Around this time of year, I always find it instructive to do a screen on which stocks are doing well already in the short time we’ve had this year. Such a screen can give investors clues on many things: which sectors are moving, which companies are beating earnings expectations, which “dogs” are recovering, and so on.
Typically, the best-performing list is filled with some high fliers, up hundreds, even thousands of percentage points. Many investors, if doing such a screen of stock performance, often simply toss these potential names aside, on the belief that they are highly risky, highly promoted, or highly overvalued.
Often of course, they are exactly that. But as an investor, it might be unwise to toss these ideas aside until you have at least determined an accurate reading as to why other investors are buying them hand over fist. Every once in a while, you will find a real diamond amongst the sparkles, a diamond that might continue to shine, and, even better—get bigger. Real diamonds can’t even claim that.
Below are some companies that have performed exceptionally well so far this year. We make no claims as to the merits of these companies, other than investors seem to really, really like them this year. That in itself is worth checking into. Because you should at least know why they are going up.
Remember, there is never any bad information. Only bad decisions based on bad information. It is usually better to have the most information as you can possibly have, so you yourself can choose what may or may not be valuable.
So here goes:
Vonage Holdings: Vonage is up 70% so far this year, so you might think it is a universally loved name. Wrong. Vonage, which offers internet telephony services, instead holds the claim for being one of the possibly worst IPOs of all time.
The company issued stock at US$17 per share in 2006 and promptly fell off a cliff amidst missed earnings and shareholder lawsuits. Analysts famously called it a “dog” on TV. Once a popular stock in terms of analyst attention, most simply gave up, and now only three analysts cover the US$800 million company.
Why is it going up? Well, it seems many of the lawsuits have been settled, and revenues and earnings have the potential to grow again. The company has hit its stride with its international calling offerings, which are appealing to U.S. budget-conscious consumers.
This week, the company reported earnings of US
.07 per share versus expectations of US
.04, so the recovery looks to be continuing.
Intertainment Media: Intertainment Media is up an impressive 430% so far this year. The company provides proprietary programs for clients to help build brand loyalty and programs, but the real excitement this year is from their Ortsbo real-time translator.
Ortsbo allows users to communicate on social network sites despite differences in languages. The company has more than 50 languages already developed. Because of the growth and success of Facebook, many see all social network companies as valuable.
The company itself highlighted how its early-stage growth was in fact faster than Facebook’s. The fact that shares in Facebook are only available through secondary markets further helps fuel investor frenzy for anything deemed “social networking”.
This company might be one to watch, but as proven by the share price, many investors are choosing to buy and watch at the same time.
Petrofrontier Corp., an international oil and gas company, is up an impressive 190% so far this year. Why the excitement? Well, the oil and gas sector is certainly heating up, so that’s one reason. Investors appetite for risk is also clearly back on, with the market seemingly never going down, so that’s another.
The real reason for the rise, however, would be the company’s propensity to do some ‘elephant-hunting’ in its exploration. From the company’s own presentations, its holdings have the potential (read that carefully) to hold 27.5 billion barrels of oil. The company’s market cap is now US$165 million.
Evergreen Energy Inc. is up an impressive 551% so far this year. This, for a company that faced de-listing not that long ago. Why the excitement? A new management team has taken over the coal technology company, and the executives have a good reputation in the industry.
It also hasn’t hurt that a large part of Australia’s coal reserves have been under water from flooding. Evergreen, formerly KFX, has a technology that dries coal and increases it energy content. Lat week it re-opened its test facility at Fort Union, Wyoming, which caused the stock to move some more.
Remember, we are making no recommendations here. On the other hand, there has never been a stock go up 25-fold that didn’t go up a few hundred percentage points first.
Peter Hodson is chairman and a senior portfolio manager at Sprott Asset Management