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Company name JetBlue Airways Corporation
Stock ticker JBLU
Live stock price [stckqut]JBLU[/stckqut]
P/E compared to competitors Good
MANAGEMENT EXECUTION
Employee productivity Poor
Sales growth Good
EPS growth Poor
P/E growth Poor
EBIT growth Poor
ANALYSIS
Confident Investor Rating Poor
Target stock price (TWCA growth scenario) $0
Target stock price (averages with growth) $0.11
Target stock price (averages with no growth) $0.53
Target stock price (manual assumptions) $5.21

The following company description is from Google Finance: http://www.google.com/finance?q=jblu

JetBlue Airways Corporation (JetBlue) is a passenger airline that operates primarily on point-to-point routes with its fleet of 120 Airbus A320 aircraft and 49 EMBRAER 190 aircraft. As of December 31, 2011, it served 70 destinations in 22 states, Puerto Rico, Mexico and 12 countries in the Caribbean and Latin America. Most of JetBlue flights have as an origin or destination New York or one of its other focus cities: Boston, Fort Lauderdale, Los Angeles, Orlando or San Juan, Puerto Rico. As of December 31, 2011, the Company operated an average of 700 daily flights. During the year ended December 31, 2011, the Company acquired eight take-off and landing slots at each of New York�s LaGuardia Airport and Washington D.C.’s Ronald Reagan National Airport. The Company�s operations primarily consist of transporting passengers on its aircraft with domestic United States operations, including Puerto Rico, which accounted for 85% of its capacity in 2011.

Confident Investor comments: I struggle with finding an airline that is worth my investment. At this price and at this time, I do not think that a Confident Investor can confidently invest in this stock.

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Company name Kulicke and Soffa Industries Inc.
Stock ticker KLIC
Live stock price [stckqut]KLIC[/stckqut]
P/E compared to competitors Good
MANAGEMENT EXECUTION
Employee productivity Poor
Sales growth Good
EPS growth Poor
P/E growth Poor
EBIT growth Poor
ANALYSIS
Confident Investor Rating Poor
Target stock price (TWCA growth scenario) $3.33
Target stock price (averages with growth) $4.64
Target stock price (averages with no growth) $5.14
Target stock price (manual assumptions) $9.34

The following company description is from Google Finance: http://www.google.com/finance?q=klic

Kulicke and Soffa Industries, Inc. (K&S) designs, manufactures and sells capital equipment and expendable tools used to assemble semiconductor devices, including integrated circuits (IC), high and low powered discrete devices, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), and power modules. The Company also services, maintains, repairs and upgrades its equipment. Its customers primarily consist of semiconductor device manufacturers, outsourced semiconductor assembly and test providers (OSAT), other electronics manufacturers and automotive electronics suppliers. K&S operates in two main business segments: Equipment and Expendable Tools. K&S manufactures and sells a line of ball bonders, heavy wire wedge bonders, stud bumpers, and die bonders. The Company manufactures and sells a variety of expendable tools for a range of semiconductor packaging applications.

Confident Investor comments: At this price and at this time, I do not think that a Confident Investor can confidently invest in this stock.

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I recently discussed how I use Google Finance to do part of my "quick" analysis of a stock when a reader asks my advice. Typically, I receive these requests from Twitter (@ConfidentInvest) or via the Contact Me on this site. After I do the quick review of a company on Google Finance, I need to dig in a bit more before I give an opinion on the stock. Most of that work, I do on MSN Money.

As you can tell by the metrics I report in my analysis reports, I worry about the 10 year growth history of 4 major metrics:

  1. P/E
  2. EBIT
  3. Sales
  4. Profit

I also look at the ability of a company’s managers to manage their revenue and profitability as a function of the number of employees.

image

image

To find the 10 year history, go to 10-Year Summary on the left side of the page. Also go to Key Ratios and further select 10-YEAR SUMMARY across the top of that page. When I do a full analysis for my site, I enter these values into a spreadsheet and perform trend analysis that closely models the rate of growth. I call this deep analysis TWCA and will explain more about that technique in the future. However, for a quick response to a reader’s question, I will do a mental calculation that the values are growing at a fairly even pace over the past decade. My concern is a major change in the numbers (especially negative growth). If the growth is relatively consistent, then I assume that a Confident Investor can cautiously invest in the company.

image

I then quickly look at the revenue per employee and then income per employee. This is found in the Key Ratios section but under MGMT EFFICIENCY on the top. I want to compare these numbers to the averages in the specific industry as well as to the S&P500. Companies that have too little revenue or profit per employee may be out of control and be heading into a rough time. This isn’t an albatross, but it does give me some concerns. For instance, in the screen shot above, IBM is significantly lower than the industry as well as the S&P 500.

At this point, I can answer the inquisitor. On an email or Twitter response, it is usually not very definitive. For a quick look, I haven’t done the math to rate the stock as a Good Company, Fair Company or Poor Company. However, if my quick look is interesting, I will add it to my list of stocks to spend more time with and perhaps create an analysis here.

When I find a company that I like and have on my Watch List, I use my account on Fidelity to manage my investment. I am very open on my Disclaimer page that you can expect that I personally invest in companies that I find attractive. Other brokerage houses have similar tools that I am sure are quite good, but I really like Fidelity’s tools.  In a future post, I will write about what I do there. If you want to make sure that you don’t miss my posts, please follow me on Twitter (@ConfidentInvest), subscribe to the RSS feed of this site, or subscribe to the weekly digest email that is sent out on Monday.

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Company name Liberty Property Trust
Stock ticker LRY
Live stock price [stckqut]LRY[/stckqut]
P/E compared to competitors Good
MANAGEMENT EXECUTION
Employee productivity Good
Sales growth Poor
EPS growth Good
P/E growth Good
EBIT growth Good
ANALYSIS
Confident Investor Rating Good
Target stock price (TWCA growth scenario) $55.97
Target stock price (averages with growth) $71.41
Target stock price (averages with no growth) $69.89
Target stock price (manual assumptions) $44.59

The following company description is from Google Finance: http://www.google.com/finance?q=lry

Liberty Property Trust (the Trust) is a self-administered and self-managed Maryland real estate investment trust (REIT). The Trust’s assets are owned directly or indirectly, and all of its operations are conducted directly or indirectly, by its subsidiary, Liberty Property Limited Partnership (the Operating Partnership). It provides leasing, property management, development, acquisition, and other tenant-related services for a portfolio of industrial and office properties, which are located within the Mid-Atlantic, Southeastern, Midwestern and Southwestern United States and the United Kingdom. During the year ended December 31, 2011, it acquired 21 properties comprising 4.2 million square feet. During 2011, it sold 62 operating properties containing an aggregate of 4.2 million square feet and 61 acres of land. On April 3, 2012, it sold 49 properties totaling 2.5 million square feet of space in Wisconsin, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and New Jersey.

Confident Investor comments: This is one of the few REITs that I have found that I like. At this price and at this time, I think that a Confident Investor can confidently invest in this stock.

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Company name Polycom Inc
Stock ticker PLCM
Live stock price [stckqut]PLCM[/stckqut]
P/E compared to competitors Fair
MANAGEMENT EXECUTION
Employee productivity Fair
Sales growth Good
EPS growth Good
P/E growth Poor
EBIT growth Good
ANALYSIS
Confident Investor Rating Fair
Target stock price (TWCA growth scenario) $20.61
Target stock price (averages with growth) $30.17
Target stock price (averages with no growth) $25.62
Target stock price (manual assumptions) $18.58

The following company description is from Google Finance: http://www.google.com/finance?q=plcm

Polycom, Inc. is a provider of unified communications (UC) solutions and a provider of telepresence, video, voice and infrastructure solutions based on open standards. With Polycom RealPresence video and voice solutions, from infrastructure to endpoints, people all over the world can collaborate face-to-face without being in the same physical location. The Company has three operating segments: Americas, which consist of North, Central and Latin Americas; Europe, Middle East and Africa, and Asia Pacific. The products and solutions include Network Infrastructure, UC Group Systems and UC Personal Devices, which includes desktop video devices and wireless local area network products. On March 21, 2011, the Company acquired Accordent Technologies, Inc. On July 27, 2011, it acquired Hewlett-Packard Company’s (HP) Visual Collaboration (HPVC) business, including the Halo Products and Managed Services business. On October 14, 2011, it acquired ViVu, Inc.

Confident Investor comments: At this time, I think that a Confident Investor can cautiously invest in this stock as long as the price is correct. Most of the fundamentals of this company are good but there are some concerns.