PERI released earnings. They were just fine. They are on track to make $1.20 a share this year and have $7.50 a share in net cash. It got whacked 15%. This caused me to go from up 5% on the week to up under 1% to 9.6% YTD.

It is trading at 1.2X EPS, net of cash. Just another reason why I gave up the paid blog. I can’t explain this market to anyone anymore. It is just nuts. Story stocks dominate and assumption of forever sales growth, just like in 1999 with the internet, and 2008 when house prices were going to go up forever.

Drone stocks have been soaring (although they are far off their highs). The volume for drones will be low margin military contracts, most likely. How much do you pay up for that? Also, how many winners will there be?

I am now up only 8.9% for the year after losing 4.9% this week.

No big losers, but just getting a thousand papercuts everyday.

They announced earnings today. Beat estimates on revenue and EPS. They have over $1.50 a share in cash and no debt. They raised their guidance and continue buying back shares. Estimates are $1.06 EPS for the year. The stock is down.

Then you have Swarmer. $20,000 in revenue, no profitability in sight and a market cap of $400 million. This is why this market is upside down.

I got one right. ACH is down 25% today. I am so glad I didn’t waffle and sold my 80,000 shares yesterday.

I bought some ZIM today. They have a take-over deal to be bought for $35 and a back-up offer at $37,50. It is back under $26 now. The risk here is that the Israeli government does not approve the deal. The buyer is a German company. The back up offer is from an Israeli company. I am betting one of them will get approved. I think the downside is limited to maybe 15%, and the upside 35%.

In the meantime it pays a 7.5% dividend.

I booked about a 60% profit on the position.

Earning were ok today, but they are refinancing their debt (about $2 billion) and it will cost $40 million a year more in interest once the refinancing is in place. That will likely knock the crap out of earnings going forward.

I was up 1.7% last week and am up 13.8% for the year.

I survived 5 earnings reports. Only ANGI got me.

I bought LE and it is up about 5%. I sold CARS after earnings. I would love to see it fall to under $8 again so I could buy it back. I also sold some of ACH. I am hedging earnings next week.

Even EDAP was up last week.

I wonder when the hardware cycle will turn (it always has) and all the hardware commodity stocks will get decimated (chips, memory, storage)?

Earnings next week. I sold 1/3 of my position (it was pretty large) for a 55% gain. You can’t lose by taking a profit.

I sold CARS this morning @$12.20 for a 60% gain.

It would be a good week if not for ANGI which plunged 30% on less than stellar results. Still, it made $.18 Non-GAAP. Now trading under $5. I bought more.

I normally never buy retail stocks, but LE caught my eye. I bought it at just under $11.

They just sold 50% of their licensing IP for $300 million, paid off all their debt (about $240 million), instituted a $100 million share buyback (about 31 million shares outstanding). Plus the buyer tendered for 2 million shares at—get this–$45 a share.

I think the interest savings will just about offset the loss of 50% of their licensing revenue (TBD)

The current market cap is just over $300 million, or about what the other 50% of their licensing business is worth. Then there is the rest of the business.

Profitable, no debt and CHEAP, IMO

I had a nice week, up 5.6% and am up 12.1% YTD

Just solid gains on most of my stocks but, not enough to sell anything.

There are still a LOT of stocks out there selling at 30,40, 50X earnings–and more. All I can do is shake my head.

So finding good value stocks is hard, but they are out there. I tried buying one last week but it got away from me, at least for now.