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February 28, 2023

Starting a Substack For Net Current Asset and Deep Value Stocks

I am starting a substack for strictly stock analysis of deep value net-net's and net tangible asset stocks. Here is my Substack. Here are a couple of the most recent deep values I came across from my screening. This is the first round of interesting sub NCAV or net tangible asset value stocks. Screen excludes Chinese, semis, biotech. In millions. These figures and for the ones going forward I will be getting the most recent numbers via the SEC.gov Edgar search database.

CWGL $221.4 NTAV, $72 NCAV with $133 market cap

SVFD $6.63 NCAV $5.3 market cap

AOUT $105.4 NCAV 115.5 NTAV $124 market cap

February 18, 2023

Market Direction

I'm watching the major indices very closely day to day. Fundamentally the economy is resiliant in the face of FED rate moves not seen in decades. History shows that when the yield curve is inverted as long as it is there is a recession. I believe we had a recession in Q1 and Q2 of last year as GDP went negative two quarters in a row. That is the time tested measure of a recession. The definition of a recession was tinkered with but to me we had a mild recession thus signaling the effect of the rate hikes.

I think many bears are ignoring that possiblity that the recovery was quick and rates were not high enough to bring a double dip recession. I don't know if we will get another this year but it seems it is going to take much higher rates to bring it about. The Covid stimulis and FED action was massive and it appears underated. It is very likely PE multiples are now high as they were in 2009 also because the market is forward looking. It very well could be that growth will continue even with rates at current levels.

One thing is for sure the economy is different now with secular labor and supply chain issues. Work from home is still common with many companies. Maybe all this has something to do with why the economy keeps spurting along. Housing has been resilent too with rates high. The bear thesis doesn't make sense if employment is still low and the housing market ok.

Technically, the market is uptrending currently and many support levels were found on the October low last year. I'm leaning more to major US indices going higher the next month or two but we shall see.

January 2, 2023

Coffee Holding JVA Stock Update A Net-Net

I've covered JVA on the blog for many years and shared my honest thoughts on the company. It's been so beaten down in this bear market it is now at .62% of net current asset value. In the past it would bottom out around net tangible asset value. This is one of those rarer cases where a profitable or recently former profitable company becomes a net current asset value stock.

If you are new to deep value the net current asset stocks get their attention because of famous investor Ben Graham who taught Warren Buffett. Net current asset value is a rought liquidation value of the whole company. Of course the true liquidatoin value is usually lower given the inventory and equipment and long-term assets are likely going to fetch less than on the books. They are usually priced so cheap for a reason too.

JVA is now merging with another company. Here is a piece of the SEC filing.

As a condition to the Merger, Pubco shall also acquire all of the issued and outstanding Delta securities from the Sellers in exchange for Pubco Ordinary Shares (the “Exchange” and, collectively with the Merger and the other transactions contemplated by the Merger Agreement, the “Transactions”).

As a result of Transactions, JVA and Delta will each become direct, wholly-owned subsidiaries of Pubco, with JVA stockholders receiving approximately $31.5 million (or 4.79%) worth of Pubco Ordinary Shares (the “Merger Consideration”) and Delta stockholders receiving approximately $625 million (or 95.21%) worth of Pubco Ordinary Shares (the “Exchange Consideration” and collectively with the Merger Consideration, the “Business Combination Consideration”), subject to certain adjustments, at an implied diluted value per share of $5.50.

The Business Combination Consideration may be adjusted if Delta closes certain acquisitions prior to the closing of the Transactions. The Merger Agreement also includes an earn-out to existing stockholders of Delta, consisting of $50 million of additional Pubco Ordinary Shares, which will be released to Delta stockholders if and when Delta achieves $70 million or greater of net income for fiscal year ending 2023. The company they are merging with is private so I don't know anything about them.

Disclosure: I have a position in JVA

December 23, 2022

Net Current Asset Stocks

As the market continues to be weak I am going to start looking for cheap stocks below net current asset value and net tangible asset value. I just ran a strict scan looking for super discounted assets. This is the first scan I have done in awhile for these as I never thought it would produce much in the most recent bull market. This scan is cherry picked from criteria of price-to-book value of .5 or less, long-term debt to equity less than .3 and return on equity over 1.

The most interesting ones are Vaccitech plc (VACC) with NCAV of $187 million and a market cap of $89 mil. VACC has postive earnings this year with $.22 last quarter and $.42 the quarter before that. Cash has been pretty stable the past year and currently it has $200 mil in cash.

We also have TD Holdings, Inc. (GLG) with $154 mil in NCAV and a market cap of $59 mil. Not as much cash as VACC as the large majority of the current assets are in account receivables. They had a couple recent slightly positive quarters of $.02 earnings per share and $.05. The stock has tried to bottom and has been sideways for months with support around $1.00 a share.

December 14, 2022

Stock Market Top Bull Trap Set

You may remember my blog post from late October where I outlined the scenario of a stock market bottom. I gave the exact levels it would need to break through to confirm and had a good read on the price action down there. The very bottom came on CPI day in October. It was also a bear trap. A bear trap is where the price action begins to go lower enticing sellers and short sellers to sell. What happens though is the momentum quickly shifts back to bullish as price fails to continue to go lower. We saw an epic bear trap on that October day. It was one of the largest reversals from a 52 week low in history.

You may or may not have noticed that on CPI day this week the market shot up early but fell after the CPI news. It was another trap!! And on CPI day again! Maybe it's a big coincidence or the CPI and inflation expectations are the main driver of equities during this time. Inflation is one of the biggest economic factors affecting consumers and businesses these days and not to mention the FED's decisions. We can see the two CPI days in this chart and how it is breaking the uptrend line. It tried to reclaim trend support on the CPI day which was yesterday and that is when we got the big failed signal. Failed signals are powerfull. It will take something special to continue higher from here. I'm not yet fully committed to this being the top but if we see a break of the yellow line around 389.50 on SPY it's game on for more lows.
stock market trap


We've got some obvious rounding top formation going on in small-caps.
small cap stocks
stock chart

November 25, 2022

I-Robot IRBT Merger Arbitrage

As it still stands I-Robot (IRBT) is being acquired by Amazon (AMZN) for $61 per share in an all cash deal. The announcement was back in early August of this year. I-Robot stockholders have officially approved the merger with Amazon.

To analyze the opportunity here let's begin with the deal itself. All cash deals always have a higher likelyhood of going through and this one is approved by shareholders. So we have one checkbox marked off. Next is the spread worth it? With IRBT stock currently at $52.57 a share and the deal price being $61 we currently have a whopping 16% return. The next hurdle is the possiblity of regulatory action denying the merger. There is a lot of speculation this deal won't make it past regulatory approval. I remember when there was a lot of speculation on the Fitbit merger being blocked as well and it ended up going through anyway.

I think it is worth averaging into IRBT stock in small increments over coming weeks. The stock is down a lot and could just rise with the overall market even it doesn't get bought. So, I see the risk/reward being nice here. Artificial intelligence is forecast to be one the fastest growing markets over coming years. With the likelyhood of significant innovation IRBT will no doubt be a great company going forward.
irbt chart

November 23, 2022

Stock Market Rally Continues

Since my recent posts about the market rally the major indices have held a steady uptrend. What I am seeing now is bonds especially in the ETF HYG actually "leading" equities higher. This happens from time to time in history. TLT and government bonds are leading too. I've been on Twitter a good bit and I am surprised more people are not paying attention to this. You heard it here. The bull momentum in many sectors is strong escpecially pivotal sectors like homebuilding and construction. This is seen in ETF's VNQ XHB.

I now see stocks continuing to move higher after the economic data is currently being shrugged off. A slow grind higher seems to be in the works. Even QQQ is acting bullish. I always stay open-minded and seperate fundamentals from trend when need be as we are seeing now. I learned in 2009 often major bottoms begin and continue on bad economic data and bad corporate news. Fighting an uptrend is futile. The market is always forward looking. Here are some charts to add a little clarity to the bullish sentiment.
hyg stock
qqq chart
vnq chart
xhb homebuilders chart candles

October 23, 2022

Stock Market Bear Rally In the Works?

I have been looking at the major stock market indices closely lately for signs of a real rally. The Russell 2000 index of small-cap companies ticker IWM has shown rising support levels in an uptrend. There isn't confirmation of a new trend up yet but the setup is there. So many stocks are oversold near-term I see a bounce in the market as a likely scenario. If we don't bounce here there will just be a much bigger short-term rally in weeks to come. Here is the support area on the bottom yellow line for IWM. It's a pretty solid level that keeps getting support. There is also a downtrend breakout seen over the top diagonal yellow line. We are testing this level currently. It's roughly the same with SPY QQQ's.

















You would think tech would need to be strong to see a market rally and it is making progress here. I put a bollinger band up on here and you can see when it breaks through either top or bottom the momentum continues awhile. I'd like to see it break over the red line also. That's been a key level. Let's see what it does next week.


















The small-cap put to call ratio is showing historic signs of a bottom forming.


















I noticed the energy sector is making multi-month highs. XLE has been very strong. My understanding is that crude oil is in a sweet spot for their margins. Still I wouldn't expect such a big move and if the market is going to rally a bit something has to lead right?

October 17, 2022

Possible Rally Setting up on Stock Market

I posted on my trading blog DynamiteStocks.com about a potential major low taking place right now on the major indices. Here is a chart of SPY the S&P 500 ETF. The breakdown failure was of epic proportions and a top 10 percentage reversal from 52 week lows in history. The red day yesterday is now wiped out too as the market ripped all after hours session. I am not looking to get into any multi-day short positions at this time as I think this rally could get legs. In 2008 at market lows there was a fairly similar bear trap. It is too early to tell if this is a long term bottom but it has the makings of what could be. I remain neutral day to day to see how it plays out but this has my attention. Failed signals can be powerful chart signals.
spy

September 15, 2022

Watches for 9/16/2022

IRNT is still short bias. Management canceled the conference call, refused to provide earnings guidance and the CEO quit all just now.

Some Short bias

XLE NERV MPLN STAR WISH NAIL JWN EXPR

Some long bias

PXMD FREY JWEL JDST