Skip to main content

Cree on a roll - rising on rumors or something more substantial?

One of the stocks that showed up on this week's Alert HQ list of BUY signals based on daily data is Cree, Inc. (CREE)

It has a chart that meets the Alert HQ criteria. The stock has been in a steady decline for months and has just popped up over its 50-day moving average. Its DMI is turning positive just as MACD has already done. It appears a reversal to the upside is underway. The 6-month daily chart is below:

Chart of CREE
The stock has recently benefited from a good earnings report. A week ago Cree announced that fourth-quarter profit rose 31 percent as sales of the company's light-emitting diodes drove a 22 percent revenue gain to beat Wall Street expectations. Per share profit rose from $0.08 to $0.09 for the quarter.

For the full fiscal year, Cree reported net income of $33.4 million, or 38 cents per share, down from a profit of $57.3 million, or 72 cents per share, in fiscal 2007. Revenue rose 25 percent to $493.3 million from $394.1 million.

Despite the improvement on a quarterly basis, it can be argued the stock is still expensive. With a PE of 60, a Price/Sales ratio of 4 and a PEG of 2.6 Cree is no bargain at its current price of $22.84. So far, though, the stock has managed to hang onto its gains.

Today on Barron's Tech Trader Daily site, Eric Savitz may have offered a reason. Apparently, there are all kinds of rumors floating around about Cree. One is that IBM might make a bid for the company. Another is that Cree and Korean company LG are planning to set up a joint venture in China, to make LED backlights. According to Andrew Huang, an analyst at American Technology Research, the stories range from "makes no sense" to "unlikely".

In summary, Cree has exceeded Wall Street expectations but still seems a bit expensive. Based on future earnings potential as a prime supplier to many of the leading users of LED backlighting technology, the stock could tack on more gains if the tech sector rallies. Without that kind of rising tide, though, investors may allow the stock to sink back below its 50-day moving average.

As I usually recommend, it's always a good idea to put the Alert HQ stocks on a watch list and see what happens.

Source: Cree: AmTech Says IBM Bid Rumor “Makes No Sense;” Contends Report Of LG Display Venture “Unlikely True”

Disclosure: none

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Brazil - in a bubble or on a roll?

A couple of years ago, no one recognized the real estate bubble even though it was under everyone's nose. Now, analysts and bloggers are seeing bubbles everywhere they look. One of them, they say is in Brazil whose Bovespa stock market index has doubled in the last 12 months. Does the bubble accusation hold water? I don't think so and here are 7 reasons why Brazil is by no means a bubble economy: Exports have held up over the past year thanks to demand from China for Brazil's soya exports and iron ore. This was helped by the the Brazilian government's drive to improve trade links with Asia and Africa. Export diversification, spurred by a more active trade policy and increased focus on "south-south" trade under current president Lula, helped mitigate the decline in demand from OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries A "sensible" economic framework has been in place since the 1990's. This has included inflation

Trade Radar gets another update

Some of our data sources changed again and it impacted our ability to load fundamental/financial data. In response, we are rolling out a new version of the software: 7.1.24 The data sourcing issues are fixed and some dead links in the Chart menu were removed. So whether you are a registered user or someone engaged in the free trial, head over to our update page and download the latest version. The update page is here:   https://tradingstockalerts.com/software/downloadpatch Contact us if you have questions or identify any new issues.

Unlock Stock Market Profits - Key #1

This is the first in an ongoing series of articles where I discuss what I feel are keys to successful investing. It is based on a post that provides a summary of the ten keys that individual investors should use to identify profitable stock trades. ( Click here to read the original post ) There are two basic steps to investing. First, you need to find stocks that seem to have some potential. Then you have to determine whether these stocks are actually good investments. There are many stocks that at first glance look interesting, but further research reveals that there are too many negatives to warrant taking a position. This first post in the series starts at the beginning: getting good investment ideas. Key #1: If something special is happening to a stock, it will be reflected in some kind of unusual activity in the markets. As individual investors, we will never be the first to know; however, unusual activity can be an early sign that allows us to follow the Wall Street professional