Equities Research: Mutual Funds

Showing posts with label Mutual Funds. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Institutions' Buys and Sells in Titan Machinery

Today is the last day of the 3rd Quarter and we will learn in the coming months the changes Mutual Funds and Institutions made during the July 1,2015 to September 30 period.

Today we will look at the changes made in the 2nd Quarter from April 1 thru June 30,2015.

Boston Partners sold (28% of position) 155k $TITN in Q2 between $12,56-$15,94. July 1st still had 400k shares http://t.co/u9wLDx9T4Q
— tom renna (@StockPicker908) September 30, 2015

#Invesco holding 3.8 million shares $TITN and #FMR holding 3.2 million shares . 22 million shares outstanding, #negligent #moneymanagers
— tom renna (@StockPicker908) September 30, 2015

good news : Huber Capital Sold 621k shares (70% of position) $TITN in Q2 between $12.56 - $15.94 BadNews still owned 257K entering July 1
— tom renna (@StockPicker908) September 30, 2015

Congratulations PUTNAM Investmetns for being only Mutual Fund to Sell Entire Position in $TITN during Q2 314,000 shares $12.56 to $15.94
— tom renna (@StockPicker908) September 30, 2015

RUSSELL FRANK CO found it necessary in Q2 to add 119,000 $TITN between $12.56 and $15.94 brings total to 347,414 http://t.co/VpXBMwGFfG
— tom renna (@StockPicker908) September 30, 2015

SNOW CAPITAL MANAGEMENT LP added to position in $TITN in Q2 132,000 shares between $12,56 and $15,94 http://t.co/43ONd6pVen
— tom renna (@StockPicker908) September 30, 2015

PANAGORA ASSET MANAGEMENT added to position in $TITN in Q2 96,000 shares between $12,56 and $15,94 http://t.co/CIDDs0RVTm
— tom renna (@StockPicker908) September 30, 2015

FULLER & THALER ASSET MANAGEMENT started new position in $TITN in Q2 152,000 shares between $12,56 and $15,94 http://t.co/Yg3XNNWUCt
— tom renna (@StockPicker908) September 30, 2015

$77.50 11.58% yield. $WFC 6th Amendment to $TITN bond in 10K #footnote FY2016 Q3 due out December has tight covenants http://t.co/tvCJEyAWc1
— tom renna (@StockPicker908) September 30, 2015

$titn looks like institutions n funds walking stock higher into end o quarter mark up. Painting tape in broad daylight. Is this 1990? PE 165
— tom renna (@StockPicker908) September 29, 2015

Thursday, September 10, 2015

TITAN Up again, Is it time to go LONG?

Be Careful on the Short Side Because Sometimes Wall Street Obviously Doesn't care about Fundamentals

A weekly close > 5-week MMA of $12.93 targets the 200-week SMA of $19.68

Based on Fundamentals, Titan Machinery is a very overpriced stock. extremely overpriced.

But yesterday the shares were up 20% closing at $12.39 after reporting a mere $6,000 in net income.

A friend of mine tried to short the stock and informed me that there was "NO BORROW AVAILABLE" , which could explain the shares surging higher.

today the stock is up another 5% trading in the $13 range.

With the Mutual Funds owning 85% of the shares outstanding as of June 30,2015 according to Morningstar it appears that the small float and high short interest in the stock are creating a #shortsqueeze.

Be Careful on the Short Side Because Sometimes Wall Street Obviously Doesn't care about Fundamentals

I asked a technical analyst to break down a chart for titan and this is what he shared with me:

A weekly close > 5-week MMA of $12.93 targets the 200-week SMA of $19.68

If you could buy ONE stock on close today which one ? Best gain next Friday's close wins a stocktoberfest.co ticket $spy
— Howard Lindzon (@howardlindzon) Sep. 4 at 02:43 PM

If you could buy ONE stock on close today which one ? Best gain next Friday's close wins a http://t.co/lfccruLQel ticket $spy
— howardlindzon (@howardlindzon) September 4, 2015

The Most Bullish Social Media Video you may ever see.
The Most Bullish Social Media Video you may ever see.

Friday, May 29, 2015

CoFounder Resigns as President Without Any Replacement In Sight

5 Analysts Participate in Questions and Answer Session Of Conference Call

Yesterday TITAN MACHINERY issued a press release with FY2016 Q1 financials followed by the company's conference call.

Analyst at Feltl Doesn't Participate in Conference Call Q & A but Upgrades Stock Immediately

Local Minnesota Analyst Feltl and Company (Brent R. Rystrom, Director of Research) upgraded Titan Machinery shares with a $20.50 price target without knowing who the new president of the Company will be. The company still has not even filed a 10Q yet.
Felti Upgraded shares and gives a price target that is 46% higher from current levels. (According to Felti company's current market cap under $300 million will grow to over $400 million).
Felti says company will go from a ($1.51) loss in FY2015 to a profit of $0.36 for FY2016, but they don't know who the new president will be that will create this dramatic turnaround?????
Feltl and Company makes a market in the securities of Titan Machinery

September 10,2012 Feltl’s Rystrom lowered his investment rating on the stock to “buy” from “strong buy” and chopped his price target to $27.75 from $41.44.
Shares had since declined to a 3 year low under $11

A cofounder of Titan Machinery that sits on the Board of Directors who is also the brother of current president is the chairman of the underwriting firm for Titan that is located in Minnesota called Cherry Tree Investments. This same director was once disclosed as owner of the outside entity of Dealer Sites LLC who recently increased lease agreements with TITAN from $50 million to over $100 million.

TITAN MACHINERY (NASDAQ: TITN) is one bizarre stock!

TITAN MACHINERY COFOUNDER, Peter Christenson, announced on May 11,2015 that as of June 4,2015 he will no longer be president of the company.

On May 7,2015 Titan Machinery filed a (proxy) DEF 14A with the Securities and Exchange Commission stating that Peter Christianson would be president of the company.

WHAT HAPPEN over a 4 Day period that the CO FOUNDER of the Company changed his mind?

Why would the President of the company resign as president without there being a replacement for his $500,000 a year position?

When interviewed by the press the President said he couldn't comment because the company was in a "Quiet Period" because the company would be reporting FY2016 Q1 financials and after the numbers were released on May 28,2015 (yesterday) the management would then be able to comment.

The company held their conference call yesterday and never commented on why the President decided to step down and the Management never mentioned Who would be replacing him. None of the Analysts on the call cared to ask and no reason was ever disclosed.

It is almost 3 weeks now and Titan Management still has not named a replacement and next Thursday they will have a vacant president seat.

The company reported annual FY2015 financials for the period ending January 31,2015 last month disclosing a loss of ($1.51) per share for the year. 7 months earlier the company had given guidance that they would earn $1.00 per share in that period.

Yesterday FY2016 Q1 financials were disclosed in an 8k and the company reported a loss for the quarter of $(0.29) per share. (As of 11am this morning no 10Q has yet to be filed with SEC)

3 Mutual funds control 42% of shares outstanding and there has been barely any sellers in the stock recently. The month of May 2015 is the smallest average daily volume in the stock (at 100,000 average shares per day for the month) since June 2010.

The company has be closing stores and revenues have declined dramatically.

Why is this company trading at a $300 million market capitalization and why does Felti believe it is worth over $400 million?

Follow the bouncing ball of related party transactions here.

Will Securities and Exchange Commission Comment On Another Titan Proxy?

Thursday, February 12, 2015

Titan Machinery Unusual Volume With No News

Is it Undetected Insider Trading ............again?

(click images to enlarge)

Titan Machinery (21 million shares outstanding) only averages volume per day of approximately 160,000 shares but yesterday it traded nearly 1 million shares. Titan is a quiet under the radar stock that trades hardly any volume and recently has traded under 100,000 shares per day during the past month. Aside from the 4 days a year that the company reports quarterly results the shares never really trade more than 200,000 shares per day. So let's see what happens today and the rest of the week to find out if there is possibly some news coming out that maybe someone was privileged to yesterday?@#$%^&????

I am suspicious of the trading yesterday because this happen once before and after an unusual spike in volume with no news on a quiet July day prior to a 4th of July trading holiday, but days later the company filed that the company's original auditor for nearly 30 years had resigned. I raised the red flag back then but because my following is quite small nobody paid any attention.

The resignation of auditor (the Auditor Carousel)

T.R. says:

July 8, 2013 at 10:49 am

SEC received TITAN 8-K July 2,2013 @ 16:56:12 est.
The unusual volume on the morning of June 28,2013 looks like somebody saw this 8-K coming.

Chart from May through July 2013 (see volume before news

Titan Machinery (NASDAQ : TITN) is a very peculiar stock. The company has a market capitalization of nearly $300 million but the company's underlying fundamentals disclose a business that is on the brink of bankruptcy. Shares of the stock are being held and practically tied up by a group of major mutual funds that for some reason have added to their positions as the company's future becomes more and more in doubt.

Titan has a history of questionable related party transactions and a family member who has led underwriting from a boutique investment firm.

Questionable Accounting:
"in certain circumstances, n upon the customer's written request, equip revenue is recognized before delivery occurs"
https://twitter.com/stockpicker908/status/366579314147328000

From Morningstar: Institutional Holdings

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Don't Assume Titan Machinery Will Be Profitable because Management Says So

On Yahoo Finance someone asked "What PE Should Titan Machinery Trade At?"

My Answer:

Your question assumes Titan Machinery will even have any earnings in FY 2015.
I question if Titan will even be profitable this year.
In the company's most recent reported Q1 they loss ($0.20) per share. The quarter prior to that ,Q4, they loss money as well.

We can't expect the management's guidance to mean anything.

Management made the following Guidance for FY2014:

On April 10,2013 gave guidance for FY2014 of $2.00-$2.30.

1 month later on:

On May 23,2013 guidance for FY2014 was lowered to $1.70-$2.00

3months later on:

On September 5,2013 guidance was lowered again to $1.20-$1.50

When the year ended on January 31,2014 the FY2014 EPS came in @ $0.78 per share.

Everyone needs to realize that this company has generated a total of negative $434 million of operational cash flow over last 13 quarters combined.

The Management is deceiving the Public by advertising NON GAAP cash flow. The only reason that that insignificant number was positive in this Q1 is because they add the monies they borrowed in the first quarter to cash flow. (that is why they allowed the floor plan debt to go up, so that they can make their NON GAAP cash flow number to be positive, how ridiculous)

By increasing their net floor plan debt they were able to report a positive NON GAAP C/F number in Q1. Ridiculous? definitely.

Management has an equity interest in Dealer Sites LLC. Titan recently increased their lease agreements with Dealer Sites from $50million to $100 million last year.
Management is making money on properties, (thanks to Titan footing the bills).
Titan pays for insurance and all expenses of the property although it is owned by outside entity owned by management.
In FY 2012 and FY2013 the 10K disclosed the related party dealings in detail. In April's FY2014 10k , Deloitte allowed Titan to omit this disclosure.

It appears to me that CNH was stuffing Titan with inventory these past few years to boost CNH's own revenue/profit numbers (timely with Fiat deal). The relationship with CNH is very Cozy. A large percentage of the inventory that Titan has parked, they are not paying interest on.

Wells Fargo recently amended the convertible note terms for the 3rd time. (tightening the covenants more and more).
Titan's debt/equity for Q1 increased from .70 to .716

The other big issue here, is what are these Mutual Fund Analysts (Money Managers) getting paid for? Have you seen what ZACKS has been reporting? another joke.

If you look on Morningstar at the list of institutional holders of both the Equity and the Debt, I wonder how do these decision makers have jobs? It is even more scary that mom and pop are trusting their nest egg monies with these amateurs (and they actually pay these funds to manage their money).

oh boy, Wall Street, what a silly place

List of Institutional Holders

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