iRobot On My Mind

iRobot (IRBT) has been doing well over the span of the last few months. Here's a headline I saw yesterday (02012.12.20): "The Downside to Robots? Almost None at Motley Fool (Thu, Dec 20)". I disagree with Motley Fool and it has to do with timing. IRBT closed yesterday (02012.12.20) at $19.02. IRBT 52-week range: $16.25 - $38.33. In other words, IRBT has lost more than 50% of its value over the span of the last ten months.

On 02012.02.08, IRBT closed at $38.30. One day later, on 02012.02.09, IRBT closed at $25.17. It subsequently fell to its current 52-week low of $16.25 on 02012.11.16.

I'd like to think the downside for IRBT is almost none. At 9:03am MST on 02012.12.21, IRBT was at $18.69 giving the stock a PSR (Price Sales Ratio) of 1.13 (I think this is low). iRobot has approximately $6.84 per share with $0 debt. Short Interest Ratio for IRBT is 11.9 (I think this is high).

[update::02012.12.23] Yikes! Yesterday (02012.12.22), after I posted this posting about iRobot, IRBT dropped 4.31% and closed the day at $18.20. Trading volume was 2.88 million vs. a trailing-3-month average of 0.28 million.

Red Hat Reports 3Q'12 Results

Red Hat (RHT) reported 3Q'12 results after the market closed yesterday (02012.12.20). I liked the results. Red Hat continues to be a growth company. It's possible that someday the "The Accidental Quadruple" will be written.

From Red Hat's 3Q'12 press release.

Total cash, cash equivalents and investments as of November 30, 2012 were $1.35 billion. [...] In Q3, we used our strong balance sheet and cash flow to repurchase approximately $52 million of common stock.

RHT closed yesterday (02012.12.20) at $52.61. 52-week range: $40.34 - $62.75. RHT is well below the accidental quadruple price of $67.48.

[update::02012.12.21] Oops... I wanted to make the following observation. At the end of 2Q'12, Red Hat had "total cash" of $1.36 billion. The company ended 3Q'12 with $1.35 billion in cash, yet it spent $52 million on its own shares.

Illumina Spikes On Roche Speculation

Illumina (ILMN) spiked to a new 52-week high today of $57.00 after there was news that Roche might make another bid for the company. ILMN closed at $56.19 up ~7.7% for the day. Volume was about 5.3 times the trailing-3-month average.

Altair Nanotechnologies No Longer a Penny Stock

Altair Nanotechnologies (ALTI) executed their 1:6 reverse stock split yesterday (02012.12.18). Prior to the split, ALTI closed at $0.47 on 02012.12.17. It opened yesterday at $2.34; hit an intra-day high and low of $2.74 and $2.29, respectively; and closed at $2.47. Volume was 48,400.

Hmm... Six times $0.47 is $2.82; therefore, ALTI opened down 17% and at one point it was down almost 19%. For the day it was down 12.4%.

There are now approximately 11,589,652 ALTI shares. Finance.Yahoo.com shows that ~63% of ALTI shares are closely held. If true, then ALTI has a float of ~4.3 million shares.

Cray Likes Germany

Cray (CRAY) announced yesterday (02012.12.17) that the company was "awarded a $39 million contract from the North-German Supercomputing Alliance (HLRN) to deliver a distributed Cray XC30 supercomputing system, which will be operated at two sites -- the Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB) and the High Performance Computing Center (RRZN) at Leibniz University in Hannover, Germany."

From the press release.

"With these large installations in Berlin and Hannover, Cray continues to strengthen its presence internationally and expand its coverage across the European HPC landscape."

CRAY closed yesterday (02012.12.17) at $14.83. 52-week range: $6.08 - $15.14.

Stewart Enterprises Still Not It's Own Customer

Stewart Enterprises (STEI) reported 4Q'12 results after the market closed yesterday (02012.12.17) and I think they had a solid quarter. From the press release.

During the fourth quarter of 2012, the Company repurchased 1.1 million shares of its Class A common stock for $8.3 million under its stock repurchase program.

STEI bought back 1.1 million shares at an average price per share of $7.54 per share. In addition, during FY'12 the company reduced the total number of shares by 3.5%.

STEI closed yesterday (02012.12.17) at $7.53. 52-week range: $4.92 - $8.65. According to Finance.Yahoo.com, the Short-Interest-Ratio (SIR) for STEI is a whopping 48.1.

Unless our financial situation dictates otherwise, the plan it to hold onto a small amount of STEI shares until either the company or I go belly up.

Google Hires Ray Kurzweil

Google (GOOG) has made Ray Kurzweil into a Googler. Kurzweil starts working at Google on Monday, 02012.12.17. GOOG closed on Friday, 02012.12.14, at $701.96. 52-week range: $556.52 - $774.38.