Investment "Logic"

Notes: Stock Ratings: 1 = buy at current stock prices, 2 = buy on a 5-10% dip in stock price, 3 = sell on a 5-10% increase in stock price, 4 = sell at current stock prices to raise cash.  Ratings are based upon 12-18 month outlook on stock direction and not necessarily related to moves I make due to financial positioning. Home Depot announced third quarter earnings results for 2016 on November 15.  Sales came in at $23.3B, resulting in earnings of $1.60.  This beat the consensus of $23.09 in sales and earnings of $1.58.  Comparable sales were up 5.5% overall and 5.9% in the US.  Finally, they also delivered forward guidance which kept sales growth targets in line with previous communications and raised earnings per share estimates for 2016 to $6.33 which would be a 15.9% growth from 2016.  Keep in mind that this means the dividend is likely increasing as well, since Home Depot usually returns half of the earnings in dividends the next year (3.16 fo...

Notes: Stock Ratings: 1 = buy at current stock prices, 2 = buy on a 5-10% dip in stock price, 3 = sell on a 5-10% increase in stock price, 4 = sell at current stock prices to raise cash.  Ratings are based upon 12-18 month outlook on stock direction and not necessarily related to moves I make due to financial positioning. On November 9, Ionis Pharmaceuticals announced the results for their third quarter, 2016 results.  For the quarter, they posted earnings of $0.06 on earnings of $110.9M.  These results are mixed with analyst expectations with earnings expected to be a loss of $0.02 on earnings of $112.67M.  While the results were mixed, the stock soared off of the earnings announcement and call.  I'll get into that shortly, however I also want to note that cash equivalents were higher than I expected, with $687.8M in reserves, which is down from the $779.2M they had a year ago.  Reserves were expected to go down due to extra expenses in getting th...

Notes: Stock Ratings: 1 = buy at current stock prices, 2 = buy on a 5-10% dip in stock price, 3 = sell on a 5-10% increase in stock price, 4 = sell at current stock prices to raise cash.  Ratings are based upon 12-18 month outlook on stock direction and not necessarily related to moves I make due to financial positioning. On Semi held their 2016 third quarter results back on November 6.  Results were earnings of $0.24 on $950.9M.  These results were mixed with expectations of earnings of $0.24 on revenue of $955.5M.  During the quarter, they completed their acquisition of Fairchild semiconductor and are seeing larger synergies develop faster than expected, while at the same time seeing increased complimentary products than originally expected.  It's also important to note that the miss on revenues is the $5M not realized due to divestitures the company made over the third quarter.   The quarter, as a whole, wasn't really a lot to write home about...

Notes: Stock Ratings: 1 = buy at current stock prices, 2 = buy on a 5-10% dip in stock price, 3 = sell on a 5-10% increase in stock price, 4 = sell at current stock prices to raise cash.  Ratings are based upon 12-18 month outlook on stock direction and not necessarily related to moves I make due to financial positioning. On November 2, Cedar Fair announced their third quarter results for fiscal year 2016. Net revenues came in at $650M, resulting in earnings of $3.10.  Both of these numbers missed the estimates of $3.54 earnings on $656M in revenues.  Despite those misses, the stock has risen over 4% since the announcement, regardless of the political landscape we've faced with the US Elections taking place.  Despite missing expectations, the company announced that their revenues through the end of October (Q3 was through the end of September) hit record levels of $1.1B, a 3% increase over the same time period last year.  The board also approved a 4% in...