Goodbye Summer (Q3 Update)

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. Summer came and went in the blink of an eye. Labor day weekend is now well behind us and so are any hopes I once had of not gaining a good 15 lbs over the Summer. A couple of trips and way too many burgers and beers are probably the primary culprits. I hope you all got to enjoy the summer heat as much as I did.

September however brings a new level of excitement. Kids are back in school and if they are forced to learn, we should be as well. We are all mere students of the game and therefore we need to work on our investing practice. A day doesn’t go by where you cannot learn something, so seize hold of the opportunity. A little bit of knowledge every day, will turn into a mountain of information over a lifetime. With that out of the way, let’s check in and see how I did this quarter.

Q3 Performance

As of 9/1/2019, my 10K portfolio stood at $11,088.12. When I started on 8/19/18, the SPY had a price of $285.06. As of 9/1/19 the SPY closed at $292.37(it’s actually had quite a run up since.)

Return(1) SPY Return(2) Difference(1-2)

Portfolio value $11,088.12: 10.88 2.56 8.32

With dividends reinvested into the SPY their returns would look a bit more like this.

Return(1) SPY Return(2) Difference(1-2)

Portfolio value $11,088.12: 10.88 4.42 6.46

I have to say that I am more than satisfied with my results thus far. I have cut a few of my losers and held tight onto my winners. I like to let my winners ride and let compounding do the work. Some might be overvalued and others are hopefully undervalued. In the long run, stocks will follow suit with growth in intrinsic value. I feel good about the companies I’m invested in and their prospects for the future. That being said, I hold onto almost $1,700 in cash. I am finding it hard to find deals I am comfortable with in the current environment. That doesn’t mean the search is over, just means I have to turn over more stones. One will appear and I will be ready to put my remaining capital to work.

Taxes

One topic I don’t see talked about nearly enough is the effect of taxes on investment returns. So often I hear analysts talk about a stock hitting their price target, meaning it is now a sell. Too often, these recommendations fail to mention taxes. Should you have a good gain, the second you initiate that sale, your gain is now realized. You will now be responsible for the taxes. Let’s just look at a simple example. Say you bought company A at $100. You made a great pick and after 6 months, the stock has now doubled to $200. Obviously you have made a fantastic investment, the question is what do next? If you sell out entirely, you will have a gain of $100 and it will be considered a short term capital gain, as you have not held it for longer than a year. It will be taxed at your normal income tax bracket. As of now, these taxes will fall somewhere between 10% and 37%. Let’s just assume a middle tax bracket of 24%.

On the $100 gain you will have to pay $24, leaving you with $176 to work with. Additionally, depending on where you live, you will owe state and local tax. Here in Baltimore County, Maryland you owe 5.75% to the state and 2.83% to the county. This lops off another $8.58, bringing that initial $200 down to $167.42.

The variables are of course ever changing. Should the characteristics of company A fail to live up to expectations or should your investment thesis no longer hold true, it very well might be a good time to sell out and switch companies. The important lesson is to take the effects of taxes into consideration and make an apples to apples comparison. In this example it is not $200 in Company A vs $200 in Company B, but instead $200 in Company A vs $167.42 in Company B. With that in mind, selling out of Company A might not be as enticing.

As always, thank you for reading. Be sure to subscribe and follow me on Twitter @Thegarpinvestor. Feel free to share the post, thanks!

One Year Down

I have now officially been running this blog for a full year now. I’ve had my ups and my downs, but I think I’ve grown considerably as an investor. I truly think I am better than when I started and I am now even more committed to GARP investing. Putting my thoughts out in public has forced me to focus on my core beliefs and has held me accountable. I expect my growth in year 2 to be even greater than in year 1. Just like wealth, knowledge is always compounding.

Year One performance

I started this journey exactly one year ago. I put $10,000.00 of my own money into my 10K Portfolio. I put that money into companies I believed in and let them do the work for me. Thankfully, I didn’t fall flat on my face and I’ve been able to make some money. My portfolio now stands at $10,843.11. As I often state, making a positive return isn’t all that difficult. You can buy government bonds and make a virtually risk free return, it just won’t be very good. I choose to compare my portfolio to the S&P 500. If you can’t outperform the general American index in the long run, you don’t have much business in picking individual stocks. When I started on 8/19/18, the SPY stood at $285.06. As of 8/19/19 the SPY closed at $292.33.

Return(1) SPY Return(2) Difference(1-2)

Portfolio value $10,843.11: 8.43 2.55 5.88

Simply looking at the SPY ticker isn’t quite fair to the index. My portfolio value accounts for all dividends I have collected over the last year. The SPY does not automatically reinvest dividends. They currently give out a yield of 1.86%. Without knowing the exact days of distribution and all that jazz, I think it is easiest if I just add in 1.86% to the SPY return in order to give a more accurate picture. Therefore a more realistic result would be as follows:

Return(1) SPY Return(2) Difference(1-2)

Portfolio value $10,843.11: 8.43 4.41 4.02

Overall, I am pretty satisfied with my results in year one. I outperformed the SPY by a hair over 4%. Take this with a grain of salt, one year is not nearly enough time to get an accurate picture. It will likely take at least 3 years to really tell whether this out performance is for real. That being said, I certainly prefer to have this head start.

Mistakes Made

I have learned a number of lessons since starting this blog. Some were completely new to me, while other things I knew but needed to be reinforced. My first punch to the gut came shortly after beginning. I rushed into some companies, rather than waiting for an appropriate entry price. Soon after I bought into my first companies, the market took a precipitous fall. Had I just bought in a couple of months later, my returns would likely be higher by a good 10%. The biggest lesson I learned was not to fight against a large macroeconomic situation. I grossly underestimated both how much effect the trade war could impact my companies and how long such a situation could last. I thought we were looking at a blip on the radar and my companies would return to form in just a couple of months. I was wrong. This trade war has lasted far longer than I had anticipated and has greatly lowered the earning power of some of my companies. I don’t think the end is in sight and for that reason I have chosen to make some changes to my portfolio. I still believe in these companies, in the long run I would bet that all will end up fine. However, I must stick to my principles as a GARP investor and therefore I choose to invest in the path of growth, not turnaround situations.

Portfolio Changes

Within the last month, I have cut out my positions in HII, IPGP, and LEA. As I stated, all are fine companies. They simply haven’t been able to whether this trade war without suffering. Each has seen their earning power eroded greatly and the stocks have followed suit. Unfortunately, I lost money on all three of these investments. Thankfully, some of my winners have more than made up for it. In fact, my investment into FND alone has made up all losses in these three companies. With the money from selling, I bought one additional share of FB for $180.17. I now sit on a cash balance of $1,688.44. I have a number of companies on my watch list that I am following and I will be waiting for a good time to enter into two or three new positions. I’ll be sure to let you know when that happens.

As always, thank you for reading. I have appreciated your support over the last year and look forward to seeing where this journey takes me. Be sure to subscribe and follow me on Twitter @Thegarpinvestor. Feel free to share the post, thanks!

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a happy new year and took some time to celebrate! For us investors these past few months haven’t been too wonderful, so finding reasons to celebrate is always nice. As anyone following the market knows, we have seen a precipitous drop in prices. Everything from tech stocks to blue chips have seen a significant fall. From the market highs in October, prices now sit about 20% lower. This has given us a reminder that prices often fall much faster than they rise. Watching your portfolio drop by multiple percentage points day after day can truly leave you breathless. Volatility however is a price we must pay for satisfactory results.

This drop has certainly not left me unscathed. My personal accounts have taken a beating and my 10K portfolio now sits just around $9,000.00. I clearly chose the exact wrong time to start a portfolio. I made a rookie mistake and rushed into my investments, instead of letting ripe opportunities arise. Let it be known that I am far from a perfect investor. This is merely one mistake of the many I am sure to make. I only hope that in the aggregate, my winners will outshine my losers and overall my portfolio will beat the market in the long term.

Let me make it clear, no one likes losing money. I hate losing money as much as anyone, probably even more than most. It pains me to watch my hard earned money wash away. I could have had a lot more fun blowing $1,000.00 than losing it in stocks, but that is the risk us investors take. In the short run anything could happen. There are infinite possibilities, but we play a game of probability. In the long run, measured over many years not days or even months the market has grown and grown enormously. I therefore choose to let the numbers dictate my investing philosophy. Pick great companies and allow time and compounding to increase my wealth.

The ability to control your emotions is probably the most important attribute an investor can have. What is most important is not intelligence, nor financial modeling, but the ability to remain calm and think rationally. Never one to mince his words, Charlie Munger stated “A lot of people with high IQs are terrible investors because they’ve got terrible temperaments.” The stomach is often what makes or breaks an investor, not the brain.

Market volatility also happens to provide opportunities to buy at a discount. If you have a long investing horizon, you should actually root for the market to fall in the short term. It allows you to accumulate shares of great companies at lower prices, that in 20-30 years will be worth far more. If you are a net buyer of stocks, falling prices are your friend not your enemy. Another thing to consider is that not only can you buy stocks at cheaper prices, so too can the companies you invest in. If you invest into companies with high free cash flow, they can use that cash to buyback their own stock or even make investments into other companies at reduced prices.

I used this drop in the market to enter two more positions and effectively fully commit my entire 10K portfolio. I have $150 leftover that I’m saving to use on a rainy day. Over time I will also accumulate money in the form of dividends and I’m sure there will be some turnover in the portfolio as certain companies do not perform according to my investment thesis. Therefore, I doubt these are the final decisions I make.

APH- I purchased 9 shares of Amphenol at $82.97 for a total of $746.73. Amphenol is a neat company which sells fiber optic connectors and other such products to all kinds of industries ranging from hospitals to aerospace. They grow their earnings each and every year and they generate lots of free cash flow. They sit around a 20 P/E which is still on the rather high end, but at a level I am comfortable with given the quality of the business.

MKL- I purchased 1 share of Markel for $1,029.96. Often referred to as a baby Berkshire, I am happy to be an owner of such a high caliber business. Much like Berkshire, Markel operates primarily as a specialty insurer and then reinvests the float into all kinds of other vehicles. A company of this magnitude rarely goes on sale, but such an occasion recently occurred. One of the small subsidiaries they own got in trouble with regulators for misrepresentation of loss reserves. I believe this is a one time small issue, and not endemic of the entire company. This caused a great drop in price, that put Markel under 1.5X Price/Book value. The company almost never trades at such a level, so I pulled the trigger on a company I will be happy to own forever.

As always, thanks for reading! Questions are encouraged and feel free to comment how your portfolio has performed. Remember to follow along and join the email list on the side.

Flooring Is Boring(That’s a Good Thing)

Warren Buffett has often said he knows within minutes whether or not he wants to buy a company. As I was looking through a stock screener yesterday, I knew in moments I wanted to own the company. Floor & Decor(FND) is amongst the fastest growing non technology stocks I have ever seen. Imagine my surprise when I saw it trading 5% lower on the day. I knew I had to pull the trigger and pounce on the opportunity.

I bought 35 shares for $32.49 a piece. I’m down to $4,166.81 in my 10k Portfolio, maybe I need to slow down. Sometimes I just can’t help it, when I see a company I like at a decent price, I act. Over time, compounding will work its magic. Let’s check out why I like Floor & Decor.

Why FND?

This company is what I would categorize as a classic Peter Lynch stock. For those unfamiliar, Peter Lynch is a famed investor who ran the Magellan Fund at Fidelity. His mutual fund performed incredibly well during the 1980s, buoyed by a bull market. He is known for picking stocks based on what he saw day to day. He would walk around the mall, tracking customer habits and then go research the financials to see if they matched up. He particularly liked small retailers that could replicate their success in one location over and over all around the country.

Floor & Decor is my kind of small retailer. According to their most recent quarterly report, the company just opened its 90th store. They intend to open 400 total stores over the next 10 years, more than quadrupling their current size. They do one thing, but do it incredibly well. They sell hard surface flooring at value prices. FND stocks a large big box store, filling about 70,000 Sq. feet with all of a customer’s possible flooring needs.

I have a bit of an edge here, during the day I work in commercial real estate. We often have to buy flooring and there is a local company I often marvel at. They sell overstock flooring at rock bottom prices. The local company is often busy and seems to turn over their inventory quickly. While I can’t invest in this local flooring success, I can invest in FND which has a similar business model. Not only is the model similar, but they are much larger and therefore able to achieve all kinds of economies of scale.

Let’s dig in to the numbers a bit. In 2013 FND sold 441 million worth of goods. That number increased to 1.385 billion in 2017 for a CAGR of 33.1% over that time period. EPS grew even faster, growing from .13 to .88. This gives us a CAGR of 61.3%. A company growing earnings at 61% a year will make shareholders incredibly rich. Obviously, this rate is unsustainable, nothing can grow this fast forever.

In fact, quarter over quarter earnings growth has slowed down to a “paltry” 35%. FND has been able to accomplish this while using little debt, only 160 million for a company with a market cap over 3 billion. I would actually prefer they finance their expansion with more debt, while financing options remain fairly cheap. The main problem with the company is that they are new and I’m not sure of managements capital allocation strategy. FND has been issuing shares, diluting existing shareholders. As the company grows, I hope they can generate more free cash and finance future growth with internal cash on hand.

The company now trades at a P/E of about 27, by far the lowest since their IPO in 2017. The stock price reached a high of 58 in April, but the stock has cratered since growth has slowed just a bit. I think this presents a tremendous buying opportunity. In the short term I’m not sure which direction the stock price will go, but over the course of many years this will be a much larger business.

Conclusion

Overall Floor & Decor is a fantastic company with a long road ahead of them. They provide value to their customers and fill a void in the market. They are growing rapidly, adding new stores and increasing same store sales. I think this is a great time to buy and shareholders will be rewarded handsomely.

As always thanks for reading and subscribe on the side! You can follow me on Instagram and Twitter @thegarpinvestor.

Tucker or Trucker?

Earlier this week, I bought 4 shares of Old Dominion Freight Line(ODFL) for $162.60 a piece or a total of $650.40. Of course since I bought shares, the stock has continued to fall. It now stands 3.5% lower than where I bought it. This always seems to happen to me, unfortunately luck doesn’t seem to run in my blood. Therefore I’ll have to keep relying on brains and long term appreciation to make my money. For those keeping track I now own 6 stocks and have $5,303.91 left in cash in my 10k Portfolio.

Why ODFL?

Founded in 1934, Old Dominion Freight Line has been around for a long time. I generally like old companies (as long as they are still growing), they have survived all kinds of different economic environments. ODFL is a less than truckload(LTL) transportation company. Rather than trucking a full capacity for one company, they pick up small loads from various customers. They then put them all together and because of their logistic mastery are able to deliver the goods quickly. They service all kinds of customers ranging from auto parts to healthcare equipment. If you need something trucked, they are happy to help.

According to their 2017 annual report, they are now the 4th largest LTL company in the country, up from 6th in 2011. Gaining market share is certainly a good thing and I hope this trend continues. One sentence from their report I particularly liked was that “Significant capital is required to create and maintain a network of service centers and a fleet of tractors and trailers. The high fixed costs and capital spending requirements for LTL motor carriers make it difficult for new start-up or small operators to effectively compete with established carriers.” This forms a bit of an oligopoly with the other large LTL companies. New competitors simply can’t compete with the incumbent businesses, due to a lack of existing infrastructure.

Now let’s take a look at some of the numbers that make ODFL so compelling. They grew revenue every single year since 1996 with the exception of the 2009-10 recession. Consistency is key, allowing me to sleep easy at night. From 2013-2017 EPS grew from 2.39 to 4.35 for a CAGR of 12.7%. While not exactly stellar over this period, growth is beginning to rise quickly. This past quarter earnings grew 67.2% over the prior year and growth is not expected to slow down anytime soon. The company is winning new jobs and growing market share. They trade around a 27.5 P/E which in a vacuum is quite high, but I find to be reasonable for a company that is growing considerably and of high quality. Remember, I am the GARP investor after all. Growth at a reasonable price is my goal.

ODFL has a ROE above 20%, meaning for every dollar of equity put into the business over the years, they are able to generate a 20%+ return. This is frankly quite stellar. They are investing heavily into CapEx every year and if they can keep up these same level of returns, investors should do quite well. The business is actually remarkably simple. They earn a generous amount of cash flow, then take that money and invest it into new trucks and fulfillment centers for logistics. With whatever cash is leftover ODFL pays a small dividend, buys back some shares and pays off whatever debt they owe. The company has a very clean balance sheet with only 839 million in liabilities, a minuscule number for a 13 billion dollar company.

Conclusion

Overall, I don’t expect ODFL to be my portfolios best performer 5 years from now. I do however expect it to be a portfolio anchor, that is meaningfully larger every single year. They are a simple business that can be relied upon. Management knows what they are doing and the stock is trading at a fair price.

As always thanks for reading and subscribe on the side! You can follow me on Instagram and Twitter @thegarpinvestor.

Value vs Growth? How About Both!

Humans love to use labels. From low carb to bridezilla, labels are used in almost every walk of life. It comes out of a need to identify and place something within a group. I myself have fallen victim to this very affliction, I purposefully called myself the GARP investor. Investors don’t stray from this norm, in fact they typically embrace it. Investors generally fall into one of two overarching categories: value or growth. Of course there are hundreds of subcategories ranging from deep value to angel investing but ultimately these are just derivatives of the main two categories with a slight spin. These two frequently find themselves at odds with one another. Members of one group can never seem to grasp the thinking of their counterparts. I personally find these arguments to be all for naught. In my opinion growth is just a factor used in determining a company’s value. They are two sides of the same coin and inextricably linked

Let’s examine what Warren Buffett had to say on the matter. In his 1992 letter to his shareholders(which you should all go ahead and read in its entirety), he tackled this very issue.

Most analysts feel they must choose between two approaches customarily thought to be in opposition: “value” and “growth.” Indeed, many investment professionals see any mixing of the two terms as a form of intellectual cross-dressing.

We view that as fuzzy thinking (in which, it must be confessed, I myself engaged some years ago). In our opinion, the two approaches are joined at the hip: Growth is always a component in the calculation of value, constituting a variable whose importance can range from negligible to enormous and whose impact can be negative as well as positive.

In addition, we think the very term “value investing” is redundant. What is “investing” if it is not the act of seeking value at least sufficient to justify the amount paid?

I don’t understand why an investor can’t be both a growth and a value investor, or rather just a regular plain vanilla investor. When making an investment, the goal should always be to find value. Growth is merely a factor in determining whether there is value in the investment or not. In fact, there can be investments of incredible value with no growth and even no value with incredible growth. This is why the price paid is so important. Let’s look at some examples to demonstrate:

Value With No Growth

Imagine a company that earns 1 million dollars a year in profit manufacturing toasters, whose fixed assets equal all of their liabilities. This company then needs to spend 1 million on capital expenditures in order to fix their machinery to sell the exact same amount of toasters. In year 2 they will make that same 1 million and spend that 1 million on fixing their machinery. There is never any cash leftover in the business. In years prior however, they were more profitable and were able to save up 5 million in the bank. Because they are unable to grow their earnings the P/E ratio has fallen to a pittance of 3. This means the whole business is only selling for 3 million. A classic value investor would buy what Buffett would call a “cigar butt” for 3 million. He would close the business, sell off the fixed assets to pay off the liabilities and walk away with the 5 million in cash. He bought it for 3, walked away with 5 and made a quick 2 million dollars, a 66% return. Unfortunately, the market is more efficient these days and such easy money is no longer there for the taking. Had you paid above 5 million for the same business, it wouldn’t be nearly as enticing. Price paid is what ultimately determines the success of an investment, even if there is no growth in the business.

Growth With No Value

First let’s look at another Buffett quote from the same letter.

Growth benefits investors only when the business in point can 
invest at incremental returns that are enticing - in other words, 
only when each dollar used to finance the growth creates over a 
dollar of long-term market value.  In the case of a low-return 
business requiring incremental funds, growth hurts the investor.

Let’s now imagine a successful company with a decision on their hands. This company has no debt, earns 200 million dollars in profit and has a billion dollars of equity. They therefore have a Return on Equity(ROE) of 20% and have a market cap of 2 billion(a 10 P/E). The company generates lots of free cash with no maintenance CapEx and doesn’t know how to spend it. They can either pay out this money for a 10% dividend, buy back 1/10 of the shares outstanding for a 10% return(buying shares back at a 10 P/E) or invest internally to try and grow the business. If we ignore the effect of taxes, paying out a dividend and buying back stock should have the same result. The question is what kind of return can the company generate by growing internally. Should the company invest that 200 million back into the business but grow earnings by any less than 20 million, it will generate less than a 10% return. Even if sales and earnings grow, this would be a poor allocation decision. While ROE is currently high at 20%, each dollar reinvested will have a Return on Incremental Capital far lower. Why dilute a great business by investing in low returns?

In this example, growing the business could actually hurt the investor. While they could maintain the status quo as a high ROE business paying a generous dividend or buying back stock, plowing money back into the business at lackluster rates of return actually loses value for an investor. Unless you can invest each dollar back into the business at high rates of return, it is best for a company to look elsewhere for allocation decisions. Just because a business is growing, doesn’t mean it is the best way to provide value to its shareholders.

In conclusion, the difference between value and growth is really just semantics. As investors we are all looking for the same thing, finding value and making a good return on our investments. There are any number of ways to do so, but ultimately it all comes down to the price paid being less than intrinsic value.

As always thanks for reading! Please subscribe on the side and you can find me on Instagram and Twitter @thegarpinvestor

I Got a Dollar

This morning I bought 7 shares of Dollar General stock for $110.57 a piece or 773.99 total. I am left with $5,949 to work with. I have invested just over 40% of my original 10K into 5 different companies. I hope to diversify a little more, making smaller positions going forward. I intend to buy somewhere between 12 and 15 companies total.

Why DG

As a dollar store, Dollar General sells cheap items providing great value to their customers. How can you make money selling things for a dollar? Well as it turns out DG is able to make a whole lot of money selling at discount prices. This past quarter they sold almost 6.5 billion dollars worth of goods and earned 407 million on those sales. By selling only a limited number of SKU’s and ordering in huge quantities the company can source products at bare bone prices. When they buy from a supplier, they are making an order for a company with over 14,000 stores. This leads to great economies of scale. Additionally, they only target small inexpensive items. Don’t expect to find a new car in a dollar general.

What separates Dollar General from their competition is their focus on location and on the customer experience. Instead of targeting large cities, they focus on small towns. Think of how Sam Walton built Wal Mart and his focus on rural america but at a micro level. These small towns aren’t large enough to support a Wal Mart or a Target and they are difficult to reach for Amazon. For Dollar General however they are moneymakers. DG builds out small stores, under 10,000 square feet and stocks them with brands consumers want. They also take great care in design. Every store is bright and welcoming, encouraging shoppers to come more often and spend more.

Financially, the company has performed superbly. While not the fastest grower, they have increased both sales and net income every year since going public in 2010. I particularly like the way Dollar General has been able to plow down their share count. At the start of 2014, DG had over 317 million shares outstanding. That number now stands at 266 million, a 16% reduction. This cutback is substantial. Each share now owns considerably more of the company, therefore a larger share of a growing stream of income.

The company is also becoming a free cash flow machine. This past year their cash flow from operations equaled 1.8 billion and had 640 million in capital expenditures, leaving them with almost 1.2 billion in free cash. They were able to use this free cash to pay a reasonable dividend, buyback a meaningful amount of shares and pay off a fair amount of debt. This free cash number should grow meaningfully over the years.

DG is now trading right around a 20 P/E. While not incredibly low, it is a fair price to pay for a strong and growing company. Remember as a GARP investor, I’m not looking for the cheapest possible company. I’m looking for a great company to hold for years into the future and if I can find such a company, I’m willing to pay a reasonable price. Dollar General has ticked my boxes and therefore I’ve decided to become an owner.

As always thanks for reading and subscribe on the side! Follow me on Twitter and Instagram @thegarpivnestor

The Double Dip!

I’ve gone ahead and hitched my wagon to Mark Zuckerberg. I bought 5 shares of FB on Friday for $878.90 and another share on Tuesday for $168.94 after seeing the company fall another 3.5% for a grand total of $1,047.84. I broke one of my original rules, never go above 10% in one company. Rules however are meant to be broken, I saw an opportunity and jumped on it. Besides I only stuck a toe over that 10% line.

I also purchased 5 shares of IPGP, the premier laser company in the world. Shares were down over 4% today, so I used this as a buying opportunity. I got in at $161.74 a piece for a total of $808.70. I continue to love the company and consider this to just be a blip on the radar.

For those keeping track, I now own 4 stocks and still have $6,723 out of my original 10K with which to buy more!

Why Facebook?

Facebook is one of the most phenomenal companies of my investing lifetime. Started in 2004, they are already one of the largest companies in the world. They IPO’d in 2012 at a market cap of 104 Billion. They now sit at 412 Billion meaning they have come close to quadrupling in that time period. Will they quadruple again over the next 6 years? Most likely not, but I wouldn’t completely rule it out. I do however think they have a great chance of outperforming the S&P 500 over the next 5 to 10 years by a considerable margin.

Commonly lumped in to a group called FANG stocks, I actually think they share a lot more in common with Google and Microsoft than they do with Netflix and Amazon. I find Amazon and Netflix to be almost impossible to value. They are great companies that provide incredible products to their consumers. That being said, Netflix continues to be cash flow negative and Amazon is in a world of their own in terms of valuation. I’d rather just stay away. Facebook, Google and Microsoft can all be valued by traditional value investing principles. They create meaningful profits and turn those profits into incredible amounts of free cash flow.

Let’s look at what makes Facebook so compelling. Over the last 5 years, sales have skyrocketed from 7.8 billion to 40.6 billion. This gives us a CAGR of 38.87%. EPS grew from .6 to 6.16 over the same time period, giving us a CAGR of 58.87%. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to tell this is phenomenal. FB now sits at a P/E of 23.65, a laughably low number considering how fast it has grown in the past. They are sitting on 41 Billion dollars of cash and short term investments without having a single dollar of debt. That is simply incredible.

The past however does not automatically promise future performance. We have to examine what Facebook’s future holds. After their latest quarterly release, the stock plummeted from fears of reduction in future growth. I find these fears unfounded. Of course FB has to slow down. If they continued to compound above 50%, they would be bigger than the entire S&P in a short amount of time.

In the short term, there will be pain. Just today, representatives of the company are testifying before congress about what they can do to stop meddling in the midterm elections. This once again represents short term thinking. Facebook is a platform that is singlehandedly strong enough to affect a US election. That power is only growing stronger. They have daily users that number almost 1.5 billion and monthly users above 2.2 billion. They have barely even started monetizing the platform. Just the talk that FB could get into dating caused dating juggernaut Match Group’s stock to fall 20% in a day. It is a platform of strength never before seen in US history.

Instagram

I have yet to even mention Instagram, one of the most popular social media platforms and one of Facebook’s chief “competitors.” You see, Facebook bought Instagram for 1 Billion in 2012, proving they have their eye on the ball in the acquisition space. Some estimate Instagram alone could be worth upwards of 100 billion, 1/4 FB‘s total market cap. Yesterday rumors abounded that Instagram is developing a new shopping app. This platform is still in its infancy, just figuring out ways to monetize for shareholders.

The truth is we don’t know what the future holds for this company. We can merely look at their past success and determine whether we think the future is bright. In my opinion Facebook will be a trillion dollar company in the not too distant future and who knows how large it could grow. Stop thinking in the short term, but determine whether you want to own a company for the next decade.

Lasers

IPGP holds a particularly soft spot in my heart. You see for a while, it was by far my best investment ever. Within a year of buying it in my personal account, I had gained over 200% more than tripling my initial investment. Of course, nothing is ever as good as it seems. While the business was going gangbusters, the Trump administration laid out tariffs that have caused Chinese companies(IPGP‘s largest customers) to reconsider how much they will spend on capital expenditures. You see, lasers powered technology are large up front capital requirements and given a trade war, companies don’t want to commit to large spending given the uncertainty. That 200% investment within one year has fallen to a 100% gain within two. Still not too shabby!

I’m willing to sustain some short term pressure to buy into a fantastic company with long term advantages. IPGP sells lasers that enable manufacturers to cut their costs. A business that allows their consumers to cut their own costs has a recipe for success. They are simply selling a better technology. Metal cutting and abrasion systems wear out, whereas lasers are more precise, cost less and last longer. This has translated into robust sales growth, which has in turn led to much greater profits.

Given how long I talked about FB, I didn’t want to get too far into the weeds with IPGP. Just know they are a great company with a long track record. They have a squeaky clean balance sheet and generate loads of cash. Who knows how long this trade war will last, but when its over, I expect IPGP to burst out of the gate at a sprint. I’m willing to hold on to this gem for the very long term.

As always, thanks for reading and subscribe!

Stock #2 (HII)

I logged on this morning and bought my second stock for the portfolio. Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) is a military shipbuilder and the leading supplier of the United States military. I got in today at $249.00 and purchased 3 shares for a total of $747.00. I still have $8,579.88 of cash left in my 10K Portfolio.

Why HII?

From a broad perspective, I often like to have an impetus behind an investment. You need to be able to tell a story and then focus in on the minutia. Looking at the Trump administration, I don’t think it is a stretch to say he favors a growing military budget. This set me on a quest to look at all the public military contractors. One thing I noticed is that they are almost all great companies. It is no wonder the US military spending is so large and growing. From there I determined HII was my favorite and have been following it ever since.

Huntigton Ingalls is a classic high moat company. They are the leading supplier of the US Navy, supplying over 70% of all ships. They are the only company capable of building and refueling nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and one of only two that can build a nuclear powered submarine. They were spun off from Northrop Grumman in 2011. Spin offs are often a good candidate for research, as they are not always properly valued. Seven years later, HII continues to gain market share and grow their earnings.

HII generates ample free cash flow each and every year. You might start to sense a theme, I prefer companies with lots of leftover cash ever year. This gives a company flexibility, they aren’t constrained to any one strategy. Should they see a good acquisition opportunity then great, otherwise they can pay out dividends or buy back shares of the company. The board recently increased the buyback allowance from 1.2 billion to 2.2 billion. If my math suits me correctly 2.2 billion is just over 20% of the entire company. They won’t buy it all back overnight, but the share count should fall dramatically over time.

While 2017 wasn’t quite a banner year, they more than made up for it in the first half of 2018. Due to lower taxes, a reduced share count and higher sales and margins earnings increased YoY from 3.21 to 5.40. That’s an increase of 68% in a single calendar year. While we can’t expect such growth going forward, that would be impossible. The company will continue to perform with precision.

Conclusion

Huntington Ingalls is a simple but extremely well run company. They will never be the fastest growing company, but they are almost guaranteed to grow at a decent clip over time. They have a growing backlog that will keep them busy for years to come. As of the end of 2017 their backlog stood at $21.4 billion. The company will continue to buy back shares and grow their earnings. They are trading at a reasonable multiple and over the course of 5-10 years the company will be considerably larger.

My First Purchase

Guess what? I bought my first stock this week for my 10K Portfolio! I am now the proud owner of 4 shares of the Lear corporation(LEA). I purchased 4 shares for 168.28 a piece for a grand total of $673.12. This still leaves me with a cash position of $9,326.88. Of course as soon as I bought it, the stock continued to fall. O well. If an immediate fall in price causes you trauma, I fear investing in stocks just might not be for you. Keeping an even temperament is probably even more important than a high IQ.

Why Today?

When I logged on to Robin Hood on Wednesday, I checked my watch list and saw that Lear was down almost 3.5%. Seeing that a stock I follow is down, I made a quick google check to see if there was any news. Turns out that there is increased worry about trade within the auto sector in NAFTA. The trade war is real and it may materially impact the earning power of the business. That being said, I think the company exhibits a strong moat and this is just providing an opportunity to buy a stock on the cheap. Would I have rather made my initial position even lower? Of course, but you never know when you will find the bottom. Buy in and if it falls lower, buy more.

Digging Deeper

Lear now sits at a P/E of 9.06. According to the Wall Street Journal, the S&P 500 average P/E is 23.79. This means that on just a P/E basis, Lear is almost 1/3 the price of the S&P 500. Looked at another way, Lear’s earnings could be cut in half and their P/E ratio would still be noticeably cheaper than the S&P 500.

As mentioned in my Watch List post, Lear is a vertically integrated manufacturer of automated seats for automobiles. It is simply the best in the business, displaying a wide moat. In the last 5 years it has increased sales from 16.2 billion in 2013 to 20.5 billion in 2017. EPS grew even faster going from 5.61 to 17.66 in the same time period. In 2017, Lear generated just under 1.2 billion dollars in free cash flow. Based on the current market cap of 10.9 billion, it has a free cash flow yield of 10.9%.

I also like what management had to say in their most recent annual report.

We also have an outstanding record of returning cash to our shareholders. Since we initiated dividend and share repurchase programs in 2011, we have returned more than $4 billion to our shareholders, which includes buying back 42% of our shares outstanding and steadily increasing our quarterly cash dividend.

I believe that this is a great time to invest in Lear. We have the strongest team in the industry, a focused strategy that is delivering superior results, a growing market share in both business segments, a footprint that is second to none, a well-established and growing position in china and a record three-year sales backlog of $3.2 billion.

Conclusion

Lear is a classic GARP stock, growing at a fast rate and selling for a bargain price. Even if it is impacted by this trade war, they have the financial strength to withstand a couple of tough years. 5-10 years from now they will be a significantly bigger business which earns appreciably more free cash. The company should actually be rooting for the stock price to fall. Given that they spend so much on share buybacks, Lear could buy back considerably more shares should the stock fall or remain flat.