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Industrials

Rolls-Royce RYCEY ($6.85) Phoenix Rising From The Ashes

Turnarounds rarely succeed. Ask Warren Buffet, who tried his best to turn around textiles major Berkshire Hathaway, which was suffering from a barrage of cheaper imports (sound familiar?) before giving up and turning it into the holding company and investment giant that is today. Rolls-Royce (RYCEY) is in the midst of one in the cutthroat world of aerospace engineering and manufacturing and is having a banner year with its stock up 82% to date.

Can it continue or sink under its three difficult cyclical segments, aerospace, defense, and power with low margins and tough competition? –

A year and a half ago, CEO Tufan Erginbilgic took over a struggling company with pandemic-induced challenges, operational inefficiencies, and persistent financial setbacks. His approach was bold and uncompromising: radical cost-cutting, operational streamlining, and a laser-focused strategy to transform Rolls-Royce’s fundamental business model. He did admirably, trimming the workforce by 6% and reducing expenses by £400 million. He also raised prices, optimized procurement processes, and renegotiated contracts.

As a result, in the first 6 months of 2024, Rolls-Royce did an excellent job with

  • 19% revenue growth to £8.18Bn
  • 74% increase in operating profit to £1.2Bn, with an OPM of 14%
  • Free cash flow improvement by 225% to £1.2Bn
  • Net debt reduced to its lowest level in five years to £822 million

The turnaround was led by Civil Aerospace (its largest division), and the strongest performer with 27% revenue growth, which benefited from post-pandemic air travel recovery. What’s more, its higher-margin service revenues also grew 27% to 68% of division sales, indicating a robust and recurring revenue stream. The aerospace segment benefited from strong growth in in-flight hours for engines under long-term service agreements, and large engine deliveries to OEMs increased by 4% with overall OEM deliveries up 26%.

Besides the volume growth, Rolls-Royce also passed on elevated costs, after successfully renegotiating long-term service agreements. Airbus, which saw increased demand for the Trent engines and General Dynamics for its Gulfstream engines, as big customers helped; Competitor General Electric saw its equipment sales fall year-on-year in the second quarter due to lower LEAP engine deliveries.

Defense and Power Systems also showed growth. Defense revenues grew 18%, with strong submarine platform sales and higher service revenue. Power Systems saw a smaller 6% revenue increase, mainly from Datacenters, a segment that certainly holds greater promise.

What does the future look like and can they continue with the turnaround?

Aerospace: Rolls-Royce exclusively provides the engines for the Airbus A350 and A330neo and those airplanes have seen some solid sales momentum which will drive value for the company. The services division will provide better margins

Defense: Given the stronger Republican emphasis on defense, I believe Rolls Royce should see better impetus from defense budgets in the next 4 years.

Power: Data center power needs should be a great opportunity for Rolls-Royce especially with the small modular reactor. The UK government has already picked Rolls-Royce as one of four sources, as has the Czech electricity company, CEZ.

Key Risks:

Execution challenges: This is not their first trip out of the despair well, and once the benefits from cost-cutting dissipate, they still have to grow.

Exposure to global air travel trends, which will slow down after the post-COVID revenge travel boom. Regional revenues were lower and didn’t participate in the post-COVID travel boom.

The company is worth buying: I plan to buy Rolls Royce on declines after such a large run-up for the following reasons.

Reasonable valuation for a GARP (Growth At A Reasonable Price): Analyst consensus estimates call for revenue growth of 8-10% for the next three years at a paltry P/S valuation of just 2.4x sales. Rolls-Royce is also slated to grow EPS by 20% in the next three and has a reasonable P/E of 26, or just 1.3.

Improving margins: Given the improvements in operating margins and the focus on efficiency, margins could improve further and help earnings grow.

Diversification: The company’s diversified portfolio – civil aerospace, defense, and power systems – helps hedge against sector-specific cyclicality.

Datacenter Opportunity: I also believe that Datacenter requirements for power will be a big winner for Rolls-Royce.

Dividends: They’re also reinstating dividends at 30% of after-tax profits, which should provide a floor for the stock price.

Categories
Market Outlook

S&P 500, Nasdaq Composite In Free Fall


The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite are in a free fall today with drops of 1.5% and 2.4% respectively, and it’s just 11:30 am. This could develop into a rout as traders and investors turn their noses up at Meta and Microsoft’s earnings. Even Google has given up its 5%. Should Apple and Amazon disappoint post-market today, I think a correction could be on. The main bullish factor countering a volatile election week, a VIX over 21, and a rising 10-year yield at 4.32% were strong earnings, especially from the M-7. Clearly, that doesn’t seem to be happening.
Meta – Initially, it seemed like a perfunctory one percent drop on a small beat and in-line guidance, but it’s gone a lot further as Meta is down 4% to 570.
Why the rout? Analysts and investors panned high Capex plans of $40Bn and costly high-risk bets such as Meta’s Reality Labs unit, (the developer of augmented and virtual reality technologies), which logged a staggering operating loss of $4.4 billion
Microsoft – (down 6% to $408) is getting clobbered for a different reason. Even as Azure grew 34%, the pace wasn’t enough, and guidance of 31% to 32% in constant currency was lower than expected. However, this is due to supply chain constraints as President Amy Hood noted that the 1 or 2-point deceleration Microsoft has guided is mainly due to some supply pushouts, in terms of AI supply coming online that the company counted on. (Read, not as many Blackwells/Hoppers as they would have liked)
“We expect consumption growth to be stable compared to Q1, and we expect to add more sequential dollars to Azure than any other quarter in history,” Hood added.
The indomitable Dan Ives remains as bullish as ever…
“We actually disagree with this initial take as the new Azure reporting standards have moved Street numbers all around and a slight deceleration is totally expected by many investors with some supply constraints and reacceleration in 2H25, and we would be strong buyers of MSFT on any weakness this morning,” Wedbush analysts, led by Daniel Ives, said in a note.

Categories
Market Outlook

The S&P 500 (SPX), (SPY) Could See Significant Gains In The Next Two Months

6,000 On The Horizon

The Heisenberg report includes an interesting article by Goldman Sachs’ Scott Rubner about trading from the end of October through the end of the year.

Rubner suggests if you’re looking to buy the election dip, you may not get it, for the following reasons: 

For the past 100 years, the last week of October through year-end has been one of the best trading seasons, and even more so during election years. That is, the median return from 10/28 through year-end is 5.2%; in election years, it’s 6.3%.

The fiscal year-end for most mutual funds is October 31, and as October winds up, the supply overhang from mutual funds and pensions lifts. 

The corporate Buyback blackout period, which is usually two weeks before the quarter ends through 48 hours after earnings are released publicly, also starts lifting, 

Buybacks are one of the largest sources of demand for US equities. November stands out. Goldman’s corporate execution desk expects $960 billion worth of executed buybacks this year. So, simple math suggests next month could see ~$100 billion worth. 

Then there’s the thinner markets around Thanksgiving and Christmas, which could lead to a more pronounced effect of large-scale buying on stock prices.

Scott was straightforward. “The global consensus on Wall Street is that we will dip after the election, and investors are waiting for the (-5%) dip to add,” he wrote, adding that he doesn’t see it. “I think the US election will be a clearing event for risk assets and re-risking may happen quickly,” he said.

In another article he goes on to add that FOMO or the (Fear Of Missing Out) would be another factor driving stocks higher, should the much-anticipated pullback during and after the elections not materialize.

Rubner has a 6,000 year-end target for the S&P 500, which may turn out to be conservative.

Categories
Aerospace Stocks

Boeing Is Still Volatile

Boeing (BA) (Aerospace)$175 – Hold for now, signs of improvement suggest buying on declines but do expect some near-term volatility in the stock prices.

Despite challenges, Boeing is showing signs of improvement in order inflow and production rates for the Boeing 737 MAX, shaping up for a promising balance of the year.

The problems on the Starliner – space exploration was very expensive, painful and a huge burden, which is still continuing. Boeing’s space adventure might be close to over regarding transportation of payloads and crews into space.

Kelly Ortberg, like any CEO, has to prove himself worthy of the CEO position of The Boeing Company. It would be unrealistic to expect that with Ortberg now in the CEO role, things will change overnight.

However, I do believe without focusing on the financials and granted that the FAA and Boeing remain focused on safety and quality, the airplane orders and deliveries will tell a story about how Boeing is progressing on its core principles. The orders tell a story about confidence in Boeing, while deliveries tell a story about the ability of Boeing to increase production at the quality standard that is required and desired.

Categories
Market Outlook

Savita Subramanian on the state of the markets

A Summary of Barron ’s interview with Savita Subramanian – head of U.S. equity and quantitative strategies at BofA Securities

Definitely one of the smarter strategists on Wall Street with a lot of prescient calls, especially being one of the first to raise the S&P 500 2024 target to 5,400, a level we passed yesterday.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/large-companies-value-stocks-market-rally-subramanian-21f7c4c2?mod=hp_LEADSUPP_1

“If I were going to buy one kind of investment for the next 12 to 24 months, it would be large-cap value. That’s where you’re going to get the most bang for your buck. That’s what will lead over the next few years, given the macro environment.” 

“At the beginning of the year, it was much easier to be bullish because there were a lot more bears. And at this point, I feel like a lot of the bears have capitulated.”

“I’m not worried about equities from a valuation perspective because these multiples are sustainable.”  “Inflation volatility has subsided. This is where clients probably disagree with me the most, but I feel that what the Fed does now is less important because it has already done the extreme process of hiking.”

I agree with this to a great extent – interest rate cuts, higher for longer, neutral interest rates have a marginal impact. Directionally, the 10 year is moving lower, and except for shelter inflation, which has a variable called “notional rent” (A computed number based on what you would pay if you were renting your home today), a majority of other indicators have been moving lower.

​​” Until we get to that moment where the Fed says we’re at peak rates, inflation is coming down, and we can be more accommodative, you want to hold inflation-protected sectors such as energy, materials, and financials. These are more cyclical than defensive sectors.”

“When we were in more of an inflationary environment, we wrote about how the best environment for equities was 2% to 4% inflation. That’s where we are right now. The best environment for equities is when real wage growth is positive and nominal sales growth is at reasonable levels.”

A somewhat Goldilocks scenario…

“But I am surprised by how narrow the market has become. I would have expected a broadening out to have happened earlier.” “The earnings of the mega cap tech cohort are so high that we are more likely to see a deceleration than an acceleration. Another reason to expect a broadening out is that we got positive guidance across the board, and not just from tech companies, during first-quarter earnings season.”

“I like a mix of companies that are generating strong free cash flow and enjoying the benefits of this tech revolution, but also companies that are potentially becoming more labor light. If you think about the areas that could benefit from generative artificial intelligence, it’s banks, legal services, and IT [information technology] services.”

“And if you think about cash flow, it isn’t just tech but also utilities, power, infrastructure, and energy companies that are generating substantial amounts of cash. Some are exciting, and some are boring. But they are mostly big. That’s where I differ from a lot of other bulls. I don’t think you want to buy all small-caps, because while some of them are economically sensitive and will benefit from better gross-domestic-product growth in the U.S., others are morphing into smaller-cap companies because they used to be large.”

So be selective, the devil is in the details – cash flow, operational performance are paramount regardless of small, big, value, boring, tech – BUY THE BUSINESS, Buffet style..

When asked about the election – “The fact that both candidates agree that they want to bring back manufacturing from China and other regions of the world to the U.S. has created more jobs. While these policies are protectionist and inflationary, they are also pro-growth.”

“Right now is the most interesting time to be a market strategist, in my opinion. We’re back to a more rational market. When we were in a zero-interest-rate, massive-stimulus-driven market, it was hard to forecast what would happen next. Events were in the hands of central bankers.” “The outlook depends less on central bankers, and more on corporations and consumers.”

Its a very practical approach, and its folks like Savita, who are instrumental in allocating investment capital – this is not a theoretical, economists top down approach, which at the end of day is much less influential/meaningful for investors.

Categories
Shipping Stocks

Arcbest (ARCB) $105 Is A Cyclical Business

It’s a cyclical business with long term revenue growth now expected to be 6-7% but given better operating efficiency earnings should increase about 12%. That said this is a low margin high cost/high volume business, operating margins are only 8%.

2023 was a weak year, revenue dropped 12%, the first in 9 years. Management has cautioned weakness for 2024 as well, but business should pick up in 2025

It being a cyclical business, buying the stock cheap is essential to make a decent return on investment, and at $105 the stock is about 30% cheaper than the 52-week high of 154. It is also substantially cheaper than some of its peers like XPO and Heartland. 

The good thing about cyclicals is that they outperform from the bottom of the down cycle so if one picks up a stock like Arcbest really, really cheap at $80-$85, it can easily scale back to $150 in 3 years, which means doubling your investment. Given that there is nothing exceptional about the business or the company I would wait for a really cheap price.

Categories
Technology

Apple, (AAPL), Still A Hold.

source:apple technology

Apple, (AAPL) – $170 Hold 

The recent drop, especially today, has been because of weak iPhone sales in China, which fell 24% year-over-year in the first six weeks of 2024, amid rising competition from Chinese rival Huawei Technologies, Counterpoint Research said. There’s a lack of consumer confidence in China, and several attempts to kickstart their economy have not succeeded; If it goes into a deflationary spiral, this problem could continue for a few quarters before bottoming out.

Getting out of the car project was a good idea, even if they wasted a decade and billions of dollars, but that’s no longer a drain, and diverting that to AI development is absolutely necessary, even if it is a little late.

The stock should remain sideways and sluggish for a while, but this is not a trading stock, it’s a long term investment, which doesn’t quite give blockbuster returns but is a steady performer. I’m not planning to sell any and will revisit if it falls further.

Categories
Logistics and Transportation

Federal Express (FDX) Still A Hold, Wait For A Pullback.

source

Federal Express FDX $241 – Buy on declines, cyclical, improving margins, next three years expect at least 10-12% earnings growth, very reasonably priced at 14x earnings.

Yes, absolutely right on the patience part, this one gives medium returns, shouldn’t expect more than 10-12% a year +2% dividend yield, and with the 18% rise in the past year, some of it is already in the price. Revenue growth should improve 4-5% after a flat 2024. (Year ends in May)

Good news is there have been cost cutting moves, and emphasis on efficiency – the express business profits tend to be low, and it’s the ground services that’s really keeping the company profitable. Overall it makes only 7-8% operating profit compared to UPS’ 10-11%, but this will improve with execution of the “DRIVE” program which is its effort to improve efficiency. If they execute this well, there could be further upsides.