitalization (usually greater than $50 million).

2. Exclude utility and financial stocks

3. Exclude foreign companies (American Depositary Receipts)

4. Determine company's earnings yield = EBIT / enterprise value.

5. Determine company's return on capital = EBIT / (Net fixed assets + working capital)

6. Rank all companies above chosen market capitalization by highest earnings yield and highest return on capital (ranked as percentages).

7. Invest in 20-30 highest ranked companies, accumulating 2-3 positions per month over a 12-month period.

8. Re-balance portfolio once per year, selling losers one week before the year-mark and winners one week after the year mark.

9. Continue over long-term (3-5 year) period.

Mr. Greenblatt was a student of both Ben Graham and Warren Buffet and tried to include valuable insights from each investor in his “Magic Formula.” His Magic Formula was a screen that percentile ranked two variables: Return on Invested Capital (quality) and Earnings Yield (valuation). The idea is simple, buy the best companies at the best price and then hold on to them for one year. The Little Blue Book recommends selecting the top 30 firms from the “Magic Formula.” That formula ranks each company by variable and then puts a 50% weight on each.

 Click Here - If you are a professional investor and would like a review of your portfolio by an AFG representative or to discuss companies AFG find attractive that fit your investment style.

To stay updated on companies AFG believes are attractive investment opportunities register for ValueExpectations.com It's Fast and Free! 

With the biggest shopping season of the year just around the corner, we thought it would be timely to highlight some consumer sector companies that look attractive according to The Applied Finance Group’s (AFG’s) criteria for investment opportunity attractiveness, as they are in line to benefit from the upcoming seasonal spending patterns. The list of companies we have provided look the most attractive within the AFG consumer sector in terms of valuation attractiveness, economic performance, and overall investment attractiveness relative to their peers.

One of the companies that we feel particularly confident in is the retailer Kohl’s (KSS) which is currently a holding in The AFG 50, (a model portfolio of 50 large cap stocks designed to help Portfolio Managers save time, make more informed investment decisions, and outperform their benchmark). We are confident about Kohl’s competitiveness because they have a strong cash flow, strong execution, and have been outperforming their competition.

Going into this holiday season, consumers will most likely remain thrifty due to the overriding economic conditions, although their confidence levels have improved so far this year. They will search hard for values, being mindful of budget. We continue to believe Kohl’s will remain one of the most successful retailers in this country, as it strives to and succeeds in providing value to consumers with freshness and relevance of its merchandize.

The complete list of consumer stocks we have provided below, which includes the highlighted Kohl’s, are the companies AFG believes are the most likely to outperform. Companies that AFG identifies as having an attractive valuation, improving Economic Margins (AFG’s corporate performance metric) and an attractive investment opportunity signal have proven over time to outperform those companies with unattractive valuations, declining Economic Margins, and unattractive investment opportunity signal.

Source: EconomicMargin.com

AFG's Valuation Metric – Measures the percent to target (deviation between a stock’s current trading price and its AFG current default target price). To derive the intrinsic value of a firm, AFG uses its proprietary Valuation Model (modified discounted cash flow model).

Economic Margin - A corporate performance measurement that addresses the gaps in GAAP, eliminating distortions caused by accounting policies to measure what a company is truly earning above or below their cost of capital.

Management Quality – Assesses management’s ability to make wealth creating decisions.

To stay updated on how other professional investor's currently view the market join our Market Forecast Project survey and be among the first to receive the results.

Value Expectations teaches professional investors how to make more informed investment decision evaluating stocks on the basis of corporate performance, valuation, management quality, earnings quality, and other proprietary variables. These variables inevitably help identify companies that are potential long-term investments while avoiding potential torpedoes. However, during the financial crisis, leverage and a week balance sheet played a significant part when investors evaluated a holding.

To help our institutional clients navigate the environment The Applied Finance Group (AFG) developed the risk analysis template specifically to model the healthiness of a company’s balance sheet. In addition to the risk analysis template we also developed a template that calculated an Altman Z-Score developed to identify companies that are most likely to go bankrupt.

As professional investors we often move on and like to forget the past concentrating on how to gain alpha in the future. However, not to forget the past we decided to post an update list in the S&P500 on companies that are financially healthy and are attractively priced using The Applied Finance Groups valuation model.

Provided below is a list of healthy Z-score companies within the S&P 500 that also look attractive based on The Applied Finance Group’s (AFG’s) investment criteria. All of the companies listed have an attractive valuation and are expected to improve their Economic Margins (AFG’s measure of what a company earns above its cost of capital) more than their sector peers. Companies expected to improve their Economic Margin’s (EMs) have proven to be more likely to outperform than companies with an expected decline in EMs.

Using AFG’s valuation model on AFGView.com, we identified a few firms that looked relatively attractive from a valuation perspective and had an Altman Z-Score above 2.99. Below is a list of those firms. Later we will look at firms that are expensive and have a Z-Score below 1.8.

About The Altman Z-score - Z-score is a metric that gives insights into the likelihood of a firm going bankrupt in the next 2 years. The model was developed by Professor Edward I. Altman of the NYU’s Stern School of Business and first published in The Journal of FINANCE in September 1968. A common critique to this metric is that it was developed over 40 years ago and is no longer relevant.

In 2001, Professor Joseph D. Piotroski of The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, published a paper called, Value Investing: The Use of Historical Financial Statement Information to Separate Winners from Losers. Piotroski showed that value investors were rewarded by looking at a firm’s financial health and he showed that Z-score was a meaningful statistic.

The Altman Z-Score breaks down firms into 3 zones:

• >2.99 – Not Likely to Go Bankrupt

• 1.8 - 2.99 – Gray Area

• <1.8 – Likely to Go Bankrupt in the Next 2 Years
 

Related Tickers: "NYSE:PCP"

Yesterday we provided a list of 10 companies and asked our readers to comment on which they liked and which they did not to see how good VE.com readers are at separating the wheat from the chaff. Listed below are the same 10 companies listed in order of attractiveness (most attractive at the top, least attractive at the bottom) to give our readers an idea of our take on these companies to compare with your own thoughts.

source: www.economicmargin.com

Investment Insights from your peers, Professional Investors - The Applied Finance Group would like to invite professional investors to join AFG’s Market Forecast Project so you can better understand what your peers currently think about the market and cultivate the “wisdom of Crowds” into actionable investment ideas and themes. 
Click here to learn more

We think 5 of the companies listed below currently look attractive as potential investment opportunities and 5 that look like potential torpedoes. Share your thoughts on which of these companies you like and those that you don't. We will share our thoughts on all 10 tomorrow.

What are your thoughts on these 10 companies?

source: www.economicmargin.com

Investment Insights from your peers, Professional Investors - The Applied Finance Group would like to invite professional investors to join AFG’s Market Forecast Project so you can better understand what your peers currently think about the market and cultivate the “wisdom of Crowds” into actionable investment ideas and themes. 
Click here to learn more

When analysts and market pundits come on tv to talk about stock picks, they usually talk about the "P/E" ratio (Price to Earnings) being attractive.  However if you're investing in stocks and you only look at the "P/E" ratio, you might be walking into a "Value Trap".  Investors ignore half the valuation picture when investors only concentrate on P/E as investors also need to consider the growth potential of the company and what investments are needed to get the earnings.  The Applied Finance Group (AFG) has developed a process that incorporates these factors easily into the valuation framework.  Using AFG’s Valuation Metric, we have compiled a list of 20 companies with low P/E, 10 of which we consider attractive investments, and 10 of which we consider Value Traps.

By using AFG's Economic Margin framework instead of earnings alone, investors capture the true net cash flow the entire firm is generating. It is not uncommon for companies to grow P/E while having declining EM’s. This occurs when the cost for the investment required to yield the increasing P/E is more than the cash flow generated from the investment. By analyzing a company’s EMs through time, investors gain a more accurate account of levels and changes in a company’s current profitability and value.

If earnings are a true proxy for performance, there should be a correlation between a company growing earnings and its price to earnings ratio. As a surprise to many investors, there is actually little to no correlation between earnings growth and price to earnings ratios (see chart below).
 

P/E is determined by taking a stock’s price and dividing it by the last four quarter’s worth of earnings. P/E alone should not be used to value companies. P/E does not look at a company’s balance sheet thus we do not know what the costs of generating those earnings. While the P/E is determined by looking at a company’s past performance, EM bases a company’s value off its future projections. By using EM, an investor can know how their stocks are likely to perform, allowing them to clearly evaluate where to invest.

Successful companies measure results, make decisions and set strategy with the goal of creating value. A company’s performance measures must serve as a proxy for its market value creation. While important, S-T Earnings alone are a poor indicator of a company’s value, due to what they do not measure.
 

Economic Margin is a more complete performance measure for companies to use to guide performance and motivate employees. Executives consider Cash Flow, Investment, Competition & Risk when setting strategy. The above charts show that investors do the same.

AFG's Valuation Metric – Measures the percent to target (deviation between a stock’s current trading price and its AFG current default target price). To derive the intrinsic value of a firm, AFG uses its proprietary Valuation Model (modified discounted cash flow model).

Economic Margin - A corporate performance measurement that addresses the gaps in GAAP, eliminating distortions caused by accounting policies to measure what a company is truly earning above or below their cost of capital.

Investment Insights from your peers, Professional Investors - The Applied Finance Group would like to invite professional investors to join AFG’s Market Forecast Project so you can better understand what your peers currently think about the market and cultivate the “wisdom of Crowds” into actionable investment ideas and themes. 
Click here to learn more

All companies listed below met The Applied Finance Group's (AFG's) Buy screen criteria and are in the bottom half of their sector in Market Value/Invested Capital (MV/IC), which by definition qualifies the companies as part of the AFG Value Universe. When identifying buy ideas, AFG looks for companies with the most valuation upside compared to their sector peers, above sector median expected Economic Margin change, and a management quality score that reflects a management team following a wealth creating strategy.

9 Value Companies To Watch

A brief description of AFG's buy criteria variables:

AFG's Valuation Metric – Measures the percent to target (deviation between a stock’s current trading price and its AFG current default target price). To derive the intrinsic value of a firm, AFG uses its proprietary Valuation Model (modified discounted cash flow model).

Economic Margin - A corporate performance measurement that addresses the gaps in GAAP, eliminating distortions caused by accounting policies to measure what a company is truly earning above or below their cost of capital.

Management Quality– Assesses management’s ability to make wealth creating decisions.
AFG's Value Universe - Companies in the AFG universe, which have MV/IC at the bottom 50% of the universe and have EPS estimates.

Market Value/Invested Capital (MV/IC) - The firm's average total equity, debt and other obligations divided by net invested capital.

Back in February Valueexpectations.com released a blog highlighting Fidelity’s Low Priced Stock Fund that follows a strategy of only investing in stocks with a share price of under $35. In that blog we provided a list of 30 stocks that we thought were attractively priced according to The Applied Finance Group’s (AFG's) valuation model broken up into three price brackets: under $10, $10 to $20 and $20 to $35.

From Feb 5th 2009 to June 5th 2009 the 30 stocks recommended as a group outperformed the S&P 500 by an average of 36.5%, the 10 stocks under $10 outperformed by 57.1%, the $10 to $20 stocks outperformed by 40.1% and the $20 to $35 stocks outperformed by 12.5% respectedly. 

Joel Tillinghast, the fund’s manager began this fund with a strategy of only investing in stocks under $10. Since this stragtegy began Fidelity has moved the stock price limit to $35 where it currently sits. Tillinghast believes that share price alone is not of importance but the lower priced, smaller-cap universe of stocks experiences the most frequent mispricing’s and also has the least amount of analyst coverage.

As an update to the prior blog on this strategy Valueexpectations.com provided a list of 30 stocks that we believe are attractively priced and do not fit AFG's default sell criteria. Each group is ranked based on valuation attractiveness. AFG's analysis begins and ends with valuation, however along the way there are other key factors AFG considers when looking for buy opportunities: expected Economic Margin improvement, management quality, earnings quality.

Attractively Priced Companies Under $30

Here are the 10 best and 10 worst performing stocks in the S&P 500 for the month of May excluding financials. We have provided the returns achieved by each firm during the month of May (5-1-09 to 5-28-09) along with a look at the valuation attractiveness of each of these firms going forward.

May Biggest Movers In S&P 500 (Ex. Financials)

AFG's default valuation is a great place to start when looking for potential equity investments as our valuation techniques have proven successful through time at identifying mispriced securities and helping our clients identify investment opportunities resulting in outperforming their chosen benchmark.

AFG's Valuation Model – Using AFG’s modified discounted cash flow model to measure the intrinsic value of a firm compared to its peers. AFG's Value Score - A score which represents the ranked percent to target (deviation between stock’s current trading price and AFG’s current default target price) or attractiveness (upside) relative to the universe. A Value Score of 100 is the most undervalued and 0 is the most overvalued company in the universe.

Click here for more information on our institutional tools and research.

Bloomberg provides a score for companies within the S&P 500 based on an average of all analyst ratings from the street. Below is a table highlighting companies with the best analyst ratings, largest increase in rating, highest price targets, and worst analyst ratings and the valuation attractiveness of each of these companies based on The Applied Finance Group’s (AFG) valuation model.

Companies within each of these groups are ranked from most attractive from a valuation perspective to the least attractive. VE.com will actively track the performance of these recommendations and see how they stack up to the analyst recommendations in each group. AFGview.com, AFG’s professional investor website allows you to compare any company using their rating versus the consensus ratings of the sell side. If you are interested in an analysis on a specific company, contact afgsales@afgltd.com.

Best/Worst Analyst Rated Companies (Bloomberg)

AFG's Valuation Model – Using AFG’s modified discounted cash flow model to measure the intrinsic value of a firm compared to its peers. AFG's Value Score - A score which represents the ranked percent to target (deviation between stock’s current trading price and AFG’s current default target price) or attractiveness (upside) relative to the universe. A Value Score of 100 is the most undervalued and 0 is the most overvalued company in the universe.

Below is a summary of 22 AFG Buy Recommendations from the S&P500 Index. The report highlights the 2 companies from each sector (ex. financials) that have the most attractive value score and are currently rated Buys by The Applied Finance Group, Ltd. (AFG). Factors used to derive a AFG’s recommendation include: Expected change in Economic Margins, Intrinsic Value, and Management Quality.

We also ran a VE analysis and provided the results. The VE analysis of each company is used to identify implied sales growth expectations versus what the company has delivered historically in sales growth over the past 5 years. Measuring the spread between a company’s VE sales growth expectations and what it has historically delivered should give you a good idea of which companies have the best chance of meeting or exceeding those expectations, and thus are more likely to outperform.

 Cheapest Companies In The S&P 500 By Sector (ex. Financials)

 Click Here, to see results of our portfolio performance using AFG's Buy/Sell criteria

A brief description of AFG's buy criteria variables is below:

• Economic Margin - A corporate performance measurement that addresses the gaps in GAAP, eliminating distortions caused by accounting policies to measure what a company is truly earning above or below their cost of capital.

• Valuation Model – Using AFG’s modified discounted cash flow model to measure the intrinsic value of a firm compared to its peers.

• Management Quality – Assess management’s ability to make wealth creating decisions.

 Applied Finance Group’s (AFG’s) Value Score defined - A score which represents the ranked percent to target (deviation between stock’s current trading price and AFG’s current default target price) or attractiveness (upside) relative to the universe. A Value Score of 100 is the most undervalued and 0 is the most overvalued company in the universe.

VE Sales Growth - AFG’s Value Expectations allows us to understand the Sales Growth, EBITDA Margin, and Asset Turnover a company has to deliver in the future to justify its current trading price. In theory, if the imbedded future performance is very conservative relative to the company’s historical performance, the stock is regarded as undervalued. The VE Sales Growth displays the implied future Sales Growth of the company assuming their EBITDA Margins and Asset Turnovers stay at the 5 year historic median levels.

Faisal Laljee of stocksandblogs.com came out with 2 blogs earlier this year providing companies that he believed were the top stocks to own/watch for 2009 (Part 1, Part 2). Laljee was on the money with his predictions so far through 2009. 13 of the 15 companies he recommended have positive returns and the whole portfolio of 15 companies has an average return of 21.24% compared to the S&P 500 return of 0.10% over the same time period. Valueexpectations.com thought it would be useful to analyze how these firms are positioned as possible investment opportunities going forward from AFG’s valuation standpoint. Valuation Attractiveness is determined by AFG’s proprietary valuation framework, which estimates a stock’s intrinsic value through a DCF model which incorporates a corporation’s Economic Profitability, Growth of Capital Base, Decay, and Cost of Capital. In addition, we also showed sales growth expectations embedded in each company’s latest stock price and its historical 5 year median sales growth. It is interesting but not surprising that all the Attractive stocks have low implied sales growth compared to those companies’ historical performance.

Stocksandblogs.com 15 Companies To Own/Watch In 2009 : Perfomance Results

*AFG’s Value Expectations allows us to understand the Sales Growth, EBITDA Margin, and Asset Turnover a company has to deliver in the future to justify its current trading price. In theory and in normal circumstances, if the imbedded future performance is very conservative relative to the company’s historical performance, the stock is regarded as undervalued. The table displays the implied future Sales Growth of the list of companies assuming their EBITDA Margins and Asset Turnovers stay at the 5 year median levels.

Below is Value Expectations’ analysis of the companies in the S&P 500 with the 10 best and 10 worst returns for 2009 YTD (excluding financial companies). Comparing the sales growth expectations priced in (VE sales growth) to what the company has delivered in sales growth historically allows us to see which firms have the most reasonable sales growth expectations implied by their current trading prices and thus are more likely to outperform. Will the companies with the best returns be able to maintain their momentum for the remainder of 2009? Will the companies with the worst returns be able to turn things around? We will track the S&P500 winners and losers in the year ahead and provide you with regular updates.

10 Worst S&P 500 Companies 2009 YTD

10 Best S&P 500 Companies 2009 YTD

*data as of close Feb. 20, 2009

*AFG’s Value Expectation allows us to understand the imbedded Sales Growth, EBITDA Margins, and Asset Turnovers a company has to deliver in the future to justify its current trading price. In theory and in normal circumstances, if the imbedded future performance is very conservative relative to the company’s historical performance, the stock is regarded as undervalued. The table displays the implied future sales growth of companies assuming their EBITDA margins and Asset turnovers stay at the 5 year median levels.

In life, the most attractive people are in shape and have good looks, just look at Hollywood. The same is true the majority of the time in investing. The most attractive stocks have healthy financial statements and look good from a valuation standpoint.

The Altman Z-score is a metric that gives insights into the likelihood of a firm going bankrupt in the next 2 years. The model was developed by Professor Edward I. Altman of the NYU’s Stern School of Business and first published in The Journal of FINANCE in September 1968. A common critique to this metric is that it was developed over 40 years ago and is no longer relevant.

In 2001, Professor Joseph D. Piotroski of The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, published a paper called, Value Investing: The Use of Historical Financial Statement Information to Separate Winners from Losers. Piotroski showed that value investors were rewarded by looking at a firm’s financial health and he showed that Z-score was a meaningful statistic.
More recently, on December 5, 2008, Dr. Altman was called to testify before a House of Representatives Committee on the condition of U.S. Automakers. In his testimony, he noted that Bloomberg, Inc. reported, “that approximately 1,000 users of their system per day access the Altman Z-Score model.”

The Altman Z-Score breaks down firms into 3 zones:
• >2.99 – Not Likely to Go Bankrupt
• 1.8 - 2.99 – Gray Area
• <1.8 – Likely to Go Bankrupt in the Next 2 Years

Using AFGView.com, we screened for firms that looked relatively attractive from a valuation perspective and had an Altman Z-Score above 2.99. Below is a list of those firms. Later we will look at firms that are expensive and have a Z-Score below 1.8.

Sales Expectations for Companies with an Attractive Valuation and Healthy Balance Sheet