Stocks Profile

Dover Corporation (DOV) recently reported better than expected results for the first quarter of 2011. Revenue jumped 24% as each segment experienced strong volume growth. Management issued bullish guidance for the full year of 2011, prompting analysts to raise their estimates. Based on consensus estimates, analysts expect 27% growth this year and 15% in 2012. It is a Zacks #2 Rank (Buy) stock. Dover has also been consistently raising its dividend over the last decade. It currently yields a solid 1.8%. Company Description Dover Corporation is a diversified manufacturer of industrial products. Sales for the first quarter of 2011 were divided as follows: Industrial Products: 26.5% Engineered Systems: 28.6% Fluid Management: 26.0% Electronic Technologies: 19.0% Dover Corporation is headquartered in Downers Grove, Illinois. It has a market cap of $11.6 billion. First Quarter Results The company reported Q1 revenue of $1.959 billion, a 24% increase over the same quarter in 2010. This came in ahead of the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.860 billion. Organic revenue was strong as each segment experienced...

Standard Motor Products (SMP) isn't a flashy social-networking company, but what it does have is earnings and a very compelling valuation. That and rising estimates makes this Zacks #1 stock a strong momentum player. Company Description Standard Motor Products, Inc. manufactures and sells replacement parts for motor vehicles in the auto aftermarket industry in the US, Canada and Latin America. The company was founded in 1919 and has a market cap of $338 million. Standard has been chugging higher for the last 6 months, recently hitting a new multi-year high on strong Q1 results from early May that came in well ahead of expectations. First-Quarter Results Revenue for the period was up 23% from last year to $220 million. Earnings also came in strong at 31 cents, 72% ahead of the Zacks Consensus Estimate, where the company has an average earnings surprise of 111% over the last four quarters. Although the company said the good quarter was driven by strength in all its distribution channels, CEO...

Are the steel companies the first to see a slowdown? If so, Reliance Steel & Aluminum Company (RS) isn't seeing one. First quarter sales continued to be strong. Investors, however, have been fleeing the stock in recently weeks on worries over the economy which is why it now trades with a P/E of just 10x forward estimates. This Zacks #1 Rank (strong buy) provides metals processing services through more than 200 locations in 38 states, and several countries including Mexico, China, South Korea and Canada. Headquartered in Los Angeles, its products include galvanized, hot-rolled and cold-finished steel, stainless steel, aluminum, brass, copper, titanium and alloy steel. Solid Q1 Results On Apr 28, Reliance Steel reported its first quarter results and surprised on the Zacks Consensus by 15%. Earnings were $1.23 compared with the estimate of $1.07 per share. The company made just 60 cents in the year ago quarter. It was the third surprise in the last 4 quarters, although if you look at the...

Abercrombie and Fitch (ANF) was one of the first companies with a stable and deterministic share price model estimated in September 2009. This is a company from Services subcategory of the S&P 500 list specialized in apparel stores. We have revisited this model several times since 2009 and always found the same defining variables. The model is based on the decomposition of a share price into a sum of two selected consumer price indices. All models are defined by the (not seasonally adjusted) index of pets, pet products and services (PETS) and the price index of transportation services (TS), as reported by the US BLS. The former CPI component leads the share price by 1 month and the latter is 4 months ahead of the share price. Figure 1 depicts the overall evolution of both involved indices through March 2011.   In this post, we compare the 2009 and 2011 share price models for ANF. For the 2009 model we...