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Mexican central bank holds rates at 8.25 pct, vote not unanimous MEXICO CITY, June 27 (Reuters) - Mexico's central bank held its benchmark interest rate steady on Thursday, as expected, though the board's decision was not unanimous because one member voted to lower borrowing costs by 25 basis points. In a majority decision, the Bank of Mexico's (Banxico) board voted to hold the overnight interbank rate at 8.25 percent. All 16 analysts and economists surveyed in a Reuters poll had forecast that Banxico would hold its key lending rate at 8.25 percent, the level it has been at since Dec. 20. (Reporting by Dave Graham and Frank Jack Daniel)
BMW Won't Do the Enormous-Kidney-Grille Thing Forever Photo credit: BMW From Road & Track A pair of "kidney" grilles has adorned every BMW automobile built since the 1930s. They're one of the most recognizable designs in the world—even outside of the automotive space. Recently, BMW kidney grilles got big. First on the also-quite-big X7 SUV, then notably on the face-lifted G11-chassis 7-Series (pictured above) that debuted earlier this year. The enormous kidney grilles on the new 7-Series have caused controversy among enthusiasts. BMW Group design director Adrian von Hooydonk is aware of the criticisms, and told Autocar that, the big grilles won't be around forever. "Don’t worry, I don’t want the brand to turn into an oversized kidney grille brand," the Dutch designer said. Von Hooydonk also defended BMW's decision to go big with the new 7-Series kidney grilles. "In Europe—the smallest market—the buyers are understated, but in the US and China—where most 7-Series are sold–they are younger and more extroverted," he said. "When we launched the new 7-Series [in 2015] it was criticized for not looking different enough, so the message for the face-lift was clear: make it stand out. And now we have." As for the X7? "That one is in proportion," Von Hooydonk told Autocar , noting the X7 is the biggest car BMW sells . Von Hooydonk also said BMW kidney grilles will probably shrink down over time. "I hear from [BMW's Shanghai Design Center] that design tastes in China are developing rapidly," he said. "Yes, they still want a modern look that pushes boundaries, but they are increasingly calling for subtlety too. "The gap is narrowing down, so I see the 7-Series design coming together with the rest of the range in a short time...I believe we understand the reasons for what we have done with the 7-Series, and that the issue will solve itself thanks to evolving tastes in the markets for which the grille was introduced." Perhaps BMW should look to the original 8-Series for inspiration going forward. Story continues Photo credit: BMW via Carscoops ('You Might Also Like',) 16 of the Most Interesting Engine Swaps We've Ever Seen See 70 Years of the Greatest Ferraris Ever Built These Are the 14 Best New Cars for Less Than $45,000
Is There Now An Opportunity In Cross Country Healthcare, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCRN)? Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Cross Country Healthcare, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCRN), which is in the healthcare business, and is based in United States, led the NASDAQGS gainers with a relatively large price hike in the past couple of weeks. With many analysts covering the stock, we may expect any price-sensitive announcements have already been factored into the stock’s share price. But what if there is still an opportunity to buy? Let’s examine Cross Country Healthcare’s valuation and outlook in more detail to determine if there’s still a bargain opportunity. Check out our latest analysis for Cross Country Healthcare Good news, investors! Cross Country Healthcare is still a bargain right now. According to my valuation, the intrinsic value for the stock is $13.8, but it is currently trading at US$8.90 on the share market, meaning that there is still an opportunity to buy now. What’s more interesting is that, Cross Country Healthcare’s share price is quite volatile, which gives us more chances to buy since the share price could sink lower (or rise higher) in the future. This is based on its high beta, which is a good indicator for how much the stock moves relative to the rest of the market. Investors looking for growth in their portfolio may want to consider the prospects of a company before buying its shares. Buying a great company with a robust outlook at a cheap price is always a good investment, so let’s also take a look at the company's future expectations. However, with a relatively muted revenue growth of 5.7% expected over the next couple of years, growth doesn’t seem like a key driver for a buy decision for Cross Country Healthcare, at least in the short term. Are you a shareholder?Even though growth is relatively muted, since CCRN is currently undervalued, it may be a great time to accumulate more of your holdings in the stock. However, there are also other factors such as financial health to consider, which could explain the current undervaluation. Are you a potential investor?If you’ve been keeping an eye on CCRN for a while, now might be the time to make a leap. Its future outlook isn’t fully reflected in the current share price yet, which means it’s not too late to buy CCRN. But before you make any investment decisions, consider other factors such as the track record of its management team, in order to make a well-informed investment decision. Price is just the tip of the iceberg. Dig deeper into what truly matters – the fundamentals – before you make a decision on Cross Country Healthcare. You can find everything you need to know about Cross Country Healthcare inthe latest infographic research report. If you are no longer interested in Cross Country Healthcare, you can use our free platform to see my list of over50 other stocks with a high growth potential. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
Hedge Funds Dropped The Ball On Generac Holdings (GNRC) Is Generac Holdings Inc. (NYSE:GNRC) a good equity to bet on right now? We like to check what the smart money thinks first before doing extensive research. Although there have been several high profile failed hedge fund picks, the consensus picks among hedge fund investors have historically outperformed the market after adjusting for known risk attributes. It's not surprising given that hedge funds have access to better information and more resources to predict the winners in the stock market. Generac Holdings Inc. (NYSE:GNRC)has experienced a decrease in hedge fund interest in recent months. Our calculations also showed that GNRC isn't among the30 most popular stocks among hedge funds. Why do we pay any attention at all to hedge fund sentiment? Our research has shown that hedge funds' large-cap stock picks indeed failed to beat the market between 1999 and 2016. However, we were able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the market by 40 percentage points since May 2014 through May 30, 2019 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that'll significantly underperform the market. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 and they lost 30.9% through May 30, 2019. That's why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to. Let's take a look at the key hedge fund action surrounding Generac Holdings Inc. (NYSE:GNRC). Heading into the second quarter of 2019, a total of 17 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -19% from one quarter earlier. By comparison, 19 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in GNRC a year ago. So, let's find out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves. More specifically,Impax Asset Managementwas the largest shareholder of Generac Holdings Inc. (NYSE:GNRC), with a stake worth $52.6 million reported as of the end of March. Trailing Impax Asset Management was Arrowstreet Capital, which amassed a stake valued at $24 million. Renaissance Technologies, Ariel Investments, and Citadel Investment Group were also very fond of the stock, giving the stock large weights in their portfolios. Since Generac Holdings Inc. (NYSE:GNRC) has experienced falling interest from the smart money, we can see that there was a specific group of funds that slashed their positions entirely in the third quarter. At the top of the heap, Eduardo Abush'sWaterfront Capital Partnerscut the largest stake of the 700 funds followed by Insider Monkey, worth close to $8.7 million in stock, and Richard Driehaus's Driehaus Capital was right behind this move, as the fund dumped about $4.9 million worth. These transactions are interesting, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 4 funds in the third quarter. Let's go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Generac Holdings Inc. (NYSE:GNRC). We will take a look at Valley National Bancorp (NASDAQ:VLY), FS KKR Capital Corp. (NYSE:FSK), Apergy Corporation (NYSE:APY), and Manchester United PLC (NYSE:MANU). This group of stocks' market values match GNRC's market value. [table] Ticker, No of HFs with positions, Total Value of HF Positions (x1000), Change in HF Position VLY,11,26971,3 FSK,19,202328,-1 APY,12,126003,-1 MANU,11,51988,2 Average,13.25,101823,0.75 [/table] View table hereif you experience formatting issues. As you can see these stocks had an average of 13.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $102 million. That figure was $145 million in GNRC's case. FS KKR Capital Corp. (NYSE:FSK) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Valley National Bancorp (NASDAQ:VLY) is the least popular one with only 11 bullish hedge fund positions. Generac Holdings Inc. (NYSE:GNRC) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our calculations showed thattop 20 most popular stocksamong hedge funds returned 6.2% in Q2 through June 19th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by nearly 3 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on GNRC as the stock returned 28.5% during the same period and outperformed the market by an even larger margin. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness. Disclosure: None. This article was originally published atInsider Monkey. Related Content • How to Best Use Insider Monkey To Increase Your Returns • Billionaire Ken Fisher’s Top Dividend Stock Picks • 30 Stocks Billionaires Are Crazy About: Insider Monkey Billionaire Stock Index
In Trump era, U.S. presidential candidate Booker confronts race head-on By Joseph Ax NEWARK, N.J. (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Cory Booker's best hope of capturing the Democratic presidential nomination may be reassembling the coalition that propelled Barack Obama to the White House in 2008, consolidating the black vote while inspiring young Democrats to back him. Obama largely eschewed explicit mentions of race, wary of provoking a backlash to his historic candidacy. But Booker, who would be the first U.S. president descended from slaves, has frequently brought the subject to the fore. That strategy was on display at the first Democratic debate on Wednesday. Forty seconds into his first answer - in response to a question about breaking up technology companies - the former Newark, New Jersey, mayor said, "I live in a low-income black and brown community. I see every single day that this economy is not working for average Americans." Throughout the evening, Booker drew connections between policy matters and race, whether it was the impact of inadequate health care on African-Americans, persistent racial bias in the criminal justice system or recent attacks on transgender people, which he compared to the lynching of blacks in the South before the civil rights movement. When asked about gun safety, he spoke about inner-city violence, saying he was the only candidate who had seven people shot in his neighborhood last week. Booker, 50, is betting voters will embrace a more candid conversation on race, a decade after Obama became the first black president and during a Trump administration accused by many Democrats as being racially divisive. His message is aimed not only at black voters, a crucial Democratic constituency whose turnout dropped after Obama's elections in 2008 and 2012, but also at left-wing voters driving the party's anti-Donald Trump enthusiasm. "Race is now not a taboo to talk about on the campaign trail. It is one of the primary ways to signal how progressive you are," said Theodore Johnson, a senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice who studies the intersection of race and politics. Story continues Booker has been polling at around 2% support, seventh among more than 20 Democrats running. He draws higher support from black voters but faces stiff competition from U.S. Senator Kamala Harris, the other leading African-American candidate, and former Vice President Joe Biden, who enjoys deep loyalty among black voters after eight years as Obama's right-hand man. The debate followed a week in which Booker called on Biden to apologize for expressing nostalgia about working civilly with segregationist senators; unveiled an ambitious clemency proposal to address racially biased prison sentences; and slammed Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell for dismissing the notion of reparations for descendants of slaves. "Fifteen years ago, you'd never have talk about reparations in the presidential campaign," said Jaime Harrison, the first African-American chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party and a 2020 U.S. Senate candidate. Both Harris and Booker have made the early voting state of South Carolina, where black voters hold a majority among Democrats, a top priority. [nL2N23T026] On the trail, Booker describes his family's journey through the country's fraught racial history, including his parents' fight to integrate the white New Jersey suburb where he grew up. His signature "baby bonds" proposal to give every American a government-backed savings account at birth takes aim at the wealth gap between white and black families. He speaks often about U.S. racial inequities in criminal justice, voting rights and housing policy, warning Americans must not engage in "historical amnesia" about generations of racist policies. "The tradition has been that you don't blaze into office talking about racial disparities," Johnson said. "The colorblind approach has been how successful black politicians have often run." That was largely the approach taken by Obama, who engaged with racial issues only when forced upon him. 'HAPPY MEDIUM' In recent years, however, the Black Lives Matter movement gave voice to deep frustration among African-Americans over police mistreatment, while Trump's handling of the racial violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, during a white supremacist rally prompted widespread outrage. U.S. Representative James Clyburn, a prominent black leader from South Carolina, said Booker and other politicians addressing race directly was not necessarily a choice of their own making. "I think the times have dictated that the choice must be made," he said. Booker couches his calls for action in broader terms, arguing the civil rights movement succeeded by working across color lines. When he recounts his parents' efforts to buy a home in Harrington Park, New Jersey, one of the heroes is a white lawyer who volunteered to help black families combat housing discrimination. "He's trying to strike the happy medium, where he can talk candidly about race and be forceful about it, but also talk about it in a way that won't alienate" white voters, said Andra Gillespie, a professor at Emory College and author of "Symbols, Substance and Hope: Race and the Obama Administration." Like Harris, whose career as a prosecutor has drawn skepticism from some black activists, Booker has occasionally faced scrutiny from other African-Americans. After graduating from Yale Law School in 1997, he moved into a public housing complex in Newark. During his first losing mayoral campaign, the black incumbent openly wondered whether Booker was "black enough." But Booker's supporters say his lived experience - growing up in an affluent white suburb before moving to a crime-ridden inner city - will resonate with black voters. "At the end of the day, because he has had to navigate that," said Steve Phillips, an African-American businessman who launched a super PAC to support Booker's candidacy, "he is very comfortable in his own skin." (Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Bill Berkrot)
What Is Cross Country Healthcare, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:CCRN) Share Price Doing? Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Cross Country Healthcare, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCRN), which is in the healthcare business, and is based in United States, led the NASDAQGS gainers with a relatively large price hike in the past couple of weeks. As a stock with high coverage by analysts, you could assume any recent changes in the company’s outlook is already priced into the stock. However, what if the stock is still a bargain? Today I will analyse the most recent data on Cross Country Healthcare’s outlook and valuation to see if the opportunity still exists. See our latest analysis for Cross Country Healthcare Good news, investors! Cross Country Healthcare is still a bargain right now. My valuation model shows that the intrinsic value for the stock is $13.8, which is above what the market is valuing the company at the moment. This indicates a potential opportunity to buy low. Although, there may be another chance to buy again in the future. This is because Cross Country Healthcare’s beta (a measure of share price volatility) is high, meaning its price movements will be exaggerated relative to the rest of the market. If the market is bearish, the company's shares will likely fall by more than the rest of the market, providing a prime buying opportunity. Investors looking for growth in their portfolio may want to consider the prospects of a company before buying its shares. Buying a great company with a robust outlook at a cheap price is always a good investment, so let’s also take a look at the company's future expectations. Though in the case of Cross Country Healthcare, it is expected to deliver a relatively unexciting top-line growth of 5.7% in the next few years, which doesn’t help build up its investment thesis. Growth doesn’t appear to be a main reason for a buy decision for the company, at least in the near term. Are you a shareholder?Even though growth is relatively muted, since CCRN is currently undervalued, it may be a great time to increase your holdings in the stock. However, there are also other factors such as financial health to consider, which could explain the current undervaluation. Are you a potential investor?If you’ve been keeping an eye on CCRN for a while, now might be the time to enter the stock. Its future outlook isn’t fully reflected in the current share price yet, which means it’s not too late to buy CCRN. But before you make any investment decisions, consider other factors such as the track record of its management team, in order to make a well-informed investment decision. Price is just the tip of the iceberg. Dig deeper into what truly matters – the fundamentals – before you make a decision on Cross Country Healthcare. You can find everything you need to know about Cross Country Healthcare inthe latest infographic research report. If you are no longer interested in Cross Country Healthcare, you can use our free platform to see my list of over50 other stocks with a high growth potential. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
US to China: Fix tech policies. China's retort: Drop tariffs WASHINGTON (AP) — The Americans want to safeguard their technological riches, restore balance to their top trading relationship and force a sharp-elbowed rival to play by the rules and keep its word. The Chinese want the Trump administration to drop its tariffs so they can regain freer access to the world's largest consumer market while pursuing their goal of becoming a global technology superpower. It would be hard to overstate what's at stake as Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping meet Saturday at a Group of 20 summit in Osaka, Japan, to seek a truce in their trade war and revive negotiations between the world's two largest economies. The Trump administration has accused Beijing of deploying predatory tactics — including stealing technology and forcing foreign companies to hand over trade secrets — in an illicit drive to surpass America's technological supremacy. Trump has already imposed 25% tariffs on $250 billion and is threatening to tax an additional $300 billion' worth, thereby extending his import taxes to just about everything China ships to the United States. China has retaliated by imposing tariffs on $110 billion in U.S. imports. Negotiations to resolve the dispute broke off last month after the administration accused Beijing of reneging on commitments it had previously made. Trump and Xi are expected to agree to some kind of cease-fire in Osaka. This would buy time for their negotiating teams to work toward a meaningful long-term agreement. During a truce, it is assumed, Trump would hold off on taxing the additional $300 billion in Chinese imports. But reaching a substantive agreement could prove enormously difficult. The differences between America's mostly free-market capitalist economy and China's state-driven economic system are vast. Here's a look at what each side wants: ___ CHINA Chinese officials have said they want to revive negotiations with the Trump administration. Yet they have given no indication that Xi plans to propose any new initiatives or offer fresh concessions when he meets Trump. Story continues As a condition of any settlement, Beijing has demanded that Trump lift all the punitive tariffs he's imposed on Chinese products. That might be next to impossible. Even if a significant agreement can be reached, U.S. negotiators want to keep in place at least some of their import taxes to ensure that Beijing fulfills whatever steps it agrees to. "Any deal would need the U.S. to roll back its tariffs, which doesn't seem to be on the table," said Mark Williams of Capital Economics. Beijing denies the allegations that it steals U.S. companies' intellectual property and forces them to hand over proprietary technology. And Chinese officials have vowed to resist anything that strikes them as a one-sided agreement. Beijing has complained that Trump's trade war is designed mainly to suppress a rising global competitor so the U.S. can maintain its technological dominance. "Both sides must make compromises and concessions, not just one party," one of China's negotiators, Wang Shouwen, a deputy commerce minister, said at a news conference this week. Beijing might prove reluctant to take any major steps — such as reducing government subsidies to Chinese companies — that could threaten its ambition to turn its companies into world leaders in such advanced technologies as artificial intelligence and autonomous cars. "Some of those things are the hardest for China to do," said Robert Holleyman, a partner in the trade practice at the law firm Crowell & Moring. "The U.S. knew that going into this." Still, Holleyman said, some Chinese economic reformers have said that what the Trump administration wants — especially widening U.S. companies' access to China's markets — could benefit Beijing, too. "Reformers recognize that allowing healthier market access with global collaboration can also be in the interest of China," said Holleyman, who formerly oversaw negotiations with China at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. That said, he acknowledged, "the hard-liners don't see that." For now, Holleyman said, "China's been willing to make offers in a whole bunch of areas." For example, Beijing appears willing to buy more U.S. goods and thereby narrow America's gaping trade deficit with China — a perennial complaint of Trump — which hit a record $381 billion last year. Still, a Chinese government report in early June asserted that any promises to buy more American exports in a settlement had to be realistic. Some observers hope for a repeat of December's surprise agreement by Trump and Xi in Argentina to postpone plans for higher tariffs while their negotiators continued to meet. That cease-fire bought five months of talks. The result was that the two sides appeared to be closing in on a deal before the breakdown in negotiations last month heightened tensions. "The situation is now more serious," said Tu Xinquan, director of the Institute for WTO Studies at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing. "If the dialogue can arrest the trend of the escalation of the trade war and restart the talks, it will be a good result." ___ THE UNITED STATES Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross this week laid out three priorities for the Trump administration in its talks with Beijing. The administration wants China to commit to more purchases of U.S. exports, including such things as soybeans and liquefied natural gas. Then Trump officials want China to end what they call its abusive practices, including forced technology handovers and the use of regulations to hobble American companies operating in China. Most and "hardest" of all, Ross said, is devising ways to ensure that China honors whatever commitments it makes. That's why the administration is eager to retain some of the Trump tariffs, which could be lifted gradually as Beijing proves its sincerity. After all, Trump officials argue, China has made empty promises before: A 2018 report by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative found that Beijing promised eight times since 2010 not to force foreign companies to transfer technology to China. Yet the coercion continued, the U.S. said. China's reluctance to reform its ways has cost it a key ally in the United States: American businesses. U.S. companies, which long backed China-friendly U.S. trade policies, now largely support Trump's combative stance, if not the tariffs he's using as leverage. Trump has suggested that he might be willing to use the fate of the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei as a bargaining chip in trade talks. The Commerce Department last month put Huawei on a blacklist, which effectively bars it from buying the U.S. technology it needs. "I can imagine Huawei being included in some form of a trade deal," Trump said in May. He offered no details. But he said any arrangement "would look very good for us, I can tell you that." But the president could run into sharp resistance from Congress if he goes easy on Huawei, which is viewed as a national security threat because of the possibility that its equipment could be used for cyberespionage. Calling Huawei and other blacklisted Chinese tech firms "a clear and present danger to America's long term security," Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said he would oppose any trade agreement that sacrifices "the safety of American families for some quick bucks and political points." ___ McDonald reported from Beijing.
Is EZCORP Inc (EZPW) A Good Stock To Buy According To Hedge Funds? IsEZCORP Inc (NASDAQ:EZPW)a good stock to buy according to hedge funds? Hedge fund interest in EZPW shares was flat at the end of last quarter. This is usually a negative indicator. At the end of this article we will also compare EZPW to other stocks including Transenterix Inc (NYSEMKT:TRXC), pdvWireless Inc (NASDAQ:PDVW), and McEwen Mining Inc (NYSE:MUX) to get a better sense of its popularity. In the 21st century investor’s toolkit there are a large number of methods stock market investors employ to evaluate stocks. A pair of the most underrated methods are hedge fund and insider trading interest. Our researchers have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the best money managers can trounce the S&P 500 by a significant amount (see the details here). Let's take a look at the new hedge fund action encompassing EZCORP Inc (NASDAQ:EZPW). At Q1's end, a total of 20 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 0% from the fourth quarter of 2018. By comparison, 14 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in EZPW a year ago. So, let's see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves. More specifically,Lafitte Capital Managementwas the largest shareholder of EZCORP Inc (NASDAQ:EZPW), with a stake worth $50.3 million reported as of the end of March. Trailing Lafitte Capital Management was Archon Capital Management, which amassed a stake valued at $11.6 million. Renaissance Technologies, Sabrepoint Capital, and Azora Capital were also very fond of the stock, giving the stock large weights in their portfolios. Due to the fact that EZCORP Inc (NASDAQ:EZPW) has faced falling interest from hedge fund managers, logic holds that there is a sect of money managers that decided to sell off their full holdings last quarter. At the top of the heap, Amy Minella'sCardinal Capitalsold off the biggest investment of all the hedgies monitored by Insider Monkey, totaling about $7.5 million in stock, and Noam Gottesman's GLG Partners was right behind this move, as the fund dropped about $2.9 million worth. These moves are interesting, as total hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience). Let's now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to EZCORP Inc (NASDAQ:EZPW). We will take a look at Transenterix Inc (NYSEMKT:TRXC), pdvWireless Inc (NASDAQ:PDVW), McEwen Mining Inc (NYSE:MUX), and U.S. Well Services, Inc. (NASDAQ:USWS). This group of stocks' market valuations resemble EZPW's market valuation. [table] Ticker, No of HFs with positions, Total Value of HF Positions (x1000), Change in HF Position TRXC,13,10958,5 PDVW,13,252859,1 MUX,5,4852,0 USWS,13,42384,-1 Average,11,77763,1.25 [/table] View table hereif you experience formatting issues. As you can see these stocks had an average of 11 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $78 million. That figure was $117 million in EZPW's case. Transenterix Inc (NYSEMKT:TRXC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand McEwen Mining Inc (NYSE:MUX) is the least popular one with only 5 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks EZCORP Inc (NASDAQ:EZPW) is more popular among hedge funds. Our calculations showed thattop 20 most popular stocksamong hedge funds returned 6.2% in Q2 through June 19th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by nearly 3 percentage points. Unfortunately EZPW wasn't nearly as popular as these 20 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on EZPW were disappointed as the stock returned -2.6% during the same period and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out thetop 20 most popular stocksamong hedge funds as 13 of these stocks already outperformed the market in Q2. Disclosure: None. This article was originally published atInsider Monkey. Related Content • How to Best Use Insider Monkey To Increase Your Returns • Billionaire Ken Fisher’s Top Dividend Stock Picks • 30 Stocks Billionaires Are Crazy About: Insider Monkey Billionaire Stock Index
Disneyland Visitors Smuggling Out Pieces of Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge Land, Selling Them on eBay Some visitors to Disneyland’s Star Wars : Galaxy’s Edge are showing their dark side. The new 14-acre addition to the Anaheim, California, theme park, which opened last month to fans who made special reservations and to the wider public this week, is already having issues with thievery, as first reported by The Orange County Register . The outlet noted that a number of items that can be found within the land were cropping up on eBay. The only problem? They were things that never should have been taken out of the park. Ironically, the land is styled as the fictional trading post of Batuu, a once-thriving center of intergalactic commerce that in its demise has become a hotspot for smugglers selling ill-gotten wares and other unseemly characters. The items coming up for sale here on earth, range from eating utensils to mementos from the rides. A single metal spork from fast-casual dining spot Docking Bay 7 Food and Cargo, for example, is being sold for the shockingly high price of $190 on eBay. Pilot assignment cards, which are handed out to riders on the Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run attraction, are also slowly disappearing from the park and appearing on the auction site. One was recently asking $400. eBay RELATED : Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge Is Now Open at Disneyland — See Inside the Park’s Biggest Expansion Ever Dozens of Oga’s Cantina menus and coasters are also being sold online for $100 each. Paraphernalia that is available for purchase is also being resold. Legacy Lightsabers, which can be bought at one of the land’s shops for $100 to $200, are going for hundreds of dollars more online. According to the Register , the park has stopped carrying a number of items that most commonly go missing, including the Docking Bay 7 sporks and Galaxy’s Edge maps. A representative for Disney did not reply to PEOPLE’s request for comment. The land, which opened up to all guests on Monday, after a month of reservation-only access, offers a variety of rides and experiences for Star Wars fans. Story continues Path of the Jedi takes visitors through the entire saga, complete with footage from the films and a few special appearances by some familiar faces. While Smugglers Run puts riders in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon and assigns them one of three roles — pilot, engineer or gunner — to execute a daring mission. Disney RELATED : Disney World Will Open to Resort Guests at 6AM this Fall for Debut of Star Wars : Galaxy’s Edge Oga’s Cantina serves as the destination for exotic beverages with tunes spun by DJ R-3X, a former pilot droid. And Docking Bay 7 is the “designated location for traveling food shuttles.” A second Galaxy’s Edge will open at Disney’s Hollywood Studios at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando on August 29.
5 Women Try 5 Shades of KKW Beauty's New Body Foundation Photo credit: ELLE From ELLE Applying body makeup is the oldest Hollywood trick in the book. Beyoncé's makeup artist Sir John has said he uses a spray-on formula from AllEven London to get the singer's signature glowy stage look, while Chrissy Teigen recently posted a hilarious Instagram of foundation being applied to her legs ("When I was young, makeup was just for the face," she joked). So, when Kim Kardashian-one of the most photographed women in the world- announced she was launching a $45 body foundation in seven shades, we weren't surprised. But, we were skeptical. Kardashian promised a transfer-resistant formula and demonstrated just how transformative the product was on none other than her grandmother, MJ. That video, along with others demonstrating the foundation on psoriasis and multiple skin tones , was enough to convince the ELLE.com team we needed to try it out ourselves. Does it rub off on clothing? Does it feel sticky? How long does it last? What's removal like? Allow five of our editors who tried it to answer all your burning questions, ahead. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Kim Kardashian West (@kimkardashian) on Jun 19, 2019 at 1:08pm PDT Kristina Rodulfo, ELLE.com Senior Beauty Editor Shade: Light/Medium Photo credit: Courtesy "I didn't want to be a believer in KKW's body foundation ('Great, here's another thing I have to be self-conscious about,' I thought), but I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked it. I tried it on a hot Saturday when I knew I'd be out all day and wore the teeniest denim shorts to show off my legs. I applied the silky formula using the large KKW brush applicator, but any other dense Kabuki makeup brush would work just as well-I don't advise using your hands for this, because the formula is very difficult to remove (more on that later). I squeezed way too much product on the first leg and, seeing that it is really full-coverage and required ample blending to look natural, I decided to start with less on my second leg and gradually build up. I instantly marveled at how it looked like I was wearing pantyhose, with that airbrush-perfect finish (and no annoying spandex necessary). Note: you do need to spread it all the way to your toes if you are wearing open-toe shoes like I was, otherwise your skin tone may look mismatched. Story continues I don't have anything I want cover-up, per se-I like my legs the way they are-but, I do have some tiny scars from reckless shaving, dropping hot tea on my knees, and bruises from clumsiness that I was curious to see covered-up. I added in the luminizer-basically a liquid higlighter-and that, friends, is when I was sold . I am known to add highlighter everywhere-shoulders, clavicles, shins-so this isn't anything new. But, I did love how the light hit my legs to make them look toned and ready for a Nair campaign. After posting a preview on Instagram Stories, I got several DMs complimenting my stems. To say I was feeling myself is an understatement. I didn't walk, but strutted down the street. Now, for the moment of truth: Does it transfer? Barely. You have to let it set. I hugged my boyfriend shortly after applying it, when it was fresh, and a thumb-sized smudge got on the bottom of his shorts. However, after walking 15 city blocks and sweating in the park as we picnicked, the makeup did not transfer one bit. I momentarily forgot I was wearing it and bent over to hug my legs in my white button-down shirt, and nothing came off. My boyfriend rubbed his hand on my leg to do another test and none of the color got on his hands-but some of the shimmer did. I got home around midnight and after twelve hours of wear, the foundation stay put. It required three rounds of scrubbing with a loofah to get the product all off (tired as I was, I was not about to sleep in white sheets with makeup on my legs). You definitely feel like you're wearing makeup-similar to the way you do when you wear full-coverage foundation on your face. You also feel hyper-aware of everything your legs touch, even if nothing transfers. I wouldn't wear it day-to-day (who has the time?) but, for a special occassion or a night out I would definitely bust the KKW foundation out again." Alyssa Bailey, ELLE.com News and Strategy Editor Shade: Fair Photo credit: Courtesy "Admittedly, I am not even a liquid foundation girl, so when I heard about Kim’s body makeup, I was like, this will be great for some people but not really something I’d use daily…or maybe even ever. Did my legs look better with it on? Sure, I guess. Did they look terrible without it? No. I’m a 28-year-old jogger with pretty toned legs who applies sunscreen religiously. There’s some veins, there’s some bruises here and there, but there’s not much to cover up. The KKW body cream just evens the color of my skin. It’s like air brushing your legs…but a photo app can do the same thing for Instagram, and it’d be a lot less messy. Application is pretty smooth and easy, but I was careful about it and used a nice brush to blend it in. It’s like putting a leg lotion on or a really smooth liquid foundation. When I rub my legs together, I can definitely feel it on my skin, like an almost-waxy layer. The top half of my legs, which I didn’t put the cream on because they were covered by my skirt, feel velvety smooth by contrast, which is a much nicer feeling. The shimmer pigments didn’t do much on me, but it may be because I’m pretty pale to begin with. I think the transformation this product made on Kim’s grandmother was incredible. The transformation on me? It just felt kind of superfluous. Also, I tried a darker color of the foundation before settling on Fair, and getting it off was a saga. It took soap, water, and then several wipes of makeup remover to get all off. That wasn’t even a full two legs done either, so I know getting all this makeup off will be a bit of a time commitment before bed. This is a great product for a special occasion (a wedding! etc.) if you have the desire to spend 15+ minutes taking the makeup off after. But for everyday, it just may not be worth all the cleanup effort unless it really gives you a confidence boost that justifies it. I’m also lucky in that my skin is in relatively good condition, so I don’t really feel like I need it and feel no more confident with it on than I did going out with my bare legs." Nerisha, ELLE.com Assistant Editor Shade: Dark Photo credit: Courtesy "Kim Kardashian West hasn’t sold me on a lot of things, so when I heard she was coming out with body foundation I had questions. KKW Beauty Skin Perfecting Body Foundation claimed to be transfer-resistant and water resistant and nothing scares me more than messing up a perfectly curated outfit with makeup-that was not the case with this product. I applied the product like I would any body lotion, with my hands, and was pleasantly surprised at how thick the formula was. The lotion-like formula was extremely pigmented and did a good job of hiding my strawberry legs during the first application. I went in again to seal the deal and while it didn’t completely hide my dark spots, I was satisfied with how clear and bright my legs looked. I slipped on a mid-length pink shift dress and headed on my subway commute. Between walking from my morning fresh juice spot to picking up my breakfast, the foundation stayed PUT-not a streak in sight. From there, I attended a happy hour and concert, completely forgetting I still had the product on. My night ended around 9:30 pm, so once I got home I checked my bright pink dress for evidence and found a small smudge of makeup at the hem of my dress. “I’m not mad at that,” I thought to myself. The Skin Perfecting Body Shimmer held up as well. Small flecks of gold kept my legs shining, shining, shining all day long. The real work happened when it came time to wash off. The water turned brown after one wash, but the product was completely off and I could still see small gold particles shining on my leg. After doing a second and third wash, the product was gone and I was back to my strawberry legs. So, transfer-resistant? In the beginning, yes, and you might not want to wear a white outfit with this. Water-resistant? Oh, absolutely. The bright, full-coverage look it gave me was fun while it lasted but I would only really use the product for beach pics and super fancy occasions, using it on an everyday basis is just too much work for this lazy gal." Ariana, ELLE.com Social Media Editor Shade: Medium Photo credit: Courtesy "I was a bit skeptical about KKW Body Foundation at first, especially since it’s summertime. It makes sense to have your legs and arms looking *100 emoji*, but also, what about sweat? I hate wearing makeup on my face in the summer, let alone on my entire body. I used a brush to apply the body foundation and it did get pretty messy. I had it on my hands, on the floor, on my phone, and even on my sneakers (pro-tip: make sure you’re NOT wearing shoes when you apply.) The shimmer powder transfers, though the body foundation seemed to stay intact. It definitely feels like I’m wearing makeup on my legs. The formula is not exactly sticky, but there is a tackiness. It lasted the whole day-I would consider wearing it for special occasions, but NOT on the reg. The shimmer pigments didn’t make a huge difference, but it did give my legs a subtle glimmer. I would’ve liked to have the foundation and shimmer combined. Less makeup and less time spent applying." Chloe Hall, ELLE.com Special Projects Editor & Producer Shade: Tan Photo credit: Courtesy "I was excited when I first heard about KKW body makeup! The last time I tried a body makeup was Sally Hansen’s Airbrush Legs in high school, so I was ready to dip my toe back in the body foundation pool. At first glance, the product is exactly what you would expect: a foundation-type substance that goes on just like a lotion. I’ve already watched the tutorials the beauty mogul had posted so I knew exactly what I was doing. (Shout out MJ, the Kardashian matriarch, who sold me on the product!) The formula goes on super easy and rubs in within seconds. I was shocked about how easy the application process is. Once applied, I would say it took about a second or two to oxidize, and then the color matched to my leg perfectly and it looked like I had suddenly grown two perfect doll legs. Bonus: It smells amazing! Like summer in a bottle. Photo credit: Courtesy I applied the gold and shimmer on top and began really feeling myself- 134 leg selfies later kind of feeling myself. I wore the makeup for the rest of the day and didn’t have any issues with smudging or transferring. I could feel the makeup on my legs which is a weird sensation but nothing uncomfortable. I’m a huge fan of this product: for beach days, leg selfies, or fun, I’m definitely going to be using this product again. Thanks for the golden gams, KKW!" ('You Might Also Like',) 10 Pairs of White Sneakers That Go With Everything 50 Surprising Things You Never Knew About 'Sex and the City' 20 Serums to Solve All Your Skincare Problems
UPDATE 1-Trump eyes U.S. Census delay after Supreme Court setback (Adds details, background) WASHINGTON, June 27 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday said he is exploring a delay in the 2020 census for an unspecified amount of time after the Supreme Court blocked, for now, his push to add a citizenship question to the decennial headcount. "I have asked the lawyers if they can delay the Census, no matter how long, until the United States Supreme Court is given additional information from which it can make a final and decisive decision on this very critical matter," Trump tweeted. The national census is required every 10 years under the U.S. Constitution, which specifically mandates it. No citizenship question has been a part of the census since 1950. The Trump administration had said it wants to add the question to better enforce a law protecting the voting rights of racial minorities. Critics have called the question a Republican ploy to scare immigrants away from taking part and engineer an undercount in Democratic-leaning areas with large immigrant and Latino populations. The nation's top court, in a decision handed down on Thursday, said the federal government's rationale for the question "seems to have been contrived" and stated the government had not given a reasoned explanation for its actions. The Supreme Court sent the issue back to the Commerce Department, which is in charge of the census, to decide whether to provide a different rationale for the question. The administration has said census forms need to be printed in the coming days. A federal agency normally takes weeks or months to issue a determination. (Reporting by Makini Brice; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh, Susan Heavey and James Dalgleish)
Fiscal Year (FY): Definition and Importance In the world of accounting, finance and taxes, there’s more than one type of year. In addition to regular years, there are a number of different fiscal years. A fiscal year is the 12-month period a company uses for accounting purposes. Here’s how it works and why it’s important inbusiness and taxes. Commonly known, the calendar year begins January 1 and ends December 31. This is the year around which most people’s finances are organized. However, some businesses, governments, non-profits and self-employed individual taxpayers use a different year known as a fiscal year. There are a number of definitions for fiscal year, but the IRS’ definition of an acceptable year for tax purposes is the one that counts. The IRS describes atax yearas an annual accounting period for keeping records and reporting income and expenses. This definition also applies to a fiscal year. According to the IRS, acceptable tax years are: • The regular calendar year of 12 consecutive months beginning January 1 and ending December 31 • A fiscal year consisting of 12 consecutive months ending on the last day of any month except December • A fiscal year that varies from 52 to 53 weeks but does not have to end on the last day of a month The tax year of 52 to 53 weeks is necessary when a fiscal year is based on weeks instead of months. That’s because 52, seven-day weeks add up to only 364 days, so an occasional 53-week year helps keep the year ending around the same date. Oftentimes “fiscal year” is abbreviated to “FY,” such as “FY 2019.” Specific fiscal years are referred to with the year in which they end. For example, if a company has a fiscal year from July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2020, the fiscal year would be “FY 2020.” Common Fiscal Years Most people and organizations use the calendar year for tax and accounting purposes. However, some other years are also common. Different types of organizations tend to use certain fiscal years, such as: • Thefederal fiscal yearused by the federal government and its agencies, which begins October 1 and ends September 30 • School districts, which use a fiscal year beginning July 1 and ending June 30 • Retailers, which use a fiscal year beginning February 1 and ending January 31 Although it may not seem like it at first glance, there is a method to this fiscal year madness. Most fiscal years are designed to conform to the organization’s natural year around which its activities and flow of funds are organized. For example, school districts use the fiscal year ending June 30 because the school year usually ends around June every year. Retailers tend to end fiscal years on January 31 because many do an outsized portion of their sales each December and also have a large influx of returns during January. Using a fiscal year that fits an organization’s natural year provides a better measurement of its year’s business, which can help improve accounting accuracy. Using a non-calendar year can also save money on accounting costs. Accountants are often busiest around the end of the calendar year, when many businesses are closing their books. Having a non-calendar fiscal year lets businesses negotiate deals on getting their own auditing done. Fiscal Year Limitations As long as the fiscal year you choose fits one of the IRS definitions, you can generally choose any fiscal year you want. However, the IRS says you have touse the calendar year if: • You don’t keep any books or records • You have not chosen another annual accounting period • Your present tax year does not qualify as a fiscal year You may also have to follow the calendar year if you filed a tax return using the calendar year and then later: • Started a sole proprietor business • Became a partner in a partnership • Became a shareholder in an S corporation If you do any of these things, you have to get IRS permission to switch to a non-calendar fiscal year. You can do so byfiling Form 1128, Application to Adopt, Change or Retain a Tax Year. Additionally, you may have to request a ruling and pay a fee to get the ruling on your request for a different fiscal year. You may need to use this form if you have a short tax year, too. This is any tax year less than 12 months. It can come up when you start a business in the middle of a tax year or change your fiscal year. Depending on your fiscal year, you may havedifferent income tax deadlines, as well. For individuals and corporations, the IRS expects taxpayers to file tax forms by the 15th day of the fourth month following the end of the fiscal year. For example, if your business’ fiscal year is from July 1 to June 30, your tax deadline would be October 15. Regardless of your fiscal year, be sure to understand all of thetaxes that come with running a business. The Bottom Line Having the right fiscal year for your business can help you better understand your business’ financial performance over time. It may also help streamline and save money on your accounting, and could offer a more ideal tax deadline for your business. Before deciding between a fiscal year and a calendar year, consider your business’ budget and weigh all of your options. Tips for Choosing the Right Fiscal Year • If you’re unsure of the right fiscal year for your business, consider working with a financial advisor. Finding the right financial advisor thatfits your needsdoesn’t have to be hard.SmartAsset’s free toolmatches you with financial advisors in your area in five minutes. If you’re ready to be matched with local advisors that will help you achieve your financial goals,get started now. • Consider the time of year in which your business incurs the most expenses and sees the largest profit. The right fiscal year could help you save money on accounting and auditing, while also allowing for a more ideal tax deadline for your business. Photo credit: ©iStock.com/Rawpixel, ©iStock.com/lovelyday12, ©iStock.com/baona The postFiscal Year (FY): Definition and Importanceappeared first onSmartAsset Blog. • An Independent Contractor's Guide to Taxes • Can You Deduct Medical Expenses on Your Taxes? • What Is a Tax Abatement?
‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’ To Snare $90M+ In Early China/Japan Bows; Middle Kingdom Midnights Strong Click here to read the full article. Before it swings into domestic play and hits the bulk of overseas next week, Sony / Marvel ’s Spider-Man: Far From Home will begin weaving its international box office web in China, Japan and Hong Kong this weekend. Both China and Japan are leading markets for the character, with the industry seeing a start around $90M across the three debut hubs. There is give on either side depending on how things go down in the Middle Kingdom. Although pre-sales in China were, somewhat confoundingly, lower compared to Spider-Man: Homecoming , the Far From Home midnights that kicked in tonight local time are promising at $3.2M, the 4th best score for a superhero movie. It is possible Spidey overall in this early session moves into the $100M neighborhood. Related stories Sony Joins Warner Bros.' DC & Universal In Skipping San Diego Comic-Con 2019 Sony Exec Jonathan Kadin Transitioning To Producer With Camila Cabello's 'Cinderella' As First Project Chinese Censors Crank Heat & Wreak Havoc On Local Summer Movies; Upside To Hollywood? In the same group of markets that are going this frame, and at today’s exchange rates, previous entry Homecoming did $76.6M when it launched two years ago. The ante is upped this time around given this is the first Marvel title since Avengers: Endgame , and Far From Home is expected to outperform Homecoming . But the swing this weekend will be China which has been trickier than usual in recent weeks. Far From Home has been looking at anywhere from $75M-$85M, per conservative estimates. It could certainly notch higher, but we are still waiting on Middle Kingdom social scores for the Jon Watts-directed installment. Far From Home is likely to benefit from a lack of competition after Chinese title Better Days was abruptly yanked off its date this week, and with next weekend not expected to throw up any major roadblocks now that The Eight Hundred has been decommissioned. Story continues Homecoming , which is the natural comp, debuted in China in 2017, about two months after the majority of the world, and made $67M in its first weekend at today’s rates. The Middle Kingdom final was $116.3M (unadjusted). As for Japan, the previous Tom Holland -starrer opened to $7.2M in today’s dollars, with a $25M finish. Far From Home differs from the pattern on Homecoming as it snared an early China date . And, while Japan would typically come later in the run, Sony is leaning into a good window before Toy Story 4 and local anime Weathering With You , from the team behind smash Your Name , hit theaters. China was the biggest overseas market on Homecoming as well as the previous two Spider-Man movies. It is also the top MCU hub with Endgame having taken in a staggering $629M there to become the highest-grossing import ever. Far From Home picks up following the events of Endgame as Spidey must step up to take on new threats in a world that has changed forever. Jake Gyllenhaal, Zendaya, Samuel L Jackson, Jon Favreau, Marisa Tomei, Jacob Batalon and Cobie Smulders also star. All of the Spider-Man films have released in China, going back to 2002 with the subsequent sequels growing apace with the market. The five-year gap between Sam Raimi’s 2007 entry and Marc Webb’s 2012 The Amazing Spider-Man made for exponential increases. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 then nearly doubled its predecessor with an over $94M cume (non-restated), and Homecoming topped that. At the time of Homecoming ’s China release, it scored the then-3rd best debut for all superhero films in the market and was Sony’s top opening-day result ever with $21.6M. It also, for a time, held the title of highest-grossing solo superhero film there. Another thing the Spider-Man character brings to the MCU party is that he over-indexes in Japan. Marvel does well in that market, but the webbed wonder particularly excels. Japan has consistently been in the Top 5 markets on the past four live-action Spider-Man movies. While this weekend may come in lower than Homecoming ‘s opening, Japan is a slow-burn. Holland has made the rounds of UK chat shows, notably making headlines for what some deemed an overshare on The Graham Norton Show where he appeared recently with Gyllenhaal. The pair, along with Watts, also were in Beijing earlier this month for a nationally covered fan event and press conference. Holland and Watts also participated in an immersive afternoon with YouTube channel Ychina, learning how to make dumplings among other cultural experiences. In Japan, there’s an opening night countdown to the first screening with a takeover of all screens at Toho Sinjuku, the highest-grossing cinema in the market. Talent has not been to the market, but local star Kentaro Ito was appointed as ambassador for the movie and has made numerous appearances on NTV to heavily promote FFH and was involved in coverage of the LA premiere along with veteran Japanese actor Naoto Takenaka who has voiced Nick Fury in all Avengers movies. A Spider-Man stuntman also toured Japan, appearing on major TV shows including a surprise wire stunt on a popular Saturday night variety show. The rest of rollout overseas begins Monday in Australia with all markets, including domestic but excluding Italy, climbing in throughout the week. Far From Home is presented by Columbia Pictures in association with Marvel Studios/Pascal Pictures. Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers wrote the script. Producers are Kevin Feige and Amy Pascal. Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter . 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Walgreens Boots Alliance Tops Q3 Earnings Estimates, but Growth Remains Elusive The last timeWalgreens Boots Alliance(NASDAQ: WBA)announced its quarterly results, the pharmacy giant's revenue increased 4.6% compared to the prior-year period. It was a different story with adjusted earnings, though, which saw a year-over-year decline of 5.4%. Walgreens announced its third-quarter results before the market opened on Thursday. The company's earnings fell yet again, but there was some good news. Here are the highlights from Walgreens' Q3 update. Walgreens announced Q3 revenue of $34.6 billion, a 0.7% increase from the $34.3 billion reported in the year-ago period. The company's reported revenue was also slightly higher than analysts' average revenue estimate of $34.46 billion. The pharmacy giant's net income reported under generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) was $1.03 billion, or $1.13 per share, in the third quarter. This reflected a 16.5% decrease from the prior-year quarter. Walgreens' non-GAAP (adjusted) net income came in at $1.47 per diluted share, a 4% year-over-year decline. However, the company beat analysts' consensus adjusted earnings estimate of $1.43 per share. The weak revenue growth in the third quarter was hurt to some extent by currency fluctuations. Walgreens reported that its sales increased 2.9% from the prior-year period on a constant currency basis. This growth stemmed primarily from improvement in its U.S. retail pharmacy and pharmaceutical wholesale divisions. However, the company's international retail pharmacy division struggled with a poor performance from its Boots UK business. Walgreens' operating expenses in Q3 matched the level from the prior-year quarter. With revenue increasing slightly and spending staying the same, why did the company's earnings decline? The main culprit was a lowergross marginresulting from a higher cost of sales in Q3. Despite the mixed results, Walgreens Boots Alliance management expressed optimism. CEO Stefano Pessina stated, "Following a difficult second quarter, we made progress in the third quarter against the strategic goals we set, and are pleased to report an improvement in our U.S. comparable growth compared with the first half of the year." Walgreens maintained its guidance for fiscal 2019. The company still expects no significant earnings growth for the full year 2019 at constant currency rates. It also anticipates an adverse impact from currency fluctuations of $0.06 per share. Pessina said that Walgreens Boots Alliance "will continue our aggressive response to rapidly shifting trends." The company is implementing what it calls a "transformational" cost-cutting program to help reduce expenses. The big problem for Walgreens, though, is that cost reductions don't generate growth. They only help boost the bottom line temporarily. It's those "rapidly shifting trends" in the pharmacy industry Pessina mentioned that Walgreens really must deal with effectively for the company to return to solid growth. More From The Motley Fool • 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today • The $16,728 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss • 20 of the Top Stocks to Buy (Including the Two Every Investor Should Own) • What Is an ETF? • 5 Recession-Proof Stocks • How to Beat the Market Keith Speightshas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy.
What Should Investors Know About Trustpower Limited's (NZSE:TPW) Long Term Outlook? Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Trustpower Limited's (NZSE:TPW) announced its latest earnings update in May 2019, which showed that the business faced a major headwind with earnings falling by -20%. Below, I've laid out key numbers on how market analysts predict Trustpower's earnings growth trajectory over the next couple of years and whether the future looks brighter. I will be using net income excluding extraordinary items in order to exclude one-off volatility which I am not interested in. See our latest analysis for Trustpower Market analysts' prospects for the upcoming year seems buoyant, with earnings rising by a robust 12%. This growth seems to continue into the following year with rates arriving at double digit 13% compared to today’s earnings, and finally hitting NZ$105m by 2022. While it is helpful to be aware of the growth year by year relative to today’s level, it may be more beneficial evaluating the rate at which the earnings are growing on average every year. The pro of this technique is that it ignores near term flucuations and accounts for the overarching direction of Trustpower's earnings trajectory over time, which may be more relevant for long term investors. To calculate this rate, I put a line of best fit through the forecasted earnings by market analysts. The slope of this line is the rate of earnings growth, which in this case is 4.9%. This means, we can assume Trustpower will grow its earnings by 4.9% every year for the next few years. For Trustpower, I've put together three fundamental aspects you should further examine: 1. Financial Health: Does it have a healthy balance sheet? Take a look at ourfree balance sheet analysis with six simple checkson key factors like leverage and risk. 2. Valuation: What is TPW worth today? Is the stock undervalued, even when its growth outlook is factored into its intrinsic value? Theintrinsic value infographic in our free research reporthelps visualize whether TPW is currently mispriced by the market. 3. Other High-Growth Alternatives: Are there other high-growth stocks you could be holding instead of TPW? Exploreour interactive list of stocks with large growth potentialto get an idea of what else is out there you may be missing! We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
Game of Thrones going to Comic-Con to celebrate final season Game of Thrones is returning to Comic-Con to celebrate season 8. The HBO drama is headed back to the San Diego fan convention’s Hall H on July 19 for what’s expected to be the fantasy hit’s final appearance (but never count out a potential reunion down the road). GoT skipped Comic-Con last year after taking an extra year to film its final season. Actors expected on the panel, according to HBO’s announcement Thursday, will include Jacob Anderson (Grey Worm), John Bradley (Samwell Tarly), Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister), Liam Cunningham (Davos Seaworth), Nathalie Emmanuel (Missandei of Naath), Iain Glen (Ser Jorah Mormont), Conleth Hill (Varys), Maisie Williams (Arya Stark) and Isaac Hempstead Wright (Bran Stark). Showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss, who are busy preparing a new Star Wars trilogy, are also due to attend, as is director and executive producer Miguel Sapochnik. HBO’s Westworld , His Dark Materials , and Watchmen are also set to appear next month at Comic-Con. Head here for the full list of TV shows and films that will have panels at the annual event. Related content: All the movie and TV panels coming to San Diego Comic-Con 2019 Supernatural returns to Hall H for final San Diego Comic-Con appearance See the best special edition toys coming to San Diego Comic-Con
Here's Why Dova Pharmaceuticals Stock Jumped Higher Today Shares ofDova Pharmaceuticals(NASDAQ: DOVA)were up 18.5% at 1:33 p.m. EDT today after the biotech, which isfocusedon thrombocytopenia (low blood-platelet count), announced that the FDA had expanded the approval for Doptelet to include the treatment of that condition in adults with a blood disease called chronic immune thrombocytopenia. This is a second-line approval, meaning patients need to have had an insufficient response to a previous treatment. Doptelet was already approved in the U.S. to treat thrombocytopenia in patients with chronic liver disease who are scheduled to undergo a procedure. Just two days ago, Dova got the drug approved in Europe for the same liver disease indication. Dova is getting help fromBausch Health Companies'(NYSE: BHC)Salix Pharmaceuticals to sell Doptelet to U.S.-based surgeons looking to use the drug to treat patients with chronic liver disease. That should free up Dova to focus on the launch for immune thrombocytopenia, which is a bigger opportunity, but a disease where Dova will have to go against established drugs, such asAmgen's(NASDAQ: AMGN)Nplate andGlaxoSmithKline's(NYSE: GSK)Promacta. Image source: Getty Images. Today's FDA approval is certainly good news, but investors should have patience in their expectations for Doptelet's launch in immune thrombocytopenia. Small biotechs often take awhile to get up to full speed, especially when they have to compete with big pharma. If the immune thrombocytopenia opportunity doesn't work out as expected, Dova has one more shot to expand sales of Doptelet into chemotherapy-induced thrombocytopenia. Data from a phase 3 study for that version of the disease will be available in first half of 2020. More From The Motley Fool • 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today • The $16,728 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss • 20 of the Top Stocks to Buy (Including the Two Every Investor Should Own) • What Is an ETF? • 5 Recession-Proof Stocks • How to Beat the Market Brian Orellihas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Amgen and Bausch Health Companies. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy.
Is Trustpower Limited's (NZSE:TPW) Balance Sheet Strong Enough To Weather A Storm? Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Investors are always looking for growth in small-cap stocks like Trustpower Limited (NZSE:TPW), with a market cap of NZ$2.3b. However, an important fact which most ignore is: how financially healthy is the business? Understanding the company's financial health becomes vital, as mismanagement of capital can lead to bankruptcies, which occur at a higher rate for small-caps. The following basic checks can help you get a picture of the company's balance sheet strength. Nevertheless, potential investors would need to take a closer look, and I’d encourage you todig deeper yourself into TPW here. TPW has built up its total debt levels in the last twelve months, from NZ$499m to NZ$588m , which accounts for long term debt. With this growth in debt, the current cash and short-term investment levels stands at NZ$8.2m to keep the business going. On top of this, TPW has generated NZ$148m in operating cash flow during the same period of time, resulting in an operating cash to total debt ratio of 25%, meaning that TPW’s operating cash is sufficient to cover its debt. At the current liabilities level of NZ$284m, it appears that the company arguably has a rather low level of current assets relative its obligations, with the current ratio last standing at 0.65x. The current ratio is the number you get when you divide current assets by current liabilities. With a debt-to-equity ratio of 47%, TPW can be considered as an above-average leveraged company. This is a bit unusual for a small-cap stock, since they generally have a harder time borrowing than large more established companies. We can check to see whether TPW is able to meet its debt obligations by looking at the net interest coverage ratio. A company generating earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) at least three times its net interest payments is considered financially sound. In TPW's, case, the ratio of 6.2x suggests that interest is appropriately covered, which means that lenders may be willing to lend out more funding as TPW’s high interest coverage is seen as responsible and safe practice. TPW’s high cash coverage means that, although its debt levels are high, the company is able to utilise its borrowings efficiently in order to generate cash flow. But, its lack of liquidity raises questions over current asset management practices for the small-cap. I admit this is a fairly basic analysis for TPW's financial health. Other important fundamentals need to be considered alongside. You should continue to research Trustpower to get a more holistic view of the stock by looking at: 1. Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for TPW’s future growth? Take a look at ourfree research report of analyst consensusfor TPW’s outlook. 2. Valuation: What is TPW worth today? Is the stock undervalued, even when its growth outlook is factored into its intrinsic value? Theintrinsic value infographic in our free research reporthelps visualize whether TPW is currently mispriced by the market. 3. Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore ourfree list of these great stocks here. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
Exclusive: Western intelligence hacked 'Russia's Google' Yandex to spy on accounts - sources By Christopher Bing, Jack Stubbs and Joseph Menn WASHINGTON/LONDON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Hackers working for Western intelligence agencies broke into Russian internet search company Yandex in late 2018, deploying a rare type of malware in an attempt to spy on user accounts, four people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. The malware, called Regin, is known to be used by the "Five Eyes" intelligence-sharing alliance of the United States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, the sources said. Intelligence agencies in those countries declined to comment. Western cyberattacks against Russia are seldom acknowledged or spoken about in public. It could not be determined which of the five countries was behind the attack on Yandex, said sources in Russia and elsewhere, three of whom had direct knowledge of the hack. The breach took place between October and November 2018. Yandex spokesman Ilya Grabovsky acknowledged the incident in a statement to Reuters, but declined to provide further details. "This particular attack was detected at a very early stage by the Yandex security team. It was fully neutralized before any damage was done," he said. "Yandex security team's response ensured that no user data was compromised by the attack." The company, widely known as "Russia's Google" for its array of online services from internet search to email and taxi reservations, says it has more than 108 million monthly users in Russia. It also operates in Belarus, Kazakhstan and Turkey. The sources who described the attack to Reuters said the hackers appeared to be searching for technical information that could explain how Yandex authenticates user accounts. Such information could help a spy agency impersonate a Yandex user and access their private messages. The hack of Yandex's research and development unit was intended for espionage purposes rather than to disrupt or steal intellectual property, the sources said. The hackers covertly maintained access to Yandex for at least several weeks without being detected, they said. The Regin malware was identified as a Five Eyes tool in 2014 following revelations by former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden. Reports by The Intercept, in partnership with a Dutch and Belgian newspaper, tied an earlier version of Regin to a hack at Belgian telecom firm Belgacom in 2013 and said British spy agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and the NSA were responsible. At the time GCHQ declined to comment and the NSA denied involvement. 'CROWN JEWEL' Security experts say attributing cyberattacks can be difficult because of obfuscation methods used by hackers. But some of the Regin code found on Yandex's systems had not been deployed in any known previous cyberattacks, the sources said, reducing the risk that attackers were deliberately using known Western hacking tools to cover their tracks. Yandex called in Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky, which established the attackers were targeting a group of developers inside Yandex, three sources said. A private assessment by Kaspersky, described to Reuters, concluded hackers likely tied to Western intelligence breached Yandex using Regin. A Kaspersky spokeswoman declined to comment. The U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment. The White House National Security Council did not respond to a request for comment. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Russian government was not aware of this particular attack on Yandex. "Yandex and other Russian companies are attacked every day. Many attacks come from Western countries," he said. Moscow-based Yandex, listed on the NASDAQ in the United States and the Moscow Exchange, has come under tighter regulatory control by the Russian government after the passage of new internet laws. U.S. cybersecurity firm Symantec said it had also recently discovered a new version of Regin. Symantec declined to discuss where this sample was discovered, citing client confidentiality. "Regin is the crown jewel of attack frameworks used for espionage. Its architecture, complexity and capability sits in a ballpark of its own," Vikram Thakur, technical director at Symantec Security Response, told Reuters. "We have seen different components of Regin in the past few months." "Based on the victimology coupled with the investment required to create, maintain, and operate Regin, we believe there are at best a handful of countries that could be behind its existence," said Thakur. "Regin came back on the radar in 2019." (Reporting by Christopher Bing in Washington, Jack Stubbs in London,and Joseph Menn in San Francisco; editing by Jonathan Weber and Grant McCool)
What Does Trustpower Limited's (NZSE:TPW) Balance Sheet Tell Us About It? Want to participate in a short research study ? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Trustpower Limited ( NZSE:TPW ) is a small-cap stock with a market capitalization of NZ$2.3b. While investors primarily focus on the growth potential and competitive landscape of the small-cap companies, they end up ignoring a key aspect, which could be the biggest threat to its existence: its financial health. Why is it important? Assessing first and foremost the financial health is essential, as mismanagement of capital can lead to bankruptcies, which occur at a higher rate for small-caps. The following basic checks can help you get a picture of the company's balance sheet strength. However, these checks don't give you a full picture, so I recommend you dig deeper yourself into TPW here . Does TPW Produce Much Cash Relative To Its Debt? Over the past year, TPW has ramped up its debt from NZ$499m to NZ$588m – this includes long-term debt. With this growth in debt, the current cash and short-term investment levels stands at NZ$8.2m to keep the business going. Additionally, TPW has generated NZ$148m in operating cash flow over the same time period, leading to an operating cash to total debt ratio of 25%, meaning that TPW’s operating cash is sufficient to cover its debt. Does TPW’s liquid assets cover its short-term commitments? With current liabilities at NZ$284m, it appears that the company may not be able to easily meet these obligations given the level of current assets of NZ$186m, with a current ratio of 0.65x. The current ratio is calculated by dividing current assets by current liabilities. NZSE:TPW Historical Debt, June 27th 2019 Does TPW face the risk of succumbing to its debt-load? With debt reaching 47% of equity, TPW may be thought of as relatively highly levered. This is a bit unusual for a small-cap stock, since they generally have a harder time borrowing than large more established companies. No matter how high the company’s debt, if it can easily cover the interest payments, it’s considered to be efficient with its use of excess leverage. A company generating earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) at least three times its net interest payments is considered financially sound. In TPW's case, the ratio of 6.2x suggests that interest is appropriately covered, which means that lenders may be willing to lend out more funding as TPW’s high interest coverage is seen as responsible and safe practice. Story continues Next Steps: Although TPW’s debt level is towards the higher end of the spectrum, its cash flow coverage seems adequate to meet debt obligations which means its debt is being efficiently utilised. Though its lack of liquidity raises questions over current asset management practices for the small-cap. Keep in mind I haven't considered other factors such as how TPW has been performing in the past. I suggest you continue to research Trustpower to get a more holistic view of the stock by looking at: Future Outlook : What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for TPW’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for TPW’s outlook. Valuation : What is TPW worth today? Is the stock undervalued, even when its growth outlook is factored into its intrinsic value? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether TPW is currently mispriced by the market. Other High-Performing Stocks : Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore our free list of these great stocks here . We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com . This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
American farmers 'are in it for the long haul,' Iowa governor says about trade war AlthoughPresident Trumphas indicated that the U.S. may be close to atrade trucewith China, there are still no definitive signs that tariffs will come to an end imminently. And so American farmers are “in it for the long haul,” according to Iowa’s governor. The escalatingtariffshave hitfarmerson various levels across the U.S., but particularly the Midwest wheresoybeans— the top American agricultural export toChina— are grown. “We need to keep moving on all fronts and then figure out a way to get back to the table, continue the talks, and see if we can’t move this forward,” Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds said on Yahoo Finance’s The Final Round, adding: “Agriculture is the backbone of our economy.” Asked about the struggles that her constituents are facing, Reynolds said that they are looking for new markets and waiting for the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) to be ratified. “I spend a lot of time traveling the state and talking to farmers,” she said. “Their focus is on looking for new markets to solidify what we have, to get USMCA ratified. They are in for the long haul right now.” Reynolds added: “Of course, we want trade with China — we want that to move forward. And we want the trade disruption ... over with.” The Republican governor placed the responsibility on China, accusing them of intellectual property theft in her state. China “recognize[s] the fact that they’ve been a bad actor,” Reynolds said. “And, in fact, they actually stole seeds right out of the ground in Iowa, reverse engineered it for technology. So we can’t continue to let them steal intellectual property, technology transfer, currency manipulation.” In aninterviewwith CNN, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue recognized the damage that’s been done by the trade war, but essentially summed it up to the cost of business. American farmers “are one of the casualties here with trade disruption,” hesaid. "We knew going in that when you flew the penalty flag on China, the retaliation, if it came, would be against the farmer.” In 2018, China essentiallystoppedimporting U.S. soybeans. Although they promised to resume their regular purchases in early 2019, that was puton holdafter negotiations soured in May. Many farmers weren’t pleased by the news, with onetelling Yahoo Financethat “we’re pretty helpless out here … our patience is running thin.” In Reynolds’ state of Iowa, exports to China weredown 44%in 2018, the largest among any state in the U.S. The governor stressed, though, that the U.S. isn’t the only place in the world that have issues with China. “The United States is not the only country that’s experiencing some of those bad actions,” she said. “So, collectively, I think we can focus on China and hopefully then get this resolved sooner rather than later.” Adriana is an associate editor for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter@adrianambells. READ MORE: • These U.S. states are hit hardest by Trump's tariffs • Expert: 'We are worse off as a world' amid Trump's trade war • 'Is this sustainable?’: Farmers say bailouts aren’t enough in Trump’s trade war • Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance Follow Yahoo Finance onTwitter,Facebook,Instagram,Flipboard,SmartNews,LinkedIn,YouTube, andreddit.
Hedge Funds Piled Into Northern Oil & Gas (NOG) At The Wrong Time With the first-quarter round of 13F filings behind us it is time to take a look at the stocks in which some of the best money managers in the world preferred to invest or sell heading into the first quarter. One of these stocks was Northern Oil & Gas, Inc. (NYSEAMEX:NOG).Northern Oil & Gas, Inc. (NYSEAMEX:NOG)was in 20 hedge funds' portfolios at the end of March. NOG investors should pay attention to an increase in activity from the world's largest hedge funds recently. There were 16 hedge funds in our database with NOG holdings at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that NOG isn't among the30 most popular stocks among hedge funds. Hedge funds' reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn't keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. Our research has shown that hedge funds' small-cap stock picks managed to beat the market by double digits annually between 1999 and 2016, but the margin of outperformance has been declining in recent years. Nevertheless, we were still able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the market by 40 percentage points since May 2014 through May 30, 2019 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that underperformed the market by 10 percentage points annually between 2006 and 2017. Interestingly the margin of underperformance of these stocks has been increasing in recent years. Investors who are long the market and short these stocks would have returned more than 27% annually between 2015 and 2017. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 in our quarterly newsletter. We're going to check out the latest hedge fund action regarding Northern Oil & Gas, Inc. (NYSEAMEX:NOG). Heading into the second quarter of 2019, a total of 20 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 25% from the fourth quarter of 2018. By comparison, 8 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in NOG a year ago. With the smart money's positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings significantly (or already accumulated large positions). More specifically,Citadel Investment Groupwas the largest shareholder of Northern Oil & Gas, Inc. (NYSEAMEX:NOG), with a stake worth $32.7 million reported as of the end of March. Trailing Citadel Investment Group was Angelo Gordon & Co, which amassed a stake valued at $30.7 million. Point72 Asset Management, Millennium Management, and AQR Capital Management were also very fond of the stock, giving the stock large weights in their portfolios. Consequently, specific money managers have been driving this bullishness.Point72 Asset Management, managed by Steve Cohen, assembled the most outsized position in Northern Oil & Gas, Inc. (NYSEAMEX:NOG). Point72 Asset Management had $20 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Till Bechtolsheimer'sArosa Capital Managementalso made a $6.3 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new NOG positions are George McCabe'sPortolan Capital Management, Paul Marshall and Ian Wace'sMarshall Wace LLP, and Louis Bacon'sMoore Global Investments. Let's now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks - not necessarily in the same industry as Northern Oil & Gas, Inc. (NYSEAMEX:NOG) but similarly valued. These stocks are Despegar.com, Corp. (NYSE:DESP), Veracyte Inc (NASDAQ:VCYT), Luminex Corporation (NASDAQ:LMNX), and Cango Inc. (NYSE:CANG). This group of stocks' market values are closest to NOG's market value. [table] Ticker, No of HFs with positions, Total Value of HF Positions (x1000), Change in HF Position DESP,15,226527,-4 VCYT,22,130377,5 LMNX,21,159503,2 CANG,2,681,0 Average,15,129272,0.75 [/table] View table hereif you experience formatting issues. As you can see these stocks had an average of 15 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $129 million. That figure was $141 million in NOG's case. Veracyte Inc (NASDAQ:VCYT) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Cango Inc. (NYSE:CANG) is the least popular one with only 2 bullish hedge fund positions. Northern Oil & Gas, Inc. (NYSEAMEX:NOG) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. This is a slightly positive signal but we'd rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. Our calculations showed thattop 20 most popular stocksamong hedge funds returned 6.2% in Q2 through June 19th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by nearly 3 percentage points. Unfortunately NOG wasn't nearly as popular as these 20 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on NOG were disappointed as the stock returned -24.8% during the same period and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out thetop 20 most popular stocksamong hedge funds as 13 of these stocks already outperformed the market so far in Q2. Disclosure: None. This article was originally published atInsider Monkey. Related Content • How to Best Use Insider Monkey To Increase Your Returns • Billionaire Ken Fisher’s Top Dividend Stock Picks • 30 Stocks Billionaires Are Crazy About: Insider Monkey Billionaire Stock Index
GMS Inc. (GMS) Q4 2019 Earnings Call Transcript Image source: The Motley Fool. GMS Inc.(NYSE: GMS)Q4 2019 Earnings CallJun 27, 2019,8:30 a.m. ET • Prepared Remarks • Questions and Answers • Call Participants Operator Greetings and welcome to the GMS Inc. Fiscal Fourth Quarter 2019 Earnings Conference Call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder this conference is being recorded. And it's now my pleasure to introduce your host, Ms. Leslie Kratcoski, Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin. Leslie H. Kratcoski--Vice President of Investor Relations Thanks, Michelle. Good morning and thanks, everyone for joining us today. I'm joined today by Mike Callahan, CEO; John Turner, President; and Lynn Ross, Chief Accounting Officer and Interim CFO. In addition to the press release issued this morning we have posted presentation slides to accompany this call in the Investor Relations section of our website at gms.com. On today's call management's prepared remarks and answers to your questions may contain forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements address matters that are subject to risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control and may cause actual results to differ from those discussed today. As a reminder forward-looking statements represent management's current estimates and expectations. The Company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements in the future. Listeners are encouraged to review the more detailed discussions related to these forward-looking statements contained in the Company's SEC filings including risk factors section of the Company's 10-k and other periodic reports. Today's presentation also includes the discussion of certain non-GAAP measures. The definitions and reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures are provided in the press release and presentation slide. Please note that references on this call to fourth quarter and fiscal 2019 relate to the quarter and fiscal year ended April 30th, 2019. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Mike Callahan. Mike? G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Thanks, Leslie. Good morning and thank you for joining us today. I will begin today's call with a review of our operating highlights and some market commentary and then turn it over to John for a few remarks on his early days here at GMS. Lynn will then cover our financial results in more detail. We will then open the line for your questions. Turning to slide 3, we are very pleased to deliver a strong finish to fiscal 2019, with record net sales and adjusted EBITDA for our fourth fiscal quarter. Organic sales growth of 7% during the fourth quarter reflected higher volumes and pricing across all of our product groups, including over 3 points of volume growth in wallboard as a result of strong activity in the United States. Our strong growth of organic revenue for the quarter was broad based across each of our product lines with 3.8% growth in wallboard sales, 13.7% growth in ceilings, and 8.3% growth in steel framing. Other product net sales were also up 7.8% organically and they continue to be a key part of our growth story. On the profitability front, we also generated record results, with a nearly 50% year-over-year increase in adjusted EBITDA to $73.5 million for the fourth fiscal quarter. The increase reflected contributions from the Titan acquisition, growth in our base business, our continued focus on operational improvements and favorable lease accounting. I'd now like to spend a few moments sharing our current view of our end markets in both Canada and the United States. In our fourth quarter, our business in Canada continued to be impacted by some softness in the Canadian single-family residential market. Coupled with challenging weather conditions earlier in the quarter, the Canadian business experienced a high-single-digit year-over-year sales decline on a constant currency basis. With further impact from about a 4% depreciation in the Canadian dollar year-over-year. And based on the current forecast, we believe it will take some time for this sector of the Canadian market to normalize. Nonetheless, the fundamentals contributing to long-term Canadian housing demand remain sound, including strong household formation and population and economic growth. Also on a positive note, the commercial activity in Canada remains solid and Titan continues to be accretive to our consolidated operating results. Our long-term strategic rationale for the acquisition of the largest distributor in Canada remains very compelling including increased scale and footprint in North America, geographic expansion into the highly attractive Canadian market and creation of a well-balanced platform for growth. We firmly believe that our investment thesis for this attractive acquisition of strategic importance remains strong. On the organisational front in Canada we are very pleased to announce that Travis Hendren, most recently Vice President of Corporate Development at GMS will be joining the management team in Canada as Executive Vice President reporting to Doug Skrepnek, President of WSB Titan. Travis was an integral part and leader in our acquisition of WSB Titan in June of '18 and his appointment to this new role reflects the strategic importance of our Canadian operation and as part of our ongoing succession planning. As part of the succession plans for Titan, Travis will work closely with Doug over the balance of '19, as Doug transitions to a consulting role remaining engaged in the business. And after Doug moves into the consulting role, Travis will assume the position of President of WSB Titan. In the United States, we continue to be quite encouraged by activity levels and other leading market indicators. The organic daily sales volume improvements we have seen in each month in the fourth quarter and continuing into the first quarter of '20 further validates that view. As it pertains to residential construction, while single-family starts so far in calendar '19 have remained perhaps softer than anticipated. We have seen mortgage rates and home price appreciation moderate and indicators of seasonal demand are generally positive. Employment and income growth remain at very healthy levels in many of the major markets in the US continue to have limited housing supply as building remains below historical averages, all of which bodes well for the long-term outlook. And on the commercial front which represents the majority of our business, most indicators and estimates point to continued growth against the backdrop of a healthy economy. We were seeing this in our own business with strong backlogs and quote activity. In recent visits to many of our locations in multiple geographies, I have continued to hear from our own people and key commercial customers that pipelines are very robust through calendar 2019 and quotes are going in the calendar '20 and beyond. GMS generated strong free cash flow in the quarter of $83 million, which enabled us to continue to execute on our balanced approach to capital allocation, including reducing our net leverage in the quarter to 3.6 times pro forma adjusted EBITDA, while at the same time expanding our business through acquisitions and greenfield investments and repurchasing $5 million of our common stock. During the quarter, we closed on the acquisition of Commercial Builders Group in southern Louisiana and opened four greenfield locations in Carrollton, Texas; Fredericksburg, Virginia, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; and Portland, Maine. Subsequent to the end of the fiscal fourth quarter and as announced earlier this month, we acquired Hart Acoustical and Drywall Supply in South Texas. As evidenced by all of these actions, we are executing on our capital allocation strategies of debt reduction, disciplined growth through acquisitions in greenfields and opportunistic share repurchases. Now turning to slide number 4, I'd like to provide a recap of the highlights for the whole fiscal year 2019 which was a very important year for GMS both operationally and strategically. We made significant progress on several fronts. First, we surpassed $3 billion in net sales through both organic growth and acquisitions. We completed the acquisition of WSB Titan in Canada, which extended our leadership position in North America with materially expanded scale and footprint. We significantly improved overall profitability, expanding adjusted EBITDA margins by 160 basis points year-over-year to 9.5%. We generated the $175 million in free cash flow. And as I just noted, we deployed a balanced capital allocation strategy, including reducing our net leverage by 0.6 times since closing of the Titan transaction a year ago, investing the two additional acquisitions and a greenfield expansions and repurchasing $16.5 million of our common stock. As we previously announced, I will be retiring in August after a 26 year career at GMS. Since this is my last earnings call, I wanted to take a few moments to reflect on the growth of GMS that I have seen, not only throughout my career here, but also since the Company's IPO in 2016. Since my joining GMS in 1993, we have grown from about 50 branches to over 250 locations. And expanded from 17 states to 43 states in Canada. Our annual sales at the time I joined were $236 million. And in just the last three fiscal years since the IPO, we have increased our sales by almost 70% more than doubled our adjusted EBITDA, completed 17 acquisitions with 59 branches and opened 13 greenfield yards. It has definitely been a very fast paced and rewarding time here. Now having the opportunity to work alongside the talented and dedicated GMS team, has been my greatest privilege and the highlight of my entire business career. I'm extremely proud that together, we have built the number one North American speciality distributor of interior building products and developed a unique corporate culture over the years that continues to be very, very special. I've also appreciated working with many of you on the call today and I thank all of our shareholders for their continued support. Going forward, I know that GMS has the right team in place to build upon the Company's strong track record. John who joined us as President in May and will assume the CEO role upon my retirement, brings to GMS nearly 30 years of distribution and manufacturing industry experience and a broad range of expertise in operations, sales, customer service, distribution and logistics as well as strategic planning and M&A. Having got to know John through our extensive travel and meetings over the last few months, I'm absolutely confident that with his leadership GMS is well positioned to achieve its next phase of growth and success in the years ahead. I look forward to continuing to work closely with John until my retirement and also look forward to seeing what he and the team accomplished to raise GMS to even greater heights in the future. I'll now turn it over to John. John C. Turner--President Thanks, Mike for that kind introduction and for your service to GMS over the past 26 years. It's great to be here today to speak with our analysts and investors. I've enjoyed speaking with some of you since joining GMS and look forward to engaging with more of you in the near future. Let me start by saying how excited I am to be part of the GMS family. I was first attracted to GMS by its leading market position, specifically the strength of its North American network combined with local expertise and commitment to service excellence. In the short time I've been here, I've already been impressed by the talent and enthusiasm of the team. I've been welcomed by great people, who are clearly dedicated to the Company, its customers and each other. Together we are working hard to execute on our plans and build on our existing momentum. Looking ahead the opportunities for growth are significant. I look forward to leading the Company and capitalizing on those opportunities as well as further strengthening our customer relationships, supplier partnerships, product offerings and overall value proposition as we position GMS for its next phase of growth and success. Since joining, I've been spending time in our facilities as well as with our customers and suppliers. I'm here to build on an already strong foundation and I'll be working with the team to identify ways we can enhance every aspect of our business. And we will be sure to keep you updated on our progress. I look forward to transitioning into the role of CEO later this summer and working with you all in the future. With that, I'll now turn it over to Lynn to provide more details on our financial results for Q4. A. Lynn Ross--Interim Chief Financial Officer, Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Controller Thanks, John. And I would also like to thank you all for joining us today. We were pleased to deliver a solid fourth quarter highlighted by record net sales and adjusted EBITDA performance and strong free cash flow generation. Turning to slide 5, we grew net sales 22.7% to $780.1 million. We are especially pleased with a 7% increase in our organic sales compared to the fourth quarter of last fiscal year. Our sales of wallboard were up by 15% to $322.3 million in the fourth quarter compared to the same period last year. This increase was driven by acquisitions, higher organic volumes and pricing. The increase included a 3.8% growth on an organic basis, which included an increase in volume of just over 3% and about a 1% increase in pricing. Our fourth quarter ceiling sales increased by 17.4% year-over-year to $112.2 million. Higher organic volumes resulting from increased commercial business along with benefit from acquisitions and pricing improvement drove this increase. The 13.7% organic increase was comprised of price increases of approximately 9% as well as higher volumes of approximately 5%. Our sales of steel frame increased during the quarter by 16.3% year-over-year to $124.5 million driven by the positive impact of acquisitions, higher organic volumes from greater commercial business and pricing. The 8.3% organic increase included gains of approximately 4% for pricing and volume. Sales of our other products, which consists of installation, joint compound, tools, stucco, EIFS and various other complementary products continues to grow rapidly totalling $221.1 million and up 44.4% compared to the fourth quarter of last year. The addition of Titan has broadened our product offerings. And at the same time, our nearly 8% increase in base business sales of other product further reinforces the continuing success of our efforts to grow this highly profitable product category. Gross profit in the fourth quarter increased almost 25% to $257 million. This was the result of both higher organic sales and the positive impact of acquisitions as well as pricing improvement. Gross margin of 32.9% improved 50 basis points from 32.4% a year ago. Due to contributions from the Titan acquisition, including purchasing synergies and favorable price cost dynamics index. And on a sequential basis gross margin also improved 50 basis points from the third quarter and exceeded the 32.2% guide, we indicated in our last call. While we benefited from some favorable price cost dynamics and mix in the fourth quarter. We do maintain our gross margin guide of 32.2% moving into fiscal '20. Turning to slide 6, we improved our leverage of fixed cost, reducing our adjusted SG&A as a percentage of net sales by 100 basis points year-over-year to 23.6%. This year-over-year reduction was less than we had previously estimated on our Q3 earnings call. Let's walk through the details, while we did recognise the full benefit of our strategic cost reduction and lease accounting changes. These benefits were partially offset by some headwinds including unanticipated insurance cost, increases in certain corporate expenses related to timing differences as well as lower sales and operating leverage from Titan. Finally, we have continued to be impacted by significant inflationary wage pressures as we discussed on previous calls. This is a reminder, we've now lapped the year-over-year benefits from our change in lease accounting and we'll do so with respect to our strategic cost reductions after the first quarter of '20. Moving along to adjusted EBITDA, we delivered $73.5 million of adjusted EBITDA in Q4, up 46.9% year-over-year. Our adjusted EBITDA margin was 9.4% as a percent of sales or 8.7% excluding the impact of leases which was up 80 basis points from 7.9% a year ago. Turning to slide 7, during the fourth fiscal quarter we generated $83 million of free cash flow, a significant increase from $15 million a year ago, the increase is due to a $40 million reduction in net working capital, $24 million of higher net income after adjustments for non-cash item and $5 million of lower capital expenditures. We use this free cash flow to reduce our net debt by $66 million as well as repurchase $5 million of our common stock and complete the acquisition in greenfield transactions that Mike talked about. At the end of the quarter, our net debt to LTM pro forma adjusted EBITDA was 3.6 times which was down from 4.2 times at the end of the first quarter of fiscal '19 and down from 3.8 times at the end of the third quarter. We intend to continue to de-lever through strong free cash flow generation. Our balance sheet remains quite healthy with $47.3 million cash on hand and $314 million under our ABL facility resulting in substantial liquidity. Additionally of our total long term debt, approximately 80% is not due until 2025. Before turning the call back over to Mike, I'd like to touch on a few more outlook items for fiscal '20. For fiscal '20, we expect CapEx to be in range of $20 million to $25 million and interest expense to be in the range of $70 million to $75 million. Now let me turn the call back over to Mike before we open the line for questions. Mike? G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Thank you, Lynn. Just a few additional comments before we open the line for questions. Again we are extremely pleased with our strong finish to the year and our confidence in the team's ability to continue to take advantage of our multiple levers to drive success. Organic growth, greenfields, M&A and operating leverage. We continue to leverage our market leading position in the distribution of interior building products, our balanced product portfolio and our diversified exposure across commercial and residential new and R&R construction markets. And most importantly, our great network of dedicated GMS colleagues, in both the US and Canada continue to embrace our strong entrepreneurial culture to drive outstanding performance and service for our customers and our suppliers. Operator, we are now ready to open the line for questions. Operator Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from the line of Matthew Bouley with Barclays. Please proceed with your question. Matthew Bouley--Barclays -- Analyst Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions and congrats to Mike, and welcome to John. I wanted to -- I guess first ask about the free cash flow, obviously impressive in the quarter. I think you ended up with about $175 million for the full year of '19. Is there anything that, you call out that anything that particularly drove the strength in the quarter there? And how should we think about what free cash flow could look like in fiscal '20? A. Lynn Ross--Interim Chief Financial Officer, Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Controller Yeah, sure Matt. In terms of what drove the free cash flow in the quarter. Some of that was driven by about a $35 million increase in accounts payable that we do not expect to experience going forward. That kind of brings our expectations down to somewhere between 40% to 45% of adjusted EBITDA going forward. And that the $35 million of the increase in accounts payable was simply driven by changes in the timing of purchases. Matthew Bouley--Barclays -- Analyst Okay. That's perfect. Thanks for that. And then secondly, the gross margin I think you said price cost was favorable which drove the strength in the quarter and if I heard you correctly I think you said 32.2% was the expectation for fiscal '20, still. So just -- I guess what are you expecting with price cost and mix that is driving the margin to subside a bit? Thank you. A. Lynn Ross--Interim Chief Financial Officer, Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Controller Yeah. So we believe that the 32.2% is a prudent guide going forward given the uncertainty around the pricing environment. Obviously, you should construe that 32.2% is a floor. We hope to do better. Matthew Bouley--Barclays -- Analyst All right. I'll leave it there. Thanks very much. G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Thanks, Matt. Operator Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Trey Grooms with Stephens. Please proceed with your question. Trey Grooms--Stephens -- Analyst Good morning. And I want to echo the last comment, congrats, Mike on your retirement. It's been great working with you. And John we look forward to working with you going forward. John C. Turner--President Thank you, Trey. G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Yes. Thank you, Trey. I've enjoyed it. Trey Grooms--Stephens -- Analyst Well. So I want to touch on a couple of things. One so your wallboard pricing slid just a little bit sequentially, the manufacturers' February wallboard increase failed, and it seems to have continued to slide a little bit at the manufacturing level at least according to the PPI. Can you guys talk about what you're seeing there, more real time and have you seen any stabilization in the pricing? Or how should we be thinking about that especially, US specifically? G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Well, I mean I think you touched on it. I mean I think the price increase in February definitely was lethargic coming out of the gate and we really did not -- we just didn't really get much realization to say the least. I think right now just the supply demand conditions are such that, until that kind of alters a bit I think the price outlook going forward is going to be kind of -- remains to be seen at this point. So, but I would say that in general, I think the pricing environment is stable right now. If I had to kind of give a characteristic to it today. But clearly the -- the increase did not hold. Trey Grooms--Stephens -- Analyst Yeah. Okay. But seeing some stabilization currently I guess is the key takeaway. G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Yes. Yeah. That'll be my take. Trey Grooms--Stephens -- Analyst Okay. And then my follow up is around Canada. So just -- I just want to make sure that I understood your comment. So volume down high-single-digits and was that just on the single-family side or is that overall including some of the positive impact from commercial? Just some clarity around that comment. G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director That would be on a consolidated basis, that would be in total. I -- and really on the single family front that for the most part is confined to single family low rise. I mean if you look at the high rise activity. the high rise condo and apartment as well as commercial, the fundamentals of those segments are still very sound. The real area is focused on that single-family low rise and frankly a lot of that is just has to do with a lot of the regulatory pressures have been brought to bear in that segment of the market up there. So long term we continue to be optimistic about where it's going to develop, but right now there's definitely some noise in that segment of the market. Trey Grooms--Stephens -- Analyst And just -- if I can just to get a little bit more kind of back on the pricing within the Canadian market. I know it's been tight there, just wallboard has been tight there over the last few years, now with that kind of -- I guess loosening up a little bit. What's the thought around pricing in that market? Kind of going forward, does that usually -- I know it's a totally different market than US. So forgive me if this is elementary question. But historically, what is that generally done in times of when things start softening up a little bit, understanding it's still a -- quite a bit of imports coming into that market. G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Up there, I would say and again my historical reference is somewhat limited to having just bought the Company a year ago. But I would tell you that based on the limited numbers of suppliers up there, I mean it's not as if it's like in the stage where you've got seven manufacturers you can pull from, there's really only two or three depending on which part of the country you're talking about to pull from. So I don't see any big alterations necessarily in terms of the pricing environment. And frankly I think the production would be adjusted based on the demand levels anyway kind of like what you here. So I don't see any big price adjustments necessarily taking place up there. Trey Grooms--Stephens -- Analyst Okay. Thanks for taking my questions. I'll turn it over. Good luck. G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Thank you, Trey. Thanks. Operator Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Keith Hughes with SunTrust. Please proceed with your question. Keith Hughes--SunTrust -- Analyst Thank you. My congratulations to you Mike and good luck. I'm sure the golfing industry will see its rounds go up, once you head into retirement. G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Thanks, Keith. Keith Hughes--SunTrust -- Analyst Just building on a couple of questions that have come in. Specifically turning to the ceilings industry, you've had some very strong numbers here. That is similar to what we saw or better volume what we saw out of Armstrong. I guess my question is, as the speciality business ramps up in ceilings, they USG and others have been doing that. Can you tell us how that benefits GMS? Is there any of that business you missed because it's all direct? Or how does that work out for you? G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director The speciality side. Keith Hughes--SunTrust -- Analyst Yeah. Speciality side of the business. Yes. G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director You know, that -- we talked about this a little bit before. I mean if you look at the gross, there's always this conversation around the commodity product, and what's the long term growth prospects of that. But the reality is, is that we've seen very significant growth in the specialty wood metal ceilings, the accoutrements, to open platform ceilings, for example, with the acoustical clouds and things such as that. And so, I think and I really have to tip my hat to our guys in the field who've dedicated a lot of resources and energy behind those segments of the business. Because it requires technical expertise, it requires a lot of product knowledge. And in many respects, we become kind of consultants for even architects as they're trying to design a lot of these more sophisticated spaces. So we've committed a lot of resources to that segment. And I think we're yielding the results of that. The AS products are a key part of the growth story and the other part of it is to -- just the fundamental R&R side and the fact that you've got that annuity factor built in, because of the replacement of either tiles that are damaged due to a water pipe failure or somebody that's building out three new floors. There's just kind of a -- there's an ongoing activity level, particularly given the relative strength to commercial right now. So it's kind of a combination to factors. But the specialty side, the architectural specialty side is definitely a growth area for us. Keith Hughes--SunTrust -- Analyst Okay. And switching to Titan, do you think the next couple of quarters where you see your Titan business bottom out or were there still be some downside in business as you try to search for a bottom in Canada. A. Lynn Ross--Interim Chief Financial Officer, Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Controller Yeah, sure, Keith. On the bottom in Canada, a couple of things. First of all our exposure there is 22% of the demand is single-family, is new single-family. We certainly hope to see things turn in the next two or three quarters. One thing that's starting to turn already, Canada -- I think you guys know has a higher lumber business than the US businesses do. And we've already started to see some of the lumber prices start to turn around. So don't know where the bottom is, we hope that it's now and fully expect to see things start to turn around however, it will take a little bit of time for the factors that we discussed related to single-family to earn themselves out. Keith Hughes--SunTrust -- Analyst Okay. Final question on SG&A, now that you been on Titan on for a year. Do you think there'll be more as you go into year two of ownership? Will there be more SG&A savings, less leverage, and we would see that tick down for the whole company, synergies are we kind of past that? G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Well, I mean I think on the synergy front, that's an ongoing effort. It's kind of like we had our first bite at the apple, so to speak but as we continue to grow our businesses together we find more opportunities to purchase cross-border from the same manufacturers or even new manufacturers. We're going to find more opportunities to find synergies and I think frankly is the revenue and expense mix improves, as single-family comes back. And I think you're going to see more opportunities for SG&A leverage in the future. But that's a TBD there. But I -- I'm fundamentally optimistic and I would reiterate as I said earlier, the acquisition of Titan was and is a very, very sound and strategically significant investment for us. So while there is some short term hiccups in the business, long term it's accretive now and it will continue to grow, would be accretive in the future. Keith Hughes--SunTrust -- Analyst Okay. Thank you very much and good luck again. G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Thanks, Keith. Appreciate it. Operator Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Wood with Nomura Instinet. Please proceed with your question. Michael Wood--Nomura Instinet -- Analyst Thanks. Mike, it's been a pleasure working with you and congratulations on a well deserved retirement. G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Yeah. Thanks, Mike. Appreciate it. Michael Wood--Nomura Instinet -- Analyst First I wanted to get some just more SG&A details if you wouldn't mind, the wage inflation maybe where exactly that's coming from. That's an industry phenomenon or GMS-specific and maybe some of the timing of the corporate expenses in terms of details on what's driving that, when that might come down. A. Lynn Ross--Interim Chief Financial Officer, Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Controller Yeah, sure. On the first question that you asked with respect to the wage inflation, this -- it's a real thing across the industry. It's driven by labor shortages that are pretty significant in construction. It's not just the GMS thing, most of the economies in which we operate are a full employment economy. So we're seeing that primarily in logistics, but also in other costs. Related to your question on the timing, really nothing ominous just simply year-over-year timing of certain expenses, as well as some unanticipated and unexpected insurance claims that took place, the last quarter of the year -- the last -- actually in April. Michael Wood--Nomura Instinet -- Analyst Thanks. And on the favorable price cost that you called out, can you just give us some details on that perhaps quantify your cost inflation where that was running just in terms of the gross margin impact. A. Lynn Ross--Interim Chief Financial Officer, Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Controller No we're not -- we can't really quantify the impact of the favorability of price cost. We did have some -- some nice tailwinds from the purchasing synergies as a result of the Titan acquisition. So really I think the remainder of the increase was due to price cost and the mix. Michael Wood--Nomura Instinet -- Analyst Okay. But just to understand the sustainability of the low double digit EBITDA conversion margins that you achieve which is in line with your long-term expectation. Is that something that you think is sustainable going forward -- trying to just understand the price cost was sort of like a one time benefit -- that benefit might win. A. Lynn Ross--Interim Chief Financial Officer, Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Controller Yeah. So moving forward we fully expect to be in the 10% to 15% range for incremental adjusted EBITDA. And we think that's very achievable. So, we do believe that is sustainable. Michael Wood--Nomura Instinet -- Analyst Okay. Thank you. A. Lynn Ross--Interim Chief Financial Officer, Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Controller Yeah. Just to qualify that with -- of course that depends on the pricing environment and on Titan's performance as well. Operator Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mike Dahl with RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question. Mike Dahl--RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. And Mike and John, congrats to you both. G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Thanks, Michael. John C. Turner--President Thank you, Mike. Mike Dahl--RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst So I wanted to pick up on the Titan conversation with the first question. I think the business was run rating something around $460 million and 15% EBITDA margins on an LTM basis when you bought it. Clearly some moving pieces since then. Can you just help us size up what the current run rate on sales and profitability is for the business? A. Lynn Ross--Interim Chief Financial Officer, Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Controller Yeah. Sure, sales is 15% of the total. And in terms of level of detail as we've discussed on previous calls, we're not prepared to provide that level of detail. Mike Dahl--RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst Got it, OK. I was shifting gears, wallboard pricing, Mike, you mentioned that you're seeing stability in the market today, I guess and just looking for a little clarity on that, if you could, provide a little more detail on the pricing intra-quarter and is there anything we should be thinking about in terms of exit rate on pricing that's different from the $324 million (ph) for the quarterly average. A. Lynn Ross--Interim Chief Financial Officer, Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Controller Can you reframe the question? Mike Dahl--RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst Yeah, sure. So, I think the comment suggested that there's been sequential stabilisation in pricing, I guess that the PPI data has kind of continued to move lower sequentially for the manufacturers. So, your quarterly price was $324 million (ph). I'm just wondering if the exit price, if we should be thinking that the price was kind of falling through the quarter. So that even if we're stabilising today, we could see another down-tick in the quarterly price next quarter. I just want to make sure we're on the right page there. A. Lynn Ross--Interim Chief Financial Officer, Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Controller Yeah. It's a possibility again. There's a lot of uncertainty with respect to what we talked about with respect to the pricing environment. G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director And it also depends on the mix, because that's based on -- that's exactly number two, so, I would say that there is no big moves that we're seeing at the parent right now, and I think based on the supply demand predictability right now that we're, the pricing is generally stable, but trying to handicap that going forward is pretty difficult to do at this juncture. Mike Dahl--RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst Okay. Got it. If I could get one last question and just on SG&A. I think you highlighted both the comments in the presentation is the unanticipated costs and timing of certain other costs. Can you quantify how much of it impact that was in the quarter and kind of how to think about and you're lapping some of the benefits as you mentioned in early fiscal '20. But just how to think about what to expect for SG&A moving forward. A. Lynn Ross--Interim Chief Financial Officer, Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Controller Yeah, in terms of the mix of the -- so we got 100 basis points of leverage, we would have reforecast to get 200 basis points of leverage year-over-year. The 100 basis points of like, let's call it NAV (ph) was half and half due to Titan. A, not being as big of a portion of the business and B, not having the ability to leverage its own fixed costs to the extent that we had forecast and the other half being the insurance costs and the timing of a corporate expenses that we talked about. Going forward, we certainly hope to get some leverage. How much under our current run rate it is, it's really dependent on wage inflation as well as on Titan performance. Mike Dahl--RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst Okay. Makes sense. Thank you, all. G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Thanks, Mike. Operator Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of David Manthey with Baird. Please proceed with your question. David Manthey--Robert W. Baird -- Analyst Thank you. Hi, and Mike, congratulations and good luck. G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Thanks, David. David Manthey--Robert W. Baird -- Analyst Question on -- to get at these one timers another way here. Maybe could you just give us the magnitude of the insurance and the timing of other costs sort of year-over-year what the magnitude of that impact was and then I assume what you're signaling here is that we should get relief on both of those as we move into the first quarter, they were sort of periodic to the fourth quarter is that correct? A. Lynn Ross--Interim Chief Financial Officer, Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Controller Yes, that is correct. G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Yeah. David Manthey--Robert W. Baird -- Analyst And in terms of magnitude, basis points or dollars any -- can you give us an idea of what they were. A. Lynn Ross--Interim Chief Financial Officer, Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Controller Yeah, sure, 50 basis points was the insurance costs and the timing of certain corporate expenses and 50 basis points was the Titan impact. David Manthey--Robert W. Baird -- Analyst Okay. All right. Got it. G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Give or take. Yeah. A. Lynn Ross--Interim Chief Financial Officer, Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Controller Give or take. David Manthey--Robert W. Baird -- Analyst Okay. That sounds good. And then second on pricing, it sounds like you're sort of signaling maybe flattish wallboard pricing in fiscal 2020. But could you talk about the ceiling prices. Will we see another strong quarter coming up here and I'm just trying to get an idea of the timing when you lap the prior price increases. And I assume at some point you will revert back to sort of the 3% to 5% norm there. And then I know it's a long question, but just mainly ceiling pricing and timing and then second is steel prices, is it possible, you could actually see a drag from steel prices this year? G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Well, as it relates to wallboard, I mean -- I'm not smart enough to project out that the entire year '20 will like to see wallboard increases. So I mean I -- I don't want to go -- record, I think say that, again a lot of that has to do with demand supply conditions and just overall activity level. So -- that certainly could have an influence as to longer term wallboard pricing. On the ceilings front, everything that we're seeing in terms of quote activity and backlog and in the general attitude of our folks out in the field is that we're going to continue to see growth in ceilings going forward just based on the current volumes. And as we've discussed on previous calls, I mean there is pretty much kind of a built in price increase relative to ceilings year in and year out. I mean you get two increases a year and it's fairly predictable. So, I mean -- I think our outlook on the ceilings front and our growth and frankly our investments in people and resources to grow that business. You can see the fruits of those efforts already and I would see that continuing into the future. David Manthey--Robert W. Baird -- Analyst And then on steal, Mike? G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Yeah. Steel, I tell you Dave, steel is -- it's really slept down. We've seen some slippage downward. It's obviously -- prices have fallen. And I think when you look at the current market relative to scrap and the availability of ship scrap, offshore is limited. I would say that our view is that steel prices. And I'm talking specifically now about the steel, the structural side. I think we're probably going to see that continue to probably drop in terms of price as we go forward. David Manthey--Robert W. Baird -- Analyst Okay, thank you. G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Thanks. Operator Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Kevin Hocevar with Northcoast Research. Please proceed with your question. Kevin Hocevar--Northcoast Research -- Analyst Hey, good morning, everybody and congratulations as well to Mike and John. G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Thanks, Kevin. Kevin Hocevar--Northcoast Research -- Analyst Wondering if you could comment on cash usage expectations here in 2020? It seems like debt paydown is the priority, but obviously still doing acquisitions and a little bit of share repurchases as well. So you can kind of frame up for us as your expectations there. And where do you think you can get that net leverage? Looks like you took off 0.6 -- from what 4.2 to 3.6 I think this year? How much further down do you think you can draw that in fiscal '20? A. Lynn Ross--Interim Chief Financial Officer, Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Controller Yeah. We'll continue to operate using our balance capital allocation approach, debt paydown remains a priority. We've talked about our target of a 3.0. The exact timing of that 3.0 obviously depends on the generation of adjusted EBITDA. If you look from where we were right after the Titan deal, 4.2, really we're halfway there now. So we'll continue to do that in terms of the -- in terms of the share repurchases, we will continue to be opportunistic about share repurchases. And we'll continue to be selective about strategic acquisition. We think that's an important part of our growth story. G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Yeah, I would add to that, Kevin, if you look at this quarter, to me, I think it's kind of a perfect example of this balance strategy that we're approaching. I mean -- it's not an all or nothing proposition we've got to have the right balance between delevering which we clearly understand is a priority. But at the same time as opportunities present themselves whether it's commercial builders -- whether it's hard or whether it's greenfields, we have to continue to run the business long term strategically. And as things present themselves from a stock price standpoint, we capitalize on that as well. I think just a really good picture of how we can do that, and at the same time continue to drive down that debt level. So that's going to be the strategy going forward. Kevin Hocevar--Northcoast Research -- Analyst Yeah. Okay, great. And then Mike you mentioned the strength you saw here in the fiscal fourth quarter carrying forward into May and June, just kind of curious if you can comment on that, specifically, are you seeing pretty similar growth rates -- are you seeing any accelerations or decelerations, just wondering if you can elaborate that -- on that a little bit. G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Well, I mean I think just as a general statement, there is a solid level of momentum certainly going into May, June just kind of early to tell, because we haven't wrapped up all the numbers obviously and that kind of thing. But just in talking with the field and meeting with the customers and looking at frankly a lot of the larger commercial folks who were completely booked out for '19 and going into '20, our view is the overall activity level is solid there and even with some of the softness if you want to call it that in single-family, we're still stocking at an enormous number of units of housing right now in multi-family. So pretty much broad based. I just say that the activity level and the outlook is just very positive. Is it -- it's not like a hockey stick or some massive growth, but it's just a real solid environment right now. And I think the outlook is very positive. A. Lynn Ross--Interim Chief Financial Officer, Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Controller Yeah. I just add sequentially during the quarter and continuing into May, we saw sequential increases in our sales per day. So we're pretty positive about that, little bit too early to tell in June, since, we're still in the month. G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Right. Right. Kevin Hocevar--Northcoast Research -- Analyst Got you. Okay. Thank you very much. G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Thanks, Kevin. Operator Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Matt McCall with Seaport Global Securities. Please proceed with your question. Reuben Garner--Seaport Global Securities -- Analyst Thanks. Good morning, everybody. And it's actually Reuben on for Matt. Congrats, Mike and John to you both. G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Thanks, Reuben. Reuben Garner--Seaport Global Securities -- Analyst Most of my questions have been answered. Just one follow up if I could. You mentioned still targeting kind of 10% to 15% of EBITDA contribution margin, going into this year. Is there -- a clarification, does that include kind of any pressures that would result from WSB declining? I assume that's a higher margin business probably has higher contribution margins. Does that include any pressure from there that's maybe offset by some synergies or and or any maybe savings if there were to be continued pressure in the Canadian business? A. Lynn Ross--Interim Chief Financial Officer, Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Controller Yeah, sure. The 10% to 15% incremental EBITDA contribution does include our forecast which we expect to Titan. Reuben Garner--Seaport Global Securities -- Analyst Okay, great. And that's all I got, everything else was answered. Thank you, guys. G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Thanks. Operator Thank you. Our final question comes from the line of Truman Patterson with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your question. Truman Patterson--Wells Fargo -- Analyst Hi, good morning, everybody. Thanks for squeezing me in here. Mike, let me add my congratulations. I hope you enjoy retirement. So -- G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Yeah. Thanks, Truman, I appreciate it. Truman Patterson--Wells Fargo -- Analyst Yeah. First off, on the wallboard volumes, you know up in the 3% range, seems like that's a pretty good result given what's going on with Canada's housing starts decline, the US starts are down. So a pretty good result. I guess, how do you guys think about your market share there? You guys have been maintaining it or even picking up a little bit of market share here in the US? G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director I would say as a general statement, we feel like we're kind of holding our -- we're holding our share position. If you look at particularly on a 12 month run rate relative to the GA numbers and kind of where we see our numbers coming in. So the -- the growth rates we're very happy with on the organic side, frankly there was also some deferred work that got pushed out. You've heard and seen all the things about weather and this and that, the reality is, there was deferred work that we've really picked up on as well, going into this quarter. So it's kind of a combination of factors. But we're confident that our share position, we're pretty much holding firm. A. Lynn Ross--Interim Chief Financial Officer, Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Controller Yeah. I just -- I would just echo that and say that kind of I read through, the Gypsum Association data which obviously has a lot of noise in it. We actually think we might have seen some positive movement on share. So we're pretty positive about that. Truman Patterson--Wells Fargo -- Analyst Okay. Great. Thanks for that. And then looking at your greenfields, you guys opened four during the quarter, seems like you guys are picking up that activity a little bit over the past year. Could you just walk us through the economics of opening a new branch and kind of the timeline of revenues and cash flows until break even and performing in line with more established branches. A. Lynn Ross--Interim Chief Financial Officer, Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Controller Yeah. So in terms of greenfields, we still think that the 6 to 8 guide is a generally good guide. We did have 8 this year. I think it's reasonable to expect that in '20 we'll have that number. In terms of the economics of it, it's a fairly nominal capital investment, there is a period of ramp, let's say 12 to 24 months. Truman Patterson--Wells Fargo -- Analyst Okay. Is there any way we can think about kind of the revenue ramp and how long it takes to get a greenfield branch to -- kind of the average overall branch level. G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Maybe 24 -- maybe just 24 months, little bit over 24, I mean the reality is that, most of these greenfields as you know we've talked about the four terminal, they're extensions of existing platforms where we might shift x percent of volume from an existing operation with greenfield site. I would say that it's a minimal amount of capital investment. You're probably good -- get doing normalized run rate of a couple of years, maybe 2.5 years get it on a full run rate basis as a standard branch so to speak. Truman Patterson--Wells Fargo -- Analyst Okay. G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director But you also in the near term you're picking up logistical benefits because of, obviously opening up a new location not trans shipping or going to long distances and that kind of thing. Truman Patterson--Wells Fargo -- Analyst Okay. Thank you. Operator Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the call back over to Mr. Callahan for any closing remarks. G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Thank you. Well, thank you all for joining us today. Again I really appreciated working with many of you since our IPO in 2016 and I thank all of our shareholders for their continued support of GMS. I wish John and the GMS team all the best in the future and I look forward to seeing them bring GMS to its next phase of growth that gives us. Thanks very much for being with us today. Operator Thank you. This concludes today's teleconference, you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation and have a wonderful day. Duration: 54 minutes Leslie H. Kratcoski--Vice President of Investor Relations G. Michael Callahan--President, Chief Executive Officer and Director John C. Turner--President A. Lynn Ross--Interim Chief Financial Officer, Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Controller Matthew Bouley--Barclays -- Analyst Trey Grooms--Stephens -- Analyst Keith Hughes--SunTrust -- Analyst Michael Wood--Nomura Instinet -- Analyst Mike Dahl--RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst David Manthey--Robert W. Baird -- Analyst Kevin Hocevar--Northcoast Research -- Analyst Reuben Garner--Seaport Global Securities -- Analyst Truman Patterson--Wells Fargo -- Analyst More GMS analysis All earnings call transcripts More From The Motley Fool • 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today • The $16,728 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss • 20 of the Top Stocks to Buy (Including the Two Every Investor Should Own) • What Is an ETF? • 5 Recession-Proof Stocks • How to Beat the Market This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. 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Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (WBA) Q3 2019 Earnings Call Transcript Image source: The Motley Fool. Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc(NASDAQ: WBA)Q3 2019 Earnings CallJun 27, 2019,8:30 a.m. ET • Prepared Remarks • Questions and Answers • Call Participants Operator Good morning, my name is Jessa, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. Third Quarter 2019 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions) Thank you. Mr Gerald Gradwell, you may begin your conference . Gerald Gradwell--Senior Vice President of Investor Relations Good morning, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to our third quarter earnings call. I'm here today with Stefano Pessina, our Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Walgreens Boots Alliance; James Kehoe, our Global Chief Financial Officer; and Alex Gourlay, Co-Chief Operating Officer of Walgreens Boots Alliance and President of Walgreens. Before I hand you over to Stefano to make some opening comments, I'll, as usual, take you through the legal safe harbor and cautionary declarations. Certain statements and projections of future results made in this presentation constitute forward-looking statements that are based on our current market, competitive and regulatory expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to vary materially. Except to the extent required by the law, we undertake no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements after this presentation, whether as a result of new information, future events, changes in assumptions or otherwise. Please see our latest Form 10-K and 10-Q for a discussion of risk factors as they relate to forward-looking statements. In today's presentation, we will use certain non-GAAP financial measures. We refer you to the appendix in the presentation materials available on our Investor Relations website for reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures and related information. You will find a link to the webcast on our Investor Relations website at investor.walgreensbootsalliance.com. After the call, this presentation and webcast will be archived on the website for 12 months. I'll now hand you over to Stefano. Stefano Pessina--Executive Vice Chairman & Chief Executive Officer Thank you, Gerald, and hello, everyone. After what was a very disappointing second quarter for us, it is pleasing to be able to report that this quarter has been broadly in line with our expectation. That said, the pressures we have seen for some times continue to impact our businesses and we still have a lot to do to deliver the transformation that will allow us to get ahead of the market trends again, and return our Company to stronger and consistent growth. We were clear that the action we were undertaking to address the market changes take time and the impact will, therefore, not fully be reflected in our financial performance until future financial year, but we have been working hard to accelerate our plans and programs. I have repeatedly said that, we have within our Company the skills and the assets that we need to address the challenges we face as our markets evolve and transform. Last quarter, we told you that we would focus on accelerating the work we are doing to transform our Company. We are doing that. The Transformational Cost Management Program that we begun early this year is one of the underlying foundations of the changes that we need to make. Most importantly, this program will help drive a structural change in the Company, making us a more efficient, and more agile and more responsive organization. It is expected to provide a significant portion of the funding required for our major technology upgrade, and development investments. And of course, an element of it will help to give us leverage in our financial performance as we restructure our businesses to better meet the needs of an ever more rapidly changing market. James and Alex, will address some of these points as they talk you through the quarter, which I will ask them to do now. James? James Kehoe--Executive Vice President & Global Chief Financial Officer Thank you, Stefano, and good morning, everyone. Third quarter adjusted EPS was $1.47, a constant currency decline of 2.4% versus prior year. The results were slightly ahead of our expectations and included some timing benefits from the fourth quarter. Overall, we are tracking well against our strategic goals. We are quite encouraged by US comp sales, which were exactly what we needed to deliver to stay on track to meet our full year expectations. And while it is still early days, our Transformational Cost Management Program is very much on track and accelerating. Based on our performance in the quarter, we are reaffirming our full year adjusted EPS guidance. We continue to expect the year to be roughly flat on a constant currency basis. Let's now look in more detail at the numbers. In the third quarter, sales increased 0.7%. On a constant currency basis, sales were up 2.9% mainly due to growth in Retail Pharmacy USA and the strong performance from our Pharmaceutical Wholesale division. Adjusted operating income declined 11.7%, or 10.4% on a constant currency basis. This was mainly due to lower pharmacy margins and a decline in front of store sales in the US and lower results in Boots UK. Adjusted EPS declined 4% to $1.47, a decrease of 2.4% on a constant currency basis. This includes a 5.8 percentage point contribution from our share repurchase program. GAAP operating income declined 24.7%, including $86 million of expenses relating to the implementation of our Transformational Cost Management Program, and $115 million relating to our share of AmerisourceBergen's impairment of PharMEDium. In total, these adjustments account for more than 50% of the year-on-year decline. EPS declined 16.5% to $1.13 per share. Year-to-date sales increased 4.9%, including a currency headwind of 1.9%. On a constant currency basis, year-to-date sales were up 6.8%, reflecting 7.7% growth in Retail Pharmacy USA, and 8% growth in Pharmaceutical Wholesale. Adjusted operating income declined 8.9%, or 7.8% on a constant currency basis. This was more than offset by a 4.8 percentage point contribution from share repurchases and 3.2% from tax, contributing to an increase in adjusted EPS, which was up 1.6% on a constant currency basis. Now, let's look at the performance of our divisions, starting with Retail Pharmacy USA. Sales increased 2.3% in the quarter, mainly due to pharmacy brand inflation and pharmacy script growth. Organic sales increased 2.9%, adjusted gross profit declined 3.9% and gross margin declined 140 basis points, mostly due to pharmacy. Adjusted SG&A spend decreased 0.7% and adjusted, SG&A was 17.3% of sales, an improvement of 0.5 percentage points compared to the year ago quarter. Adjusted operating income declined 13.8% in the quarter, procurement savings, pharmacy script growth and continued SG&A savings were not enough to offset reimbursement pressure and the lower front of store sales. These results also included store and labor investments of $40 million in the quarter, equivalent to approximately 270 basis points of adjusted operating income. Now, let's look in more detail at pharmacy. Total pharmacy sales increased 4.3%, reflecting higher brand inflation, prescription volume growth and a strong growth in central specialty, which grew 8.6% year-on-year. Comp pharmacy sales increased 6% and comp prescriptions grew 4.7% in the quarter, a strong improvement on the first half growth of 1.9%. Market share was 21.2% in the quarter, down 50 basis points versus prior year, due entirely to our store optimization program. Pharmacy gross profit declined versus prior year, as script growth was more than offset by lower gross margin. Gross margin was around 150 basis points lower than last year, due to continued reimbursement pressure, adverse mix associated with brand inflation and a 50 basis point impact due to the faster growing specialty business. These impacts were partially offset by procurement savings. The key to offsetting long term reimbursement pressure is building scale, driving efficiency and creating a sizable healthcare services business. Turning next to our US retail business, total retail sales decreased 2.9%, and were negatively impacted by our store optimization program. Comp retail sales declined 1.1%, an improvement on the first-half comp decline of 3.5%. Tobacco accounted for 150 basis points of the comp sales decline, but we did benefit from a 65 basis point tailwind as a result of the cough, cold, flu season. Retail gross profit declined, mostly due to lower sales, which, as I mentioned earlier, were negatively impacted by our store optimization program. Gross margin was down slightly by 20 basis points, an improving trend versus the second quarter as we rebalanced our promotional mix. We expect to see a continued improvement in gross margin trends in the fourth quarter. Turning next to Retail Pharmacy International, as usual, I'll talk to constant currency numbers. Total sales declined 1.6%, mainly due to a 1% decline in Boots UK in a challenging market. Boots UK comp pharmacy sales increased 0.8%, reflecting prescription growth in the quarter, whereas comp retail sales declined 2.6% as we continued to gain share in a weak market. Our beauty reinvention is now in place in 26 stores and we remain on track to introduce 25 new brands in 2019. Adjusted operating income was down 10.5% due to weak retail sales and lower pharmacy margins in the UK. Our UK pharmacy business was impacted by temporary industrywide NHS under funding and higher generic pricing. These impacts were only partially offset by prescription volume growth. We are taking actions to address our UK cost base and I will cover these a little later. Turning now to the Pharmaceutical Wholesale division, which I'll also discuss in constant currency, the division delivered another strong quarter, with sales up 8.3% led by emerging markets. Our UK performance was aided in part by our customer contract change mentioned last quarter, which contributed 2.3% to revenue growth. Adjusted operating income increased 9.4%, reflecting strong gains in Turkey and solid results from our European business. Turning next to cash flow, operating cash flow was $3.2 billion for the first nine months of the year. Free cash flow was $2 billion. Operating cash flow was impacted by headwinds of around $1.4 billion. We are lapping a one-time prior year working capital benefit of $502 million. Cash tax payments were $395 million higher, mainly as a result of US tax reform. This year includes legal settlements of $276 million and we have $200 million of cash costs relating to the ongoing Rite Aid store optimization and integration and the Rransformational Cost Management Program. Underlying working capital increased approximately $500 million primarily due to higher sales. Cash capital investment was $1.2 billion for the first nine months, $264 million higher than the prior year. This was due mostly to the impact of the Rite Aid store conversions. Turning now to our Transformational Cost Management Program, we remain on target to deliver $1.5 billion in annual cost savings by fiscal 2022. Our smart spending benchmarking is complete, targets and execution plans are set up and we're accelerating a wide-ranging program to reduce pharmacy cost to fill. The 20% headcount reduction at our Boots UK headquarters and the reorganization of our US field supervision structure are now complete. On digitalization, the Microsoft Cloud migration is moving at pace. And we have now started working on optimizing our many IT vendors. Work has also begun on building out compelling consumer value propositions. Given the difficult market conditions in the UK, we have completed the review of our store portfolio, and have started a store optimization program that will impact around 200 locations over the course of the next 18 months. Many of these 200 stores are loss-making and approximately two-thirds of them are within walking distance of another Boots store. While the stores, we plan to close represent around 8% of our store base, we expect the revenue impact will be around 1%. We do not expect a significant impact on colleagues, as we plan to redeploy to nearby stores. We are also reviewing our real estate footprint in the US and accelerating the pace of change, especially in our US supply chain. More to follow in the coming months, as we work through these key opportunities. Turning to guidance, as I mentioned earlier, the third quarter was slightly ahead of our expectations, aided by some timing benefits. As a result, we are reaffirming our full year guidance and we expect adjusted EPS to be roughly flat on a constant currency basis. As a reminder, last quarter, we told you to expect a range of plus or minus 2%. Given the normal level of volatility in a business of this size, we feel this range is still appropriate. Let me just give you a couple of assumptions. As you update your models, you should now be building in $0.06 of negative currency impacts. And this is $0.02 worse than our prior guidance. We continue to project full year share repurchases of $3.8 billion, contributing 4.8 percentage points to adjusted EPS growth. And we now project the full year adjusted effective tax rate of around 15.5% compared to our earlier guidance of 16% to 17%. The lower rate reflects non-recurring discrete benefits and changes to our geographic mix. When we provided our original fiscal '19 guidance, we highlighted incremental store and labor investments of around $150 million. As we accelerate the pace of our digital investments, we now expect total incremental spend of approximately $175 million, with a significant portion of the additional spend coming in the fourth quarter. Let me finish by highlighting the change in revenue trends coming from Rite Aid. We saw positive revenue contributions from the Rite Aid acquisition in the first two quarters of the year. From this quarter on, Rite Aid is actually a headwind to reported revenue due to the ongoing store optimization program. I'll now hand you over to Alex, and he will update you on some of the business initiatives we have under way in the US. Alexander W. Gourlay--Co-Chief Operating Officer Thank you, James, and hello, everyone. During the quarter, we continued to make progress on our four strategic priorities: accelerating digitalization; transforming and restructuring our retail offering; creating a neighborhood healthcare destination around a more modern pharmacy; and rolling a Transformational Cost Management Program. We're also continuing to develop our omni-channel offering. Our Walgreens App has now been downloaded 57.3 million times, up 10.5% since last year. Around 26% of Walgreens' retail refill scripts were initiated through digital channels in the quarter, up 18.4% since last year. And also increased our active Balance Rewards members to 90.2 million. In retail, a leading beauty brand No7 performed exceptionally well in the quarter, and Walgreens sales of No7 were up by over 50%, helped by the launch and advertising of the No7 Laboratories' Line Correcting Booster Serum and our other retail partners saw significant growth. In addition to beauty, we are working on refreshing our own brand portfolio in Walgreens to drive sales and improve the customer value proposition. During the past two years, over 60% of the Walgreens own brand product portfolio has been relaunched or rebranded, enhancing the customer offer through better value and quality to deliver improvements in sales and margin. This work is ongoing. Rite Aid is very much on track. Against a store optimization program, we've completed 631 of the planned 750 store closures, and we continue to see good customer retention. Of the remaining Walgreens owned Rite Aid stores, 394 have been successfully converted to Walgreens and we expect to complete the Rite Aid integration by the end of fiscal year 2020. We've taken further steps to develop a neighborhood health destinations, working with our partners, including LabCorp and Humana, and as we announced during the quarter, VillageMD. With VillageMD, we will be opening five state-of-the-art primary-care clinics in the Houston area by the end of the year, branded Village Medical at Walgreens. We also remain on track to open 125 LabCorp outlets in Walgreens stores this year. And finally, on Kroger the teams are working well together, and so far, the initial customer response has been positive. I'll now hand you back to Stefano. Stefano Pessina--Executive Vice Chairman & Chief Executive Officer Thank you, Alex. So, as you have heard, we have broadly delivered what we expected, but we have a lot of work ahead to get the business growing again. We have been working hard to initiate or accelerate the changes we need to keep us in line with or leading the market. We are investing heavily in updating our systems and the infrastructure, creating efficiencies and capabilities, which will give us scope for development for many years to come. We are developing new ways to engage with our customers, Introducing new services and products through new channels. We are working with partners who bring us skills, resources, scale and expertise that complement our own, to accelerate our development, give us access to new thinking (ph) market and allow us to create a significant new income stream. At the same time, we are continuing our focus on transforming our traditional areas of business to address the challenges of our core markets. Economic and reimbursement pressures have long been and remain the fact of life for us. Over the years, we have developed various different levers to mitigate the impact of this pressure. In recent years, a major element of these mitigation has been improvement in generic procurement, made possible by changes in the global generic manufacturing sector, ongoing patent expiries and significant development in the actual procurement process, all of which have led to continued improvement in buying terms. These buying benefits have enabled us to compensate for the significant demands made to us by payers. As we have made clear, the level to which we can mitigate current and future reimbursement pressure toward generic procurement has reduced, although it will continue to be an important lever for many years to come. Recognizing this, we are accelerating other levers to mitigate the pressure. We have more to do through cost saving and efficiency and we expect consistent savings well into the future. There is no doubt that, over time, we also have to build a range of services and service levels that drive benefits for our payer partners. We believe that the future of pharmacy is aligned to a wider range of healthcare service provided efficiently and conveniently in a community setting. This is why we are exploring partnerships with a wide range of innovative experts in various fields, allowing us to offer a better service more effectively and at a lower cost of sales than we would be able to do if we had set these services up on our own, or paid a significant premium for them. Of course, many of these services are still being tested, or are still in development. Let's be clear, however, while a number of partnership we are piloting has the potential to have a meaningful impact on our business, mo single one of these will define or frame our future. And so, it will be a combination of products and services, working together in the convenience of a community pharmacy that will form (ph) the basis of our future customer proposition. The mixture of products and services will inevitably bring together a range of complex and differentiated business models. Their economics will be, at least in part, based on changes to individual's health condition management and overall well-being over many years. The consequence of getting these services right has a huge potential benefit for us, for our partners and for our customers, but if we rush into them without truly understanding the operational or financial models, we have the risk is of wasting an extraordinary amount of time, resources and more. We must be sure of what we are doing before we enter into these businesses in scale. Today, many people are looking at our Company, indeed at our sector, focused on the immediate risks they perceive us to face, and I understand this. We are far from complacent about the pressures that we face. However, we can see the inherent strength of our business. There is an ever-increasing demand for effective, efficient and convenient support for people to manage their health conditions while leaving productive and fulfilling life in their local communities. The unique positioning of community pharmacy and our place in the sector gives us practical and financial scale, reach and strength. It gives us a robust platform on which to evolve and transform our Company to meet the ever-changing needs of the markets we serve. And it gives us a fantastic foundation from which to deliver innovation, growth and value for our customers and our shareholders for many years to come. Thank you. Now, we will take your questions. Operator Thank you. (Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from the line of Steven Valiquette from Barclays. Please go ahead. Steven Valiquette--Barclays Capital -- Analyst Great. Thanks. Good morning, Stefano and James. Thanks for taking the question. So as the US Retail Pharmacy business remains difficult, really for all types of stores and operators across the entire industry, we are getting the sense that there could be an additional opportunity among the larger mass merchandisers in the US for a store within a store deal where a Walgreens or a CVS could take over the pharmacies within a specific large US mass merchandiser. So I'm just curious to hear about your current appetite for an opportunity like this right now in the US, given the simultaneous store rationalization program that you're going through right now and also your other initiatives in the US? Thanks. Alexander W. Gourlay--Co-Chief Operating Officer Hi, Steve. It's Alex here. One of our strategy is -- clearly, that is to grow volume on to make our business bigger to get scale. And also partnership is really important to us, as we've said many, many times. So as the market changes and these changes are, really you can see the fact that the number of pharmacies in the US is in decline as measured -- for the first time for a long time. We are obviously open to partnership in this area. We bring scale, we bring expertise and we are investing, as Stefano said in his remarks and James said, in pharmacy and the pharmacy supply chain. So we're open and of course, we'll look for every opportunity available, providing it makes fiscal sense for us and our partners and improves the quality of our business. Steven Valiquette--Barclays Capital -- Analyst Okay. Just one other quick one, as we think about the narrow network opportunities for calendar '20. Just curious if you see the potential for meaningful market share shifts for 2020 among the large retail pharmacies like yourselves given the level of RFP activity or do you think it's going to be a quieter year for calendar '20 just in terms of a narrow network opportunities and potential market share shifts within the marketplace? Alexander W. Gourlay--Co-Chief Operating Officer Hi. This is Alex again. We think it's probably more normal. Again, we've laid out our plans in terms of item growth that we expect and we think it's a more normal year. Now, of course, within that there's always opportunities and there's always challenges, but we think it's probably a more normal year in 2020. Steven Valiquette--Barclays Capital -- Analyst Okay. Got it. Okay. Thanks. Operator Your next question comes from the line of Robert Jones from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Robert Jones--Goldman Sachs -- Analyst Great. Thanks for the questions. James, you mentioned that the results included some timing benefits from the fourth quarter. I was just curious if you could share the source of those benefits and anything around the size of those benefits would be helpful? James Kehoe--Executive Vice President & Global Chief Financial Officer Okay. Roughly we had two impacts in the quarter. One was timing, and I would say, that's around $0.03, or $35 million, is our best estimate. And the other one is, we also highlighted in the comments, we're ramping up the amount of spending in store labor and now digital and development expense. So, we've increased the spending on the full-year from $150 million to $175 million. There is about a $0.01 of that in the fourth quarter. So think about roughly around $50 million, around $0.04ish was it. And when you get to the two timing items, one was, $0.02 of the $0.03 was essentially the timing of payroll contracts when you do the compliance and true-up part you hit outcomes or whatever -- you hit volumes in certain tiers and that's the normal course of business, but we expected that in Q4. And then, a $0.01 is coming from expense timing. We accelerated some real estate savings from Q4 into Q3. So, it was actually one of the quieter quarters in terms of volatility and very few surprises. What's interesting here, maybe I'll take the opportunity, as you start looking out into Q4, because this takes some income out of Q4, our Q4 target is actually quite -- when you start working through it, you start working out your estimates, bear in mind, we had two large one-time items last year and on an EPS basis, we're cycling through these. The first one is, you will recall there was a large true-up, a curtailment benefit relating to retiree medical, that was $110 million. And then, in the prior quarter of last year, we made an adjustment for legal cost, which was one time and that was approximately $60 million, so that's another $0.05. So if you think about it, we have a 10 percentage point headwind on EPS in Q4. So, actually when you dissect Q4, we're looking forward to pretty good improving margin trends on the gross margin, and the headwind is all on the overheads and it's all due to one-time items in the prior year. So I think, as you shift through this, the volatility in Q3 was actually quite low. When you get into Q4. Think more that we have two large items last year. So, actually, when you analyze the results, the core performance actually is improving quite a bit. I hope that's a helpful? Robert Jones--Goldman Sachs -- Analyst That's really helpful, James. Thank you. And I guess just one other follow-up. In the prepared remarks, you guys highlighted again that you're reviewing the real estate footprint in the US. I'm just wondering if you could elaborate a little bit just your thoughts around how we should be thinking about the store rationalization? Is this going to be a bigger focus or is this just ongoing course of business at this point? Alexander W. Gourlay--Co-Chief Operating Officer Hi, Rob. It's Alex here. It is more ongoing course of business. This is regular. We have well over 9,000 drugstores in America. Therefore, things change, there are customer shifts, there are opportunities to move. We're also thinking about new formats, as we spoke before in answer to the previous questions, so this is just normal business. James Kehoe--Executive Vice President & Global Chief Financial Officer And just to add though, the calculations are complex. We have to look at the lease portfolio, it's store-by-store assessment. And the teams are working through 9,500 stores, which is quite a heavy workload. We just recently confirmed the 200 stores in the UK and we will move ahead aggressively on that. And it's quite interesting as you go through it, about 60% of the stores in the UK that we're closing lose money. Not all of them, but some of the others are very like the Rite Aid optimization, where it is -- think of it as a (inaudible). So we closed two stores close to each other in the UK and sometimes they are at five-minute walking distance and we are transferring over to scripts, but you're taking out fixed cost structure. So the calculations are quite complex. You have to assess are you living a trading area, which we generally don't like to do. We want to preserve our presence, both in the UK and in the US. And I would highlight that, in the UK, we highlighted in the comments, we're reducing the store count by 8%. The impact on revenue was around 1%. So I don't want to call it rounding, but it has no strategic impact on our ability to maintain strength of our position in the UK. I would actually argue, on the contrary, it makes us even stronger, because we're a profitable operator in the UK market. Robert Jones--Goldman Sachs -- Analyst Great. Thanks for all that. Operator Your next question comes from the line of Justin Lake from Wolfe Research. Please go ahead. Eugene Donathan--Wolfe Research -- Analyst Hi. This is Eugene Donathan (ph) for Justin. Quick question on the US Pharmacy gross margin, it declined 150 basis points year-over-year if we read it correctly, and it seems like Q3 was a clean quarter to compare year-over-year because FEP specialty contract lapped. How should we think about it going forward? Is it just a rate of decline in the near term that we should consider? James Kehoe--Executive Vice President & Global Chief Financial Officer I'll take a shot and I'll ask Alex to weigh in afterwards. I think we cycled through the FEP contract, the specialty business growing at 8.6%. We would expect that always to grow faster than the core business. So it will always be somewhat dilutive to margins. One other thing, there is other dynamics in the quarter. So in the quarter, we sold more branded and the margin on branded is lower than it is on generic, and that creates a mix impact as well. And that's as significant as any other impact. And the problem is, we can't project with accuracy the individual mix in any single quarter. But if you take out a lot of these mix items, the core reimbursement net of procurement and other mitigations, it was actually pretty solid quarter. We do expect some improvement in both retail and pharmacy gross margins in Q4. That's as far as we're willing to go. So this is, not something you should take and extrapolate out as 150 basis points on pharmacy. We do expect some improvements in the trend in Q4, but mix and everything else plays into it, it would be a very long discussion. Alex? Alexander W. Gourlay--Co-Chief Operating Officer Yes. I think in terms of how we feel about margin going forward, well, we've always said that we recognize reimbursement pressure is there and will stay there and how do we compensate for it. And as James has just said, we are seeing the ability to compensate more in Q4 than Q3 as the trends come through. I think in particular a couple of areas which are just interesting going forward. First of all, we are getting paid more for, I would say, value-based contracts, particularly in Medicare D. So we're starting to hit some of the performance targets, which is encouraging. And I think, also, we continue to have the opportunity to work differently in some networks. For example, again, I would point to the Prime contract we did some time ago, where we have a different approach to marketplace, where we are really much more transparent. And again, that process we believe is going to become more, I would say, available to the market going forward than it has been in the past. So, reimbursement doesn't go away, the margin is under pressure as we've often said, but we continue to be innovative, we work creatively and we work hard on new levers, as well as the old levers that we've spoken about a lot. James Kehoe--Executive Vice President & Global Chief Financial Officer The only comments we'll make on the Q4 margin is, these are obviously all factored into our full year guidance. We're just giving you the perspective that we had a tough Q2 on reimbursement, which was one of the highest numbers in history. Q3 was a tough quarter as well. As we said in the previous call, we will start to see an improving trend in Q4 on the gross margin side, but the caution is to call out those two large one-time items that are putting pressure on overheads. And the good news on that is, they don't repeat in the future, it's just impacting the Q4. Eugene Donathan--Wolfe Research -- Analyst Got it. Thank you. James Kehoe--Executive Vice President & Global Chief Financial Officer Okay. Operator Your next question comes from the line of Ricky Goldwasser from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Ricky Goldwasser--Morgan Stanley -- Analyst Yeah. Hi. Good morning. Last quarter, you directed as to fiscal year 2020 EBIT being moderating up year-over-year and flat EPS. With everything you're seeing in the marketplace, are you still expecting this? James Kehoe--Executive Vice President & Global Chief Financial Officer Ricky, we're going to just comment on current year 2019. We don't want to get into a practice of going back to discussing long-term models or 2020 guidance. What we will be doing is, in the next conference call, we will give comprehensive guidance on all of the assumptions around 2020. So, we're not going back to a discussion on the -- we just refer people back to the previous material that we placed out there in Q2. Ricky Goldwasser--Morgan Stanley -- Analyst Okay. And then, just to follow-up, in the prepared remark, when you talked about the review of the portfolio, I think, you also said that you're like looking at the US supply chain for additional improvements. So, can you just give us a little bit more color on what the opportunity is there and what are you seeing in terms of generic deflation trends as a headwind? Alexander W. Gourlay--Co-Chief Operating Officer Yeah. So, I maybe split the -- I think we answered portfolio question already, Ricky, so I'll move on to the second question, supply chain. Obviously, we're halfway into replacement of our core supply chain system for retail. In the USA, the SAP HANA S4 software is going into stores and into DCs. So it's very clear that we now have there opportunities with new tools capabilities and data, especially the speed of the data we didn't have before. So as that goes through, we will give more updates in terms of what that means in terms of projections, but we are encouraged by the progress there, but we're only halfway through it. I think, secondly, we've just hired, as you saw quite recently, a very experienced global supply chain veteran, Colin Nelson. And again, we're working hard with the team to really understand how to be even more focused on the new capabilities we are building in the business going forward. I think in terms of generics, as Stefano said in his prepared remarks, we continue to be very, very pleased with the performance of the (inaudible) office. And again, we see the opportunity going forward to continue to drive value through that (inaudible) office into a global platform, but also into America. So I think that's how we see the supply chain piece. What was the third part of the question? James Kehoe--Executive Vice President & Global Chief Financial Officer The generic deflation. Alexander W. Gourlay--Co-Chief Operating Officer The generic deflation. Yeah. I mean, we don't see any difference to what's been recorded in the marketplace to be honest. We see this, I would say, low single-digit deflation. As we have spoken about, we see generics coming off patent in a way that has been described by others, and of course, we pay a lot of attention to this because it has a material impact on our ability to reduce our cost of goods and we feel comfortable that all that's captured in the guidance that we gave last quarter. James Kehoe--Executive Vice President & Global Chief Financial Officer Yeah. And Ricky, just to add in, the low-single digit Alex refers to includes new molecules. If you strip out new molecules, the most recent quarter had -- at least, these are our numbers, not market numbers. We saw deflation of around 9%, right. So it's still up at a healthy clip and that will support continued savings in generic procurement. And the prior quarter was 9.4%. So, it's still up there in a healthy high single digit. Then the market builds in new molecules. I'm very excited about the supply chain people in the US, because we now have teams set up looking at shrink, so stock losses, whether that's in store, or it's stock losses in warehouses and we're using teams from Microsoft. So this shows the benefit of the bigger Microsoft agreement. They have put data scientists on this who are helping us build data lakes to understand what is going on, the true causes of shrink and how to eliminate it, and these are $100 million, $200 million opportunities and that's without getting into the working capital side of it. So I don't want that to be lost. Once we have SAP S4 HANA in place across the 9,500 stores, that's stock visibility that we don't have today and we expect significant reductions in the level of inventory required to be held at store level. So, but this is a (Technical Difficulty) will be huge. So you would expect that exiting 2020, we're starting to see material reductions in inventory levels. Ricky Goldwasser--Morgan Stanley -- Analyst Thank you. Alexander W. Gourlay--Co-Chief Operating Officer Thank you. Operator Your next question comes from the line of Eric Percher from Nephron Research. Please go ahead. Eric Percher--Nephron Research -- Analyst Thank you. I'd like to dig in on the international performance. And I understand we have seen some of the generic pricing fluctuations. You also made a comment about weakness or temporary weakness and under funding. Could you expand on that and how incremental is it to the pressures that we've already spoken about the last 12 to 18 months? Alexander W. Gourlay--Co-Chief Operating Officer Hi, Eric. It's Alex here I mean, let me start with the last question first, which is the under funding point. The UK government pay in a certain way, I don't want to done into detail of it, but fundamentally it's a market payment for all the pharmacies in the UK. And if you go into what's called the PSNC website, there's more details there about how that works. So we are pretty convinced there has been under-funding in the last period, and of course, working within the pharmacy contractors and the PSNC, we are now debating that with the government in a positive way as the new contract is put in place. So that's there what we refer to. And of course, we can't make any further comments until that negotiation is complete. But I think in terms of the overall performance of the business, we are making good progress in terms of reinvigorating the Boots model in the UK in very difficult times. I don't have to tell you how difficult the marketplace is there. For example, this morning, we opened a fantastic new store, a new concept store in Covent Garden, there were SKUs (ph) around the corner. And this is a health, wellness and beauty concept store, which will not only feed the future of Boots, but could also of course give us some great ideas for US market as well. On top of that, we've done a lot of digitalization. We've digitalized Advantage Card, which is still the most popular card in the UK by some way in terms of beauty and treat cards and a lot of customers use it. I think it's well into 17 million holders today. We've also created digital pharmacy. We have launched that for the first time in the UK in terms of managing prescriptions, copying some of the great ideas that we can pass across to Walgreens as part of the merger. And of course the cost program James already referred to in his remarks in terms of moving maybe money from that maybe the older model into investing in the future of the Boots business. So that's the story really where we are using the current market situation to make sure that we're investing in our future. And we're seeing some interesting lead indicators of performance. And of course, we will give you more updates as that develops. Eric Percher--Nephron Research -- Analyst And is you peers and so you (ph) comment suggesting that your business is now adjusted for the changes that have been made to-date, and you have some hope that those there might be some improvement moving forward, but you're basing the business on where we sit today ? Alexander W. Gourlay--Co-Chief Operating Officer Yeah. Absolutely, right. I would say, that's an accurate reflection of where we are. James Kehoe--Executive Vice President & Global Chief Financial Officer Yeah. That's a fair point. I think I would emphasize the word temporary. So we expect an improvement in Q4 and back to normal levels of funding next year. Alexander W. Gourlay--Co-Chief Operating Officer Yeah. Eric Percher--Nephron Research -- Analyst That's helpful. And could you just -- on the potential store reduction, you mentioned that employees may move to other stores. Can you help us with the way that you run those stores, and may be employment where you could see -- I guess, the revenue impact, only 1%, but it is 8% of the store base, will you continue to carry of the employee cost? Alexander W. Gourlay--Co-Chief Operating Officer Yeah. I mean it's really straightforward. These are relatively small pharmacy. As James said, two-thirds are within a walking distance of another Boots pharmacy. And the main cost here to be honest is the cost of the pharmacists. We have pharmacists turnover like any company would have, and we simply see that as way of being able to manage the cost. We are retaining quality people that we need to take care of customers in communities. And remember we learned a very important lesson here in the USA that if you retain the familiar face of the pharmacists and healthcare assistants in a local pharmacy, then very often the customers will transfer the script to the people who they know and trust. So this is economically important to us as well. James Kehoe--Executive Vice President & Global Chief Financial Officer And, it's 8% of the stores, it's 3%, I believe of the square footage, so that the employee impact is much lower than the percentage of stores. And then, the revenue impact is much lower because they are less efficient stores. So it's actually quite logical. And then there is a fair amount of turnover in general and in an employee base of 56,000 people in the UK, so there is a fair amount of turnover. And I think we've seen in the past you manage to place the majority of people. Eric Percher--Nephron Research -- Analyst Thank you. Operator Your next question comes from the line of Ross Muken from Evercore. Please go ahead. Elizabeth Anderson--Evercore ISI -- Analyst Hi. This is Elizabeth Anderson in for Ross. I was wondering if you could expand on some of the comments Stefano made about generic procurement, and in particular, areas of future savings that you see? Alexander W. Gourlay--Co-Chief Operating Officer Hi.. It's Alex here. Yes, I think I've stated that already and Stefan said it very clearly, we still have a very efficient, effective and innovative model out of (inaudible). And we continue to walk in a dimension, which we think is slightly different. We prefer to have contracts with manufacturers to give them certainty of supply, so that we get certainty of supply back in the marketplace. That's really important to our customers and allows us to plan together in a different way and that's how we work. Having said that, we all know that the level of opportunities, as Stefano said, is changing going forward. It's not -- we will make savings, it's changing. So we've set up some innovative partnerships already. You know the partnership we set up with Express Scripts for example is one, where we are combining the volume from a PBM with a volume from a retail pharmacy. And we continue to look at other ways of making sure that we've got the right scale and mix of partners going into (inaudible) going forward. I think, secondly, the manufacturers are thinking differently as well. And again, we can't talk on their behalf, but you've probably heard some of the things they have been saying. And we think that our approach to buying in partnership with them and the way that we organize how we work with them will continue to give us advantage into future going forward. Of course, in the future, other markets may open up. We don't know that in reality, and we're not banking on that particularly in how we see the plan going forward. But clearly, things will change in one direction and could change again. And having a global perspective and global volumes we think will give us global opportunities in the future as well. Elizabeth Anderson--Evercore ISI -- Analyst Okay. Thanks. That's very helpful. Operator Your next question comes from the line of Glen Santangelo from Guggenheim. Please go ahead. Glen Santangelo--Guggenheim -- Analyst Hi. Yeah. Thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to follow up on this reimbursement issue one more time. If I heard you correctly one of the main keys you keep pointing to is that, in order to combat the reimbursement pressure, you'll need scale, but yourself and your closest competitor, you guys have more scale than anyone else in the marketplace and you seem to be having issues. And so I was wondering if you could comment more broadly on the 65,000 to 70,000 pharmacy counters out there, I mean they must be obviously feeling more pressure than you. And I was kind of curious, are you starting to see that total number come down? And I guess my question is, can the reimbursement pressures subside until some of the capacity comes out of the market? Alexander W. Gourlay--Co-Chief Operating Officer Hi. It's Alex here. Again I think we've said already, the way that we manage the market, internally we are starting to see some pharmacies close. And I think these numbers are pretty open in the marketplace as well. So that is starting to happen and not reopen. So I think that is a fact that you can check obviously out there. I think, secondly, you have to look at the comments from other competitors in the marketplace to see the pressure that we are all feeling in the marketplace. The other side of the coin is that we continue to believe strongly that the community care in the pharmacy, the physical location in the community with the pharmacist available and accessible, is a really great opportunity for not just pharmacy, but for healthcare, all connected through data, all connected with other healthcare professionals, all connected to bringing forward new solutions going forward. That's why we are so excited about the work we're doing, not just with Microsoft, but as Stefano said, other relevant partners. For example, Verily, we've announced as well, and LabCorp. And I can assure you the list could go on in terms of the people who are talking to us and we are talking to them. So we are really confident about the future of pharmacy. We are really confident that the model that we see today will change, driven by new technologies. And the same need that customers and patients have always had, we still have a conversation with their local pharmacist in their local community. Glen Santangelo--Guggenheim -- Analyst Hey, Alex, maybe if I can just follow up on the one comment you were talking about with respect to some of the partnerships. I mean over the last year and a half we've talked a lot about the JV strategies and trying to crack the code of generating additional foot traffic. And it seems like there has been mixed results on that front. And maybe I'm wondering if you could just reiterate exactly where the strategy stands today and maybe what has worked better than what you might have thought and what maybe hasn't worked as well as what you thought and I'll stop there? Thanks. Alexander W. Gourlay--Co-Chief Operating Officer Thank you. Thanks. I'll give an example of where we are very comfortable, which is our FedEx partnership. Again, we are seeing the footfall that we expected. We are seeing the halo from that foot fall that we expected, i.e., new customers to Walgreens and we also see the opportunities. We work closely with the FedEx team strategically to develop new customer propositions in the corner drugstore. So that would be one example that we are very comfortable with. And of course, going forward, there will be other partnerships which are really interesting. We mentioned already that Kroger partnership is going well and the customer reaction has been positive. So, again, that's another example where we believe that Kroger are really experts in food and they can help to really improve our customer proposition, and our value over time. But time will tell if we can find the right model that works for both companies and also for customers. Glen Santangelo--Guggenheim -- Analyst Okay. Thanks. Operator Your next question comes from the line of Michael Cherny from Bank of America . Please go ahead. Michael Cherny--Bank of America -- Analyst Good morning. And thanks for all the color so far. Just thinking about 4Q. I know you had talked about a number of the moving pieces and some of the reimbursement true-ups that you have seen so far year-to-date. With regards to the removal of pressure on retail pharmacy gross margins or at least less pressure, I guess what gives you the confidence, why do you think it should get better? Is there something in mix, is there something in timing, is it just the annualization or I guess within your annualization of those pressures that you've talked about relative to last quarter and this quarter? I guess just want to know a little bit more about the why relative to the sequential gross margin improvement? James Kehoe--Executive Vice President & Global Chief Financial Officer Yeah. I think it's a little bit of everything you said actually, because you have to go back on our journey. Q2 was reimbursement pressure, which we said I think was, exceeded 30% of the full year reimbursement pressure. So we would have set an unprecedented level. We saw it go back to more of normalized level in Q3, but we saw some slowness on the procurement savings in Q3. We're going to see those both of the variables equalize in Q4. So it gets back to, you can't really look at it as reimbursement. It's reimbursement, net of the mitigation. The biggest two: one is, procurement savings and there has been some timing between Q3 and Q4 there. When you get to volume, I want to highlight. We had a great quarter in Q3. We set some fairly challenging goals internally. Bear in mind, we had script volume for the first half on a comp basis below 2%. So to come in in the high 4s was something we needed to do it and we need those kind of numbers. That's number one. We were also very pleased with the way retail came in. If you strip it back a little bit, it's a down 1.1%, we were tracking in the first half a pretty disappointing 3.5% comp store decline. So the change on changes is quite impressive. We won't deliver exactly the same numbers, but we will continue to hold on to some of these trend improvements. I think what will happen in Q4 is, you will see a little bit of stabilization of the top line outlook together with some improvement in both businesses on the margin side. So it's a confluence of trends. And then, I'll highlight again, then you've got these two big one-time items in overheads. So it's too early to call victory in Q4, obviously, but that's why our current expectation is improved gross margins and continued stabilization of scripts and same-store sales. I hope that helps you as you think through it. Gerald Gradwell--Senior Vice President of Investor Relations Thank you. I'm afraid, but that's probably all we have time for. I know we haven't got to all of your questions, but as ever, the IR team are around to answer them all. And I'm sorry for those of you who didn't get to ask your questions today. We will be back again next quarter. Thank you very much indeed. Operator This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect. Duration: 60 minutes Gerald Gradwell--Senior Vice President of Investor Relations Stefano Pessina--Executive Vice Chairman & Chief Executive Officer James Kehoe--Executive Vice President & Global Chief Financial Officer Alexander W. Gourlay--Co-Chief Operating Officer Steven Valiquette--Barclays Capital -- Analyst Robert Jones--Goldman Sachs -- Analyst Eugene Donathan--Wolfe Research -- Analyst Ricky Goldwasser--Morgan Stanley -- Analyst Eric Percher--Nephron Research -- Analyst Elizabeth Anderson--Evercore ISI -- Analyst Glen Santangelo--Guggenheim -- Analyst Michael Cherny--Bank of America -- Analyst More WBA analysis All earnings call transcripts More From The Motley Fool • 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today • The $16,728 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss • 20 of the Top Stocks to Buy (Including the Two Every Investor Should Own) • What Is an ETF? • 5 Recession-Proof Stocks • How to Beat the Market This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. 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ConAgra Foods, Inc. (CAG) Q4 2019 Earnings Call Transcript Image source: The Motley Fool. ConAgra Foods, Inc.(NYSE: CAG)Q4 2019 Earnings CallJun 27, 2019,9:30 a.m. ET • Prepared Remarks • Questions and Answers • Call Participants Operator Good day. And welcome to the Conagra Brands Fourth Quarter Fiscal Year 2019 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. (Operator Instructions) After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Brian Kearney. Please go ahead. Brian Kearney--Senior Director of Investor Relations Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. I'll remind you that we will be making some forward-looking statements during today's call. While we are making those statements in good faith, we do not have any guarantee about the results that we will achieve. Descriptions of risk factors are included in the documents we filed with the SEC. Also, we will be discussing some non-GAAP financial measures. References to adjusted items, including organic net sales growth, refer to measures that exclude items management believes impact the comparability for the period referenced. Please see the earnings release for additional information on our comparability items. The reconciliations of those adjusted measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in either the earnings press release or in the earnings slides, both of which can be found in the Investor Relations section of our website, conagrabrands.com. Finally, we will be making some references to Total Conagra Brands as well as Legacy Conagra Brands. References to Legacy Conagra Brands refer to measures that exclude any income or expenses associated with the recently acquired Pinnacle Foods business. With that, I'll turn it over to Sean. Sean M. Connolly--President and Chief Executive Officer Thanks, Brian. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining our fourth quarter fiscal 2019 earnings call. We have a lot to discuss. So let's start with what I want you to take away from today. First, we remain confident that we will deliver long-term value by continuing to implement the Conagra Way to profitable growth. Our unwavering commitment to the Conagra Way will serve both Legacy Conagra and Pinnacle well into the future. Fiscal 2019, was a year of remarkable transition. We did a major deal that required more attention than originally anticipated. But I'm pleased to report that we continue to make progress stabilizing the Pinnacle business. We hit several key integration milestones and our deleveraging initiative is on track. As you saw in our release this morning, our Q4 results were disappointing. This was largely due to discrete issues on a few businesses, as a result of non-economic behavior from competitors, as well as unfavorable market conditions for our Ardent Mills joint venture. These issues accelerated late in the quarter and we see them as transitory headwinds. Now, I'm going to unpack the drivers of our Q4 performance in a moment. But before I do, I want to comment on the year. Because fiscal 2019 -- in fiscal 2019, we took several very important steps, both organic and inorganic to enhance the long-term health of our business. This will help us play offense in fiscal 2020 as we bring to market another robust slate of on-trend innovation. That innovation is also a major factor in reiterating our earnings guidance and increasing our organic growth guidance for fiscal 2020. Dave will provide more guidance information later. I'll wrap up by sharing some thoughts on our opportunities within plant-based meat alternatives. Now that we own Gardein, we are very well positioned to capitalize on the explosive growth in this exciting space. So before I jump into the details of the quarter, I want to frame-up the big picture. Fiscal 2019 was transformative for us, and we made very good progress securing our foundation during the year. We significantly advanced the Conagra Way playbook by deploying our principles across the portfolio. Our principles dictate that it's important to be lean, so you can be agile but that you can't cut your way to prosperity. Growth is essential and not all growth is equal. The consumer has to be top of mind and innovation capability counts. Fiscal 2019 also brought the launch of our largest innovation slate to-date. Along with an emphasis on supporting our brands with efficient marketing programs. As a result, you can see we've had sustained consumption growth over the past two years. We also delivered organic net sales growth for the second year in a row. Our disciplined approach to innovation and brand building, particularly across our Frozen and Snacking portfolios is paying off. The result has provided us with a rock solid foundation from which to deliver on our new long-term growth algorithm. Our successful completion of the Pinnacle Foods acquisition during the year accelerated the next wave of change in Conagra. Pinnacle was an obvious fit that increased our scale, enhanced our Frozen platform and added leading iconic brands in attractive categories. We've made tremendous progress integrating the businesses, realizing synergies and positioning Pinnacle's big three brands for our return to growth. We also continued to reshape our overall portfolio for better growth and better margins during fiscal '19 by divesting non-core assets. Let's take a closer look at the Pinnacle business. Starting with the integration on slide 9, we achieved a critical milestone at the end of the fiscal year. We successfully transitioned Pinnacle's Legacy order-to-cash and financial ERP systems onto Conagra's SAP platform. This took a tremendous effort by the integration team, and it went off without a hitch. In fact across the board, the integration continues to run smoothly and our synergy capture remains on schedule. Since the transaction closed in late October, we have recognized $31 million of synergies. From a balance sheet perspective, I'm pleased to report that we remain on track with our deleveraging plan, having reduced debt by $450 million in the fourth quarter, and $886 million from the close of the acquisition through the end of the fiscal year. We remain fully committed to achieving our goal of a net debt to adjusted EBITDA leverage ratio of 3.6 times to 3.5 times in fiscal 2021 and maintaining a solid investment grade credit rating. Turning to business performance, the Legacy Pinnacle business came in at the high end of our net sales guidance, and operating profit expectations in the quarter. I'm very happy to report that the big three brands, Birds Eye, Wish-Bone and Duncan Hines, all progressed toward stabilization in Q4. We've begun to implement our value over volume playbook with the Pinnacle portfolio. And overall, we feel good about our progress just seven months after closing this major strategic acquisition. As expected, the implementation of our value over volume approach resulted in short-term sales declines as we pruned the low performing SKUs to clear the decks for our new innovations. The good news is that the products in the market are performing well. The increase in base sales velocities as shown in the graphic on the right, demonstrate that our approach is working. We're building a stronger base on which to layer new innovations coming to the market later this year. Let's move on to the Legacy Conagra business. While we're confident in our long-term trajectory, and as fiscal 2019 overall positioned us well for the future, our financial results for Q4 did not meet our expectations. Our Q4 results were hampered by several unique items, each of which we will unpack for you today. Q4 organic net sales growth in the Legacy Conagra business missed our guidance by 240 basis points, which equates to about $43 million. The unexpected items that drove this shortfall included negative impacts of intensified promotional competition in our Hunt's, Chef Boyardee and Marie Callender's businesses. This drove about three-fourths of our sales miss this quarter. We view this as a transitory renting of market share that happens from time-to-time. We are not going to let these near-term events disrupt our disciplined approach to brand building. We also experienced some unexpected manufacturing and co-packer related challenges in the quarter. These issues were one-off in nature, and have been addressed. Our EPS miss was primarily due to these items combined with weak performance in our Ardent Mills joint venture during the quarter, driven by lower than expected weak prices and a lack of market volatility. Let's take a closer look at how this merchandising dynamic affected our Marie Callender's brand. Fiscal '19 was an important year for Marie Callender's, as we undertook significant changes to modernize the brand and improve profitability. These changes included adding modern attributes and flavor profiles with simplified higher quality ingredients, transitioning from trays to goals (ph), rightsizing portions and optimizing lower performing SKUs. As a result of these changes, the underlying brand health is far better and our new Marie Callender's items have significantly higher velocities than the meals they replaced. Unfortunately, some of our competitors took a different approach in recent months, and prioritized short-term growth via heavy promotion. Slide 14 highlights, one example, where our competitor's product was discounted to drive significant incremental or promoted growth. As we move through the fourth quarter, our competition became more aggressive on price and displaced some of the very valuable merchandising support that we had anticipated from Marie Callender's. We don't believe that the short-term renting of our market share is a sustainable way to compete. We'll stay true to the Conagra Way playbook and our principled approach. Holding fast to principles can be difficult, especially when competitors are making different choices, and heading down a path that could be viewed as profitless prosperity. We will not adopt a volume over value approach here, and will not return to the old habits that we've worked so hard to eradicate. But we may from time to time, take short-term actions to protect our share as we look to continue to build for the long term. We also experienced some unanticipated effects of our disciplined approach to pricing in our Grocery portfolio. As you can see on slide 15, the cost of steel cans increased 14% year-over-year. As we took inflation justified pricing on Hunt's and Chef Boyardee to partially offset the increased cost, we experienced higher than expected volume declines. In our Hunt's canned tomato business, our pricing actions translated to shelf price increases. Last quarter, we said that we saw a competition announcing price increases, and you can see that reflected in all other increase of 4.5%. But what we did not anticipate is that private label would stay flat, and in some instances actually decrease price. By the end of the quarter, price gaps were simply too wide for consumers to ignore, and we lost volume. Similarly, on Chef Boyardee, we took price increases throughout the year. In Q4, the elasticity impacts of these increases were exacerbated by a decrease in merchandising support that was beyond our expectations. Each of these brands, Marie Callender's, Hunt's and Chef Boyardee has a leadership role in its respective category. When on-shelf price gaps grow too wide or merchandising becomes uncompetitive, volume can be impacted quickly, and significantly in the short term windows, and that was the case in Q4. In response, we will not change our principles. We continue to believe that profitable growth is key and historically aggressive pricing actions have proven to be unsustainable, but we will remain agile in the face of hyper promotional behavior by the competition, and will tactically defend our share where it makes sense. Our second transitory factor that impacted us in Q4 was manufacturing and co-packer issues. P.F. Chang's, Duke's and Peter Pan were affected by isolated production challenges during the quarter. Importantly, we are confident that we have the right resources in place to manage food safety and quality issues across the enterprise. Root cause for each of these issues has been identified and properly addressed and the related customer service disruptions have been corrected and restored. Finally, our Q4 EPS was also impacted by weakness in the Ardent Mills joint venture. Ardent Mills profit eroded during the quarter, lower than anticipated wheat prices and reduced volatility in the wheat markets negatively impacted Ardent's results. Q4 presented a variety of headwinds to navigate. Ultimately, our results did not meet our expectations. But we were not thrown off course. While we had our challenges, there were also clear signs of continued progress during the quarter. With respect to our Legacy Conagra business, Q4 saw a continuation of the strong performance in our Snacks business and positive results from frozen single-serve meals that we have talked about all year. We also delivered solid performance in our International and Foodservice segments during the quarter. Finally, we over delivered our free cash flow target for the year, and remain on track with our deleveraging goals. Dave will add more detail on our strong cash flow during his remarks. Slide 19, shows the continued growth in total sales and average weekly TPDs in our frozen single-serve meals portfolio. Notably, in Q4 we lapped the 13% growth we delivered in Q4 of fiscal 2018, which was one of the best quarters we've ever had in frozen single-serve meals. We still delivered nearly 6% growth on top of that this quarter. So, as we look at the continuing trends in our sales in this key category, as well as the trends in TPDs, we're very pleased with our progress. Our approach is not only having a positive impact on our results. It's also driving overall category growth in frozen single-serve meals. Our competition is aware of this growth and they certainly want in on the action. We believe it's part of why we're seeing some of the unsustainable promotional activity. Our strategy is not driven by price, but a rigorous approach to modernizing and premiumizing our brands through renovation and innovation. You can see on slide 21, that our innovation is driving growth and performing far better than that of our key competitors. Let's turn to our Snacks business, which continues to exceed our expectations. Slide 22, details the growth we delivered in Q4, which included contributions from every key snacking vertical; popcorn, meat snacks, sweet treats, and seeds. Overall, retail dollars sales in our Legacy Conagra snacking portfolio grew 12.6% on a two year basis in the fourth quarter. You can see a sustained improvement in our performance following last year's NACS Show, where we unveiled our new approach to snacks. Our International segment performed extremely well throughout fiscal ' 19, and in the fourth quarter in particular. These strong results have been driven by our successful efforts to reinvent frozen meals in Canada, drive snacks growth in Mexico, modernize iconic brands internationally and implement our value over volume strategy to realize the power of our strong brand equities. The continued execution of our value over volume strategy also benefit our Foodservice segment in the quarter. We're continuing to build a higher quality revenue base in our Foodservice segment, and accomplishing considerable margin expansion. Next one, I'll spend some time previewing our robust innovation slate for fiscal 2020. Slide 26, shows just some of the Frozen innovation we have in store for this year. Yet again, we'll be delivering products with modern brand attributes, simplified labels, and ingredients and bold flavor profiles. Retailers have responded very well to these products, some of which we'll start shipping soon. We expect to see these products reaching the marketplace in the first half of fiscal 2020, and hitting their full stride in the second half. We have plans to continue to build upon our snacking success in fiscal 2020, with the launch of our strongest lineup of snacking innovation to date. That includes these provocative new meat snacks with bold flavors, new forms and optimized price pack architecture. We're also launching our salty snacks into neglected and growing coves of the market, where we can extend our brands through innovation. We're reframing our Sweet Treats brands to unlock significant growing demand spaces that meet modern trends. We're reinvigorating Snack Pack, and reaching out to Hispanic audiences with products like the co-branded FANTA gels (ph) you see here. With this innovation, we clearly have confidence that our snacking portfolio will maintain its momentum in fiscal 2020. We also have big plans for the Pinnacle portfolio, you can see some of those upcoming innovations on slide 30. We believe we have a tremendous opportunity to contemporize our newly acquired leadership brands to capitalize on key growth pockets. One area of the Pinnacle portfolio, where we now see far greater growth in innovation opportunities than previously forecast is the Gardein brand. I'm sure you've seen all the recent attention on the plant-based meat alternatives space. We think there is no brand that better illustrates the enormous long-term opportunity ahead than Gardein, a real jewel in the portfolio that we haven't spent a lot of time talking to you about or capitalizing on end market. Gardein has a solid presence in Foodservice and a leadership role in plant-based meat alternatives at retail. Here's how we're thinking about this exciting high growth space between now and fiscal 2022. We start by sizing the total opportunity. Based on our analysis of product substitution in other categories, almond milk for cow's milk as an example, we can reasonably predict the opportunity for plant-based meat alternatives. And here's where it gets really exciting, because the opportunity shouldn't be viewed as just a percentage of fresh meat. We think the opportunity is a percentage of all foods that contain meat. Based on this view, our analysis shows that plant-based meat alternatives could achieve a 15% share of both of these market segments. That means the opportunity here, could be in the range of $30 billion just in the US. And you know there's even more opportunity internationally. So the financials are compelling. I think many of you may be surprised by the numbers on slide 33, showing just how large the Gardein brand is already. It has quadrupled in size over the past four years, and is now the second largest brand in the meat alternative space with annual sales of more than $170 million at retail and across Foodservice channels. Importantly, we will be well positioned to support continued growth, because we have new capacity coming online in the coming months. These expanded resources are already well under way and we expect them to be operational in the fall of 2019. And we anticipate that capacity will be used to produce more than just burgers. While plant-based burgers are getting a lot of press these days, it's instructive to take a step back and look at what's really going on in meat consumption. Slide 35 outlines overall consumption of animal proteins. The numbers to the right of the bars demonstrate the average annual number of meals eaten per person by type of animal proteins. As you can see, burgers are important, but this market extends well beyond beef patties or even beef. Chicken is by far the most popular animal protein in the US, both in home and away from home. I would also highlight the significant consumption of pork, hot dogs and fish. Importantly, eating occasions for animal protein covered all dayparts. Our view is that the relative size of animal protein consumption serves as a useful guide for how to think about the market opportunity for plant-based alternatives. And if you're wondering whether chicken eaters are really interested in trying plant-based alternatives, the answer is clearly yes. Slide 36 focuses just on the plant-based meat alternative space within the retail channel. As you can see here, plant-based alternatives to beef are the largest protein alternative today, driven by the fact that products like veggie burgers have been available at retail for a long time. However, alternatives to chicken have built a substantial beachhead and this space is the fastest growing plant-based alternative by far. We believe that over the next several years, Gardein is extremely well-positioned to capitalize on the rapid growth of plant-based meat alternatives. The brand already provides a diversified portfolio of products, particularly in the under-appreciated alternative to chicken segment. And if there is a segment of the meat space that the consumers care about, there is a good chance that Gardein is already there or will be soon with a deliciously meat-free product. This includes offerings across all dayparts. We're also going to expand Gardein's reach. Gardein is well-established and well-known, but we see plenty of opportunities to grow this brand. First up, is an improved burger. Gardein's corn burger platform is under-developed, and we are in the process of creating the next generation of beefless burger to better compete in this popular segment. As we do this, we expect accelerated growth at retail and in Foodservice. But we also plan to compete across the important Hot Dog and Sausage categories. We believe the winner in each of these categories will have the best taste, appearance and aroma, which is what we're focusing on delivering across our plant-based alternative portfolio. What we believe Conagra can do better than anyone else is leverage iconic brands, superior culinary capabilities and proven innovation muscle to reach consumers across multiple categories in plant-based protein. During our Investor Day, you heard me talk about a key tenant of the Conagra Way to profitable growth. Iconic brands plus modern attributes equals superior velocities and that formula is perfect for this space. Across Foodservice and retail channels of trade, we believe that Conagra Brands leveraging and co-branded with Gardein is ideally positioned. We have the best culinary capability, differentiated packaging and the broadest portfolio of power brands to leverage. Gardein contributes the modern benefit. Overall, we're excited about the opportunities in plant-based meat alternatives. This together with our entire innovation pipeline will help us reach our long-term algorithm. Looking ahead, we remain confident that we'll continue to deliver quality long-term growth at Conagra by implementing the Conagra way, and prioritizing value over volume. We will continue to introduce on trend innovation to the marketplace. We'll also continue to execute our Pinnacle action plan including leveraging the Gardein brand to tap into the plant-based meat alternative opportunity. We expect the market will continue to be highly dynamic. We will need to stay both principle-based and agile, as we remain committed to delivering our guidance and navigate a dynamic marketplace. But notwithstanding a difficult Q4, we're confident that we will meet our fiscal 2020 guidance and deliver on our long-term goals. With that, I'll turn it over to Dave. David S. Marberger--Chief Financial Officer Thank you, Sean. And good morning everyone. This morning, I'll walk through Q4 and fiscal year 2019 for both the Legacy Conagra and Pinnacle businesses, before we open it up for questions. Slide 42 outlines our performance for the quarter and the full fiscal year. I'll walk through more detail in a moment, but I'll start here by hitting the key points. Compared to the year-ago period, net sales for the fourth quarter and full fiscal year were up 32.9% and 20.2% respectively, primarily reflecting the acquisition of Pinnacle Foods. Organic net sales excluding Trenton were down 0.7% for the quarter. While the quarter did not come in as we expected, we believe the issues in the quarter are transitory as Sean discussed and do not impact our fiscal year '20 guidance or long-term algorithm. Despite the Q4 challenges, we delivered organic net sales growth of 0.3% for the fiscal year, which is above last year's organic growth rate. Adjusted operating profit was up 25.7% in the fourth quarter, and up 23.4% for the full year. These increases are primarily driven by the inclusion of Pinnacle's profit. A few points on margins. Our fourth quarter adjusted operating margin was 13.2% and full-year was 15.4%, up 40 basis points versus the prior year and above our guidance range. While adjusted gross margin decreased for the full year, adjusted operating margin increased 40 basis points. This relationship reflects the gross margin impact of our ongoing shift of marketing investments from A&P to above the line retail marketing. As well as leverage at the SG&A line, where we have benefited from our commitment to a lean operating environment and Pinnacle synergies. For the quarter, adjusted EBITDA increased 22.2% versus the previous year. While full fiscal year, adjusted EBITDA rose 16.7% to approximately $1.9 billion, reflecting the inclusion of approximately seven months of Pinnacle's results. Adjusted diluted EPS was $0.36 for the quarter, down 28% from the prior year. For the full year, adjusted diluted EPS was $2.01, down 4.7% as the Q4 transitory items and the shortfall in Ardent Mills negatively impacted our performance versus expectations. Slide 43 outlines the drivers of our fourth quarter and full year net sales changes versus the same periods a year ago. It should be noted that for both the fourth quarter and full fiscal year, we saw improvements in price mix, even after taking into account our increases in retailer investments to support brand building. Slide 44, provides a summary of net sales by segment for the quarter and fiscal year 2019. For the quarter, Grocery & Snacks net sales and Organic net sales declined 7.1% and 2.5% respectively. As the divestiture of the Wesson oil business subtracted 460 basis points from the net sales growth rate. Despite continued strong end market performance by our snacking businesses, net sales were impacted by the Q4 transitory items as Sean discussed. For the full fiscal year, Grocery & Snacks, Organic net sales remained largely in line with the prior year. The Refrigerated and Frozen segment continued to benefit from innovation during Q4 across multiple brands, including Banquet, Healthy Choice, Marie Callender's and Reddi-wip. However, these benefits were more than offset by lower than expected merchandising support on Marie Callender's, the P.F. Chang's manufacturing challenges that resulted in a recall and to a lesser extent continued declines in certain refrigerated businesses. These headwinds, led to a decrease in reported and organic net sales in Q4. For the full year, however, the segment reported good growth with net sales and organic net sales up 1.9% and 0.9% respectively. As Sean mentioned, the implementation of our Conagra playbook led to improved results in International for the quarter and full year. The segment's fourth quarter reported numbers were impacted by the divestitures of the Canadian Del Monte business and Wesson oil business, which combined to reduce the net sales growth rate by approximately 10.2%. The segment was also negatively impacted 2.8% by foreign exchange. Notwithstanding these factors, International's organic net sales were up 5.6% for the quarter, and up 3.7% for the full year. For the quarter, the Foodservice segments reported and organic net sales were down 12.6% and 0.6% respectively. The sale of the Trenton facility and divestiture of the Wesson oil business reduced the net sales growth rate by 12% in the aggregate. The segment's Q4 organic net sales results reflect continued execution of our value over volume strategy and the impact of inflation justified pricing. Volume declined 5.9% in the quarter but price mix increased 5.3%. Organic net sales were down 2.7% for the full year. Pinnacle sales for the quarter and full fiscal year were $756 million and $1.7 billion respectively, in line with our expectations for the quarter and full year. Slide 45, outlines the puts and takes on our Q4 and full year adjusted gross margin versus the prior year. It's important to keep in mind that for Q4, the 1% benefit you see on the left side of the page includes a headwind of approximately 50 basis points related to the isolated manufacturing challenges and recalls we experienced during the quarter. Moving to slide 46, you can see that Legacy Conagra adjusted operating profit decreased 9.2% during the quarter, and Legacy Conagra's adjusted operating margin was 13.4%. Total adjusted operating profit including Pinnacle increased 25.7% in Q4. In the Grocery & Snacks segment, adjusted operating profit was down in Q4 due to the loss of profit associated with the divestiture of the Wesson oil business, as well as higher transportation and packaging costs primarily in metal packaging. The Grocery & Snacks segment was also negatively impacted by the manufacturing challenges we faced in the quarter. The Refrigerated and Frozen segment's adjusted operating profit decreased 6.1% in Q4. Realized productivity improvements were offset by lower net sales in part due to the manufacturing and merchandising impacts we discussed earlier, as well as higher transportation and input costs. The Foodservice segment's adjusted operating profit increased 4% in Q4, while operating margin expanded to 12.2%, due to the impact of favorable price mix, supply chain realized productivity and the sale of the lower margin business produced in our Trenton facility. Pinnacle's adjusted operating profit, including the corporate expense related to Pinnacle totaled $95 million for the quarter, and adjusted operating margin was 12.6%, in line with our expectations. On slide 47, you can see that Legacy Conagra adjusted operating profit increased 1.2% for the full year, and Legacy Conagra's adjusted operating margin increased by 43 basis points to 15.4%. The Pinnacle segment's adjusted operating profit totaled $264 million, and adjusted operating margin was 15.3% above our fiscal year '19 guidance range of 14.6% to 14.9% . Total Conagra adjusted operating profit was up 23.4% versus a year ago. And adjusted operating margin was 15.4% above our fiscal year '19 guidance range of 14.9% to 15.2%. Slide 48, outlines the drivers of our adjusted EPS decrease versus Q4 a year ago. As you can see, Legacy Conagra adjusted EPS decreased $0.07. Approximately $0.02 of this decline was from divested businesses, $0.02 was from the manufacturing challenges discussed, $0.02 was from a larger-than-expected decline in Ardent Mills, and $0.02 was from lower pension and post-retirement service income resulting from fully funding the pension plan in fiscal 2018, which we have now wrapped as we head into fiscal '20, The Pinnacle acquisition reduced total company adjusted EPS by $0.07 during the quarter. Slide 49, outlines the drivers of our 4.7% decrease in full year adjusted EPS versus a year ago. Adjusted EPS for Legacy ConAgra increased $0.04 for the year, despite $0.08 of headwind from the reduced pension retirement service income I just mentioned, and $0.06 of headwind from Ardent Mills. The Pinnacle acquisition reduced total company adjusted EPS by $0.14 for fiscal 2019. Slide 50, summarizes net debt and cash flow information, and demonstrates the clear progress we continued to make in enhancing our overall financial position this year. Overall, we remain on schedule with our fiscal '21 target of a net debt to trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA ratio of 3.6 times to 3.5 times. Between the close of the Pinnacle acquisition in Q2 and fiscal year-end, we reduced total debt by $886 million. And our estimated ratio for pro forma net debt to trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA was 4.88 times as of the end of fiscal '19. For the full fiscal year, Conagra generated $761 million of free cash flow, exceeding our guidance of $700 million. As we consistently state, we are committed to solid investment grade credit ratings. As noted in our release, we are essentially reaffirming our fiscal '20 EPS guidance this morning. On slide 51, you can see that we've reduced our estimated fiscal '20 earnings by $0.02, solely to remove the historical profit contribution from the now divested Gelit business. Excluding the adjustment for Gelit, our earnings guidance range has not changed from what we provided at the Company's Investor Day in April 2019. And slide 52, outlines our fiscal 2020 outlook across all metrics. We are updating our organic net sales guidance to be in the range of 1% to 1.5% compared to our prior expectation of approximately 1%, provided at Investor Day. Note that this growth rate excludes the impact of the fiscal ' 20's 53rd week. All other metrics on this slide, include the impact of the 53rd week. We expect adjusted operating margin to improve to a range of 16.2% to 16.8% in fiscal '20. As we continue the integration of Pinnacle to generate estimated synergies while implementing the Conagra Way playbook. Also, we expect free cash flow to continue to improve in fiscal '20, benefiting from the expected Pinnacle cost synergies, and the expected increase in organic net sales. We expect free cash flow to reach approximately $1 billion for fiscal '20. Importantly, we also remain committed to the long-term algorithm we provided at our Investor Day. As our financial progress accelerates through fiscal year '22, and we benefit from the full synergy opportunity of the Pinnacle acquisition, we look to capitalize on new sources of growth like the Gardein opportunity Sean highlighted earlier. To conclude my formal remarks today, I'd like to turn to slide 53. Here, I'd summarize the more important planning assumptions that underpin our fiscal year '20 guidance. These can be broken into two buckets, organic growth and margins. Overall, we see results being more heavily weighted toward the second half of fiscal '20. With respect to our organic net sales growth, we anticipate higher innovation related investment during the first half of fiscal '20. With the related sales growth weighted toward the second half as our distribution, trial and repeat builds throughout the year. We also expect a highly promotional environment in select categories that we experienced in Q4 to continue in the near term. As Sean mentioned, we have seen these situations before and will remain agile in how we respond to competition. Consistent with what we've been saying since December, we continue to expect Legacy Pinnacle sales trends to improve in the second half of fiscal '20. We also expect margins to improve during the second half of fiscal '20 as the innovation related investment will be higher in the first half as I just mentioned. And for Pinnacle, by the second half of fiscal '20, we expect to lap the elevated input cost inflation in transportation and costs that the business had been experiencing. We also expect synergies to increase as we move through the course of the year. Finally, we expect Pinnacle will continue to be dilutive to our year-over-year gross margin, until we anniversary the acquisition in late October. Thank you for listening. That concludes my remarks. I'll now pass it to the operator as Sean, Tom McGough, Darren Serrao and I are ready to take your questions. Operator Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions) The first question today comes from Andrew Lazar of Barclays. Please go ahead. Andrew Lazar--Barclays -- Analyst Good morning everyone, and thanks for the question. Brian Kearney--Senior Director of Investor Relations Good morning. Andrew Lazar--Barclays -- Analyst I guess sort of a two-parter here. Given the top line challenges experienced in fiscal '19, some of the inventory reductions, some of the merchandising and competitive challenges that you noted today that are expected to continue at least in the near term, some elasticity. And I guess the question is why raise the fiscal '20 top line guidance range? And then more broadly with the Pinnacle deal, there is always some concern among investors that maybe the company could well lose some focus in momentum on its core or legacy business as a result. And in light of the 4Q results, I guess how can investors have confidence that -- that that's not the case in terms of what we're seeing play out more recently? Thank you. Sean M. Connolly--President and Chief Executive Officer Let me take that in reverse order, Andrew, in terms of this first this notion of distraction. I can appreciate that that's an easy notion to grab on to but it's just not accurate. The issues we faced in Q4 literally had nothing to do with Pinnacle, which has been a highly efficient work stream for us. As I pointed out in my remarks few minutes ago, they were mostly -- the Q4 issue is mostly about macro factors that were not assumed in our forecast. So things like non-economic decisions by competitors, isolated recalls and Ardent Mills is an example. But each of these items, they were not expected, they did add up to the miss you saw in Q4, but they are transitory events that we do not expect to repeat. And that really is the story. But if I step back, here's how I think about the big picture of the quarter and fiscal '20, in the kind of one thought. If you look at '19 as a whole, my team undoubtedly was a year of remarkable transition for Conagra Brands. We did advance our innovation agenda. We did see continued traction in frozen meals and snacks. And we made a transformative acquisition that did end up requiring more near-term fixes than we had expected. But we wrapped our arms around those very quickly and efficiently, and now we've got that business stabilizing and on track in terms of integration. Q4 clearly was disappointing, but the fact is, it was largely due to transitory issues. But now we are in a position to play offense and our innovation pipeline is both broad and full. So despite the speed bump, we are clearly still advancing our playbook and that's why, in terms of '20, fiscal '20, we feel very good about the top line drivers we have in place. Our innovation pipeline is the best we've had yet. And as it works its way into the marketplace and really hits its stride in the second half, we're very confident that we will all like what we see. In terms of raising the high end of the sales growth guidance for fiscal '20, you can think about that is largely recovering the transitory volume losses, we experienced at the end of this year. And, it doesn't hurt that we're beginning to see some improvement in our scanner data as well. Dave, you want to build on that. David S. Marberger--Chief Financial Officer Yeah. So we haven't changed our estimate of net sales in fiscal '20 from where we were previously. So because we missed Q4 driven by transitory reasons, we expect that business will come back. So the fiscal '19 base is lower, but we're holding our estimate for fiscal '20 sales. So the math adds 50 basis points of growth. So we added that to the guidance. Andrew Lazar--Barclays -- Analyst Thanks very much. Operator Our next question comes from Ken Goldman with JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Ken Goldman--JPMorgan -- Analyst Hi, good morning. It seems that 1H '19, the first half will be a little bit worse than what you previously expected, and I'm saying that because you talked about the headwinds in the fourth quarter being late in the quarter. So I assume they bleed into 1Q '20. But you are maintaining your annual guidance and I guess the implication is the back half of the year, you have to be somewhat better than you initially anticipated or maybe you're thinking about the bottom half of guidance. I just I'm curious what's better in 2H '20 or in the second half, if anything, when you initially modeled? Sean M. Connolly--President and Chief Executive Officer Ken, we're not going to guide to two quarters, obviously, but you've got the shape of the curve right, as we said all along, H2 is going to be a stronger year or stronger half than H1. And obviously now that Q4 came in light due to transitory issues, we expect recovery of that transitory loss next Q4. In terms of the things like Q4 issues lingering into Q1 and does that mean is it a worse Q1? I wouldn't think about it that way. We've got a vast portfolio here. Things are always moving around, some things will come in below what we initially anticipate. We manage risk and opportunity approach to dealing with that, which means we look for other opportunities that offset things we didn't expect. So today on the call, I talked a little bit about Gardein. We've got other things, snacks, obviously in the back half of this year, exceeded our expectations. So we've got a lot of that we feel really good about that probably has some upside to it on the year. We've got some other things like these near term competitive dynamics that we got to navigate. We've got multiple ways we can do that, but adding to your point, big picture is, really we haven't changed our cadence on the year. We're expecting our innovation to go into the marketplace in the first half, get its footing and really build momentum in the second half. And then on Pinnacle, in particular, as we've talked before getting those TPDs back that were lost last year that should really start to kick in, as we get to the middle part of the year and the back half of the year. Dave, you want to add to that. David S. Marberger--Chief Financial Officer Yeah. And just to add one thing. And I mentioned in my comments that we are increasing pretty significantly our investment for innovation and that hits in the first half relative to prior year. So that impacts not just profit, but net sales. So that dynamic flows first half, second half as well. Ken Goldman--JPMorgan -- Analyst Thank you. And then follow-up from me. I'm surprised a competitor, you talked about in Frozen took some merchandising business from you. Do you have enough visibility from your customers as to when your competitors are going to promote like that, so that your merchandising is redundant with theirs? And I guess the broader question is, isn't really this one of the risks of shifting marketing to promotions from advertising that you become more reliant on some of the wins of merchandising and what your competitors can do? Sean M. Connolly--President and Chief Executive Officer No, on that latter piece, the answer is no, because as we've talked before that to the degree we have moved below the line, money, it's below the line money that wasn't doing anything. So when you're moving money away that's not doing anything you're not taking anything away and instead, a lot of the spend as we've talked many times, it covers a multitude of tools across a multitude of brands. Marie, we're talking about one brand and we're talking about a particular time or year, where we count on some high quality merchandising that we got displaced from a very aggressive competitor. And what I would say is that, it is very hard to anticipate those things. It is not the first time we have seen this in this industry. In fact, if you know Conagra's history, we know this move, as well as anybody, it's called volume over value. And it does happen from time-to-time. But it is not sustainable, because as we learned, when you put all your human and financial resources into price-based competition, there is very little left in the enterprise to actually study consumer behavior or design new quality innovation, and then market it in a personalized fashion. And what you're left with over time is a weak product -- weak product lineup and a consumer that is trying to buy a deal. And that's not our playbook. From time-to-time, we will encounter it, and we got to deal with it, but that's, really not what we're after. We'd rather follow our approach, stay consistently focused and moving the center line of our profitability and our sales north over time, even if we've got to deal with some standard deviation in any given quarter based on this kind of behavior. Ken Goldman--JPMorgan -- Analyst Thank you. Operator Our next question comes from Bryan Spillane with Bank of America. Please go ahead. Bryan Spillane--Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst Hey, good morning everyone. Sean M. Connolly--President and Chief Executive Officer Hi Brian. Bryan Spillane--Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst Dave, I guess I just wanted to get a little bit more color from you on gross profit. How we should be thinking about gross profits for '20? I think talked a little bit about some investment in above the line in terms of supporting new products. But if you can just give us some sense of COGS inflation for fiscal '20? If there is any pricing contemplated to cover inflation and just some of the other factors that might influence gross margins for 2020? David S. Marberger--Chief Financial Officer Yeah, Brian, let me try to unpeel that. So overall, we have not given specific guidance on gross margin. We gave it on operating margin because of the dynamics. But to your question, generally speaking, inflation, right now there is a lot of moving pieces that the transportation inflation, we saw heavy in the first half of the year and '19 is moderated. Although now we are seeing increases in areas like proteins and then there is obviously some of the weather-related inflation that we're dealing with. But as we go into fiscal '20, we think given the overall mix of the portfolio and inflation, we're probably going to be close to where we finished this year, 2.7%, 2.8% something in that area. We expect to continue to deliver on our realized productivity. And we do have pricing, pricing actions that we've taken this year that will roll into next year. And then as inflation comes and as you saw, we had a lot of inflation related to steel and we took pricing to deal with that. As '20 develops and we see inflation and if it hit certain brands, we will plan on taking pricing where it's inflation justified. So we just have to manage those dynamics as we go. As it relates to the investment, I think overall for the year there is definitely going to be more of an increase in the innovation-related investment in the first half and in the second half, although we will still have a healthy rate of investment, I mean year-on-year, it won't be up. So that would be another kind of benefit to the second half. So overall, you put all those things together, there is puts and takes that kind of even out over the whole year for gross margin, but it's clearly more investment first half, more benefit second half. And then there is synergies that come in as well. That's a split between SG&A and cost of goods sold. So as the year ramps up, the synergies will increase and that will improve margins as well as we move into the second half. Bryan Spillane--Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst All right. Thanks for that. And just, I don't know if I missed it, but did you give guidance on capital spending for the year? David S. Marberger--Chief Financial Officer No, we did not. Not in our remarks. We gave it on free cash flow. So overall, free cash flow, we're still estimating approximately $1 billion in free cash flow. Bryan Spillane--Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst Okay, thank you. Operator Our next question comes from Steven Strycula with UBS. Please go ahead. Steven Strycula--UBS -- Analyst Hi, good morning. Sean, just to kind of piggyback on Andrew Lazar's question, wanted to kind of understand a little bit of the glide path of the organic sales as they get better as we move throughout the year. Given where we started in Q4, should -- at least out of the gate in Q1, should we be definitionally positive for organic sales just to kind of help investors understand the trajectory of the business? And then I've got a follow-up. Sean M. Connolly--President and Chief Executive Officer Yeah. Again, Steve, I don't want to give quarterly guidance here. It's not something that we typically like to do. We were in a position where we had to do it last year, and didn't like that whole lot -- heck of a lot. I think what I can tell you is that this is kind of a first half, second half story. Obviously, as Dave pointed out, we've got some investments in the first half of the year. Obviously that means in Q1 as well, because we've got new items coming into the marketplace that we will invest behind. We also are in the midst of doing some value over volume in particular on the Pinnacle business as we clear the decks for our new innovation. So in terms of the year, what we said before is that we expect the trend to bend as we move from the first half into the second half without giving kind of quarter-to-quarter, month-to-month specificity on the slopes of those curves. I think we'd leave it at that in part because as we've said many times, with respect to the Pinnacle TPDs, we are trying to accelerate where possible, getting some of these new innovations into the marketplace ahead of a normal planogram cadence. And that works as it has been going on continues especially when we get in some customers, some of these new innovations in there and can demonstrate that they are working and we've got traction. So we'll stay flexible on that and continue to kind of update you, should we see that the trajectory is changing, but that's how we, that's how we see it right now. Steven Strycula--UBS -- Analyst Got you. And then Dave, on the synergy piece, should we still think that about $150 million contribution in fiscal '20 is the right number, with maybe a third to COGS, two-thirds to SG&A, is that the right way to kind of frame it for this year? David S. Marberger--Chief Financial Officer Yeah, that's right ,Steve. We had guided to by the end of fiscal '20 we will be about -- 55% of our synergy realized and we're still in the $285 million of total synergy and the split between SG&A and cost of goods sold hasn't changed. Steven Strycula--UBS -- Analyst Okay. So with that piece, if you're getting $50 million coming through the COGS, should that be enough for the full year, nothing quarterly but should that give us close to about flat gross margins for the full year? David S. Marberger--Chief Financial Officer Here again, I don't want to give a specific gross margin guidance, but it's clearly going to be a tailwind for us. Steven Strycula--UBS -- Analyst All right. Thank you. Operator Our next question comes from Jason English with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Jason English--Goldman Sachs -- Analyst Hey, good morning folks. Thank you. Thank you for sliding me in. Sean, I suppose -- and part you've probably conditioned us to think about your business this way. But looking at the base performance and kind of the cycles you've gone through of cleansing the portfolio and entering the rebuild mode with innovation, which is what I think we are really looking for this year, which as you mentioned, the biggest slate of innovation you had. But as we look at the total points of distribution and the progression through the year, we came in with growth and as we mine the data, it looks like we've seen accelerating declines on distribution, including the three brands that you were highlighting. Marie Callender's, Hunt's, Chef Boyardee all seen sort of distribution declines. Can you talk about what's driving that? Are we sort of in a innovation replacement cycle where the innovation is kind of netting out past innovations falling away or and we found sort of another leg of rationalization that may be weighing on performance? Sean M. Connolly--President and Chief Executive Officer It's a little bit of everything, Jason. Let me try to break it down for you, give you an example of kind of the diversity of it. So for example on Hunt's, we've got some restages coming out, which means we've got the old products going out, the new products coming in. There'll be a gap between the two where the new product doesn't scan and that will show up in the short term window as if the TPDs have gone down, but then they come back. So that's a dynamic. But we also have things going on, Marie Callender's is a good example of it. Slim Jim and Swiss Miss are other good examples where part of our playbook is to actually reduce TPDs and put more facings against high velocity TPDs and drive growth. I'll point you back to the case study I gave. I think it was last quarter on Slim Jim where we're doing that pretty aggressively. That's a piece of it as well. And it's one of the reasons I point out, usually every other quarter that TPDs can be helpful, but they can also be a bit misleading at times. You've got to look at the kind of the total results of the business as well as the -- in particular the velocities. Because when we, when we intentionally reduce TPDs, it's usually to pick up facings on higher velocity items and it drives overall sales growth. So that's what you've got going on, I think just as I look back on this, this whole year, we build these plans based on certain planning assumptions. And clearly for fiscal '19 overall some thing has played out differently than we expected when we built the plan. For example, we didn't plan for acute steel plate inflation, we didn't plan for them ensuing need to price or that not economic follow on behaviors by certain players in some of our categories. We didn't obviously plan for recalls and co-packer issue. So it's been a dynamic environment including some of Pinnacle's challenges, but all things considered, as we think about fiscal '20 and the innovation slate we've got the fact that we've got our arms wrapped around Pinnacle pretty well right now. We think we've navigated some of these things we didn't anticipate pretty well. We have posted our second consecutive year of organic growth, which is something that not all can point to in this environment. And as we pointed out earlier, I think that gives us a solid foundation on which to build going forward here with our best innovation slate yet. So overall, pretty positive about kind of how things stack up as we move from first half to second half and throughout our strategic planning horizon. Jason English--Goldman Sachs -- Analyst That's helpful. And one more for me. You mentioned the planning assumptions that you start with the beginning of the year. You've suggested that you expect this competitive intensity to abate as you progress through the year, but as we've seen before, when companies pursue volume over value, it can take years before it ends, it ends poorly. So what gives you confidence that it will abate? And second part to that question, what's the risk to your guidance if it does not in fact abate? Sean M. Connolly--President and Chief Executive Officer Well, if you look at our company as an example, it can take years to abate as a total portfolio, but it usually doesn't take a long time to abate at a category level because you simply can't afford to sustain it for very long across multiple categories. So if you're doing that as a portfolio enterprise, it's just too expensive to do this for too long, especially when you're doing it in the face of inflation using that tomato example today. It's just, it's not an affordable strategy. It just draws too many resources from other parts of the P&L to be able to hold it. So we've seen it before, it historically has almost always proven to be transitory, and there are some things that we can do from time to time that help it to be transitory if we need to do those things. So that's how we will navigate it. Jason English--Goldman Sachs -- Analyst Okay, thank you. Sean M. Connolly--President and Chief Executive Officer Thanks. Operator Our next question comes from Chris Growe with Stifel. Please go ahead. Christopher Growe--Stifel Nicolaus -- Analyst Hi, good morning. David S. Marberger--Chief Financial Officer Good morning, Chris. Christopher Growe--Stifel Nicolaus -- Analyst Hi, just had a question for you to first on this, obviously, kind of abrupt change in the promotional environment in the quarter. It's not clear to me yet, how you're responding to these challenges. So it sounds like you're selectively responding, is that the way to think about it? And is that a pressure point on gross margin in the first half of the year, as you selectively respond to these challenges? Sean M. Connolly--President and Chief Executive Officer Yeah. I think what we are conveying is we're not going to -- we're not going to kind of unveil our response on each and every case study that probably wouldn't be a wise, competitive approach to doing things. But principally, we don't want to look at all these things and just say automatically, hey we think we should respond because these things tend to be transitory in nature even in the absence of a response from us. But should somebody want to rent market share and try to sustain it for a longer than a narrow window, then we will absolutely consider responding. And we'll look at each and every -- thankfully, we don't see a lot of these things across the portfolio. We haven't seen this kind of behavior quite some time now, but it does come up and we will look at it on a case-by-case basis. And that's probably as much details I can get into on it. Christopher Growe--Stifel Nicolaus -- Analyst Okay. And then, just another question in relation to fiscal '20. So I think about some of the unique factors that occurred in fiscal '19, I just want to understand which ones did better, don't recur maybe improve a bit year-over-year. Obviously, one that comes to mind is, Ardent Mills. Do you expect that to get to make up that sort of $0.06 differential this coming year based on your outlook. Any other unique factors you call out for fiscal '20 that help support that rate of EPS growth for the year? David S. Marberger--Chief Financial Officer Yeah, Chris related to Ardent, given the volatility of the business. We don't give specific guidance, but generally our planning posture is we're roughly in line for fiscal '20 of where we landed for fiscal '19. So just that's generally how we will plan that. In terms of year-on-year things, there are a lot of puts and takes as you go into fiscal '20. I think it's specific to Q4, clearly we had some manufacturing challenges, I called out specifically 50 basis points of impact on our gross margins in Q4 that were just pure costs of the recall and some write-offs. So they will not recur in Q4 next year. So they're discrete costs. We have synergies that are obviously ramping up. So that's going to be a big benefit, but we're also investing some of that synergy back in to drive our innovation slate. So there's going to be a clear increase in our innovation related investment. So realized productivity, we are humming on that, but we also have inflation, we have -- so there's just a lot of puts and takes in balances, but as we went through it all. We planned it. We scenario planned, we came up with our fiscal year '20 plan and that drove our guidance and we feel good about it. Christopher Growe--Stifel Nicolaus -- Analyst Okay, thank you for that. Operator Our next question comes from Robert Moskow of Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Robert Moskow--Credit Suisse -- Analyst Hi, thanks. The Gardein brand, really good brand, really good products, and you're clearly talking about plans to leverage it further here. Is this an incremental investment beyond what you've already planned for the next few years. And if not, where is it coming from? Are you having to take it from other brands that you had plans to invest behind, particularly in Pinnacle? And then just a tactical question. I noticed that you're co-branding Gardein in the frozen category. That tends to be a risky proposition, gets a little confusing for the consumer. Have you thought through the risks of having two brands on one pack? Thanks. Sean M. Connolly--President and Chief Executive Officer Yeah. First of all, Rob. We've always, since we acquired it viewed Gardein as an attractive growth in asset. That's why we talked about it at Investor Day, we served it in CAGNY. And we spent capital to build the capacity. I think what's changed. I think we can all acknowledge that it was hard to see the consumer fever pitch for this space gathering quite ahead of steam it has done as quickly as it's done. So the upshot of all of this is that the market opportunity is quite a bit bigger than we're counting on. Does that mean that the investment behind it will be bigger? Potentially, so to take advantage of it. But keep in mind that investment is not a tax on EBIT. Gardein has got pretty good gross margin. So as we sell more and if we pick up the kind of tailwinds we get in a compounding curve over the strategic plan horizon, those sales will generate additional fuel for growth that we will invest back to even accelerate those sales further. So it's kind of a virtuous cycle here we've got going on Gardein and help overall that the additional upside to it just helps us feel that much better about our long-term prospects and our fiscal 2022 outlook. With respect to this kind of partner branding approach. Let me just try to explain how we're thinking about Gardein. To the degree we sell kind of a pure blood meat product. So a chicken alternative, a burger alternative, a hot dog alternative, a sausage alternative, that will stand alone as a Gardein brand. But one of the things we have learned over and over and over again at Conagra, is that the name of the game is velocity. And velocity is always stronger when it's not a new brand in an established space, for example, single-serve frozen meals, but it's an icon brand that has brought modern attributes into that space. In this case, we have a power brand such as Healthy Choice, as an example. Healthy Choice is an absolute juggernaut and icon in single-serve meals. But each and every year, we will look to find new modern attributes to bring to the consumer. In this particular window that we're in here, now over the next several years, one of these new attributes that we know the consumer is going to be looking for is meat alternatives in the space where meat used to be. So for example,in Healthy Choice where -- if a consumer used to buy 20 chicken-based Healthy Choice bowls a year, they may buy 16 and buy 4 meat alternative. And Gardein, because we will have a presence in the meat space, we already have a -- almost $200 million business out there, has tremendous credentials into the plant alternative space. Credentials in taste, credentials in texture, credentials in aroma and credentials across all dayparts, breakfast, lunch, dinner and protein types. So instead of showing up as the thousandth brand in this plant-based alternative space with no credentials. We think the power of Gardein, which has tremendous credentials in plant-based with the icon of a Healthy Choice in single-serve healthy meals works even stronger for us. We are doing similar things right now by the way in our Sweet Treats business with Duncan Hines perfect size where we co-branded with OREO. And we like what we see there. We've done it before. So this is not kind of an ingredient inside piece. This is a way to really quickly breakthrough at the point of purchase and make it immediately evident to the consumer, within two seconds flat, what they're getting and give them confidence that's going to be a good eating experience. So we actually think that that is not a risky proposition. But that is -- that's the optimum proper way to build ubiquity in kind of holistic meals in this plant-based space. Robert Moskow--Credit Suisse -- Analyst Great, thank you. Operator Our next question comes from David Driscoll with Citi. Please go ahead. David Driscoll--Citi -- Analyst Great, thank you. And I appreciate you taking the question, given the hour. This is going to go back over some ground. But I want to be clear on something. So and your stock is obviously reacting negatively, you've upgraded your revenue guidance for the next year. Sean, can you just be clear about something, it sounded like the problems within the fourth quarter got worse as the quarter progressed. So you did mentioned in one of your question, one of your responses to a question that Nielsen data was giving you may be some confidence that things were getting better. So maybe can you just bridge the gap here. If things were getting worse, if it got closer to the end of the fourth quarter. Did you have knowledge that the pricing in canned tomatoes has recovered from private label? Do you have confidence that these negative promotional events going on in frozen single-serve meals? Has that ended at this point? Is that why you can be so confident to raise the revenue guidance for fiscal '20? Sean M. Connolly--President and Chief Executive Officer Well, David, when you were looking at quarterly results and change versus year ago. It's not just a function of what's happening right now. It's a function of what happened in the year ago period. Right. So as an example, if you look at more recent Chef results, you'll see, you'll see better optics, than we saw at the end of Q4. And that reflects the fact that there were significant merchandising activities in the end of Q4 a year ago that we didn't get this year. It dropped off. In terms of the drop off as the quarter unfolded, simply put, we were expecting a fairly strong period 11 and period 12, which are the last two months of our year, and at the end of the fourth quarter. And we just didn't get it at the level we discussed, which was the Marie merge, the Chef merge and the private label pricing actions within canned tomatoes, as well as some of these manufacturing challenges that really hit us toward the end of the quarter. So that's really what it's about. We will have things that will improve in Q1. We'll still be doing things to upgrade the portfolio and do value over volume as we move Q1 and Q2. But then we will also be folding in the new innovation slate. So lot going on this year as we get the Pinnacle business back up and running, but that's really kind of how it unfolded there in the fourth quarter, particularly in our period 11 and period 12. David Driscoll--Citi -- Analyst If I can do a follow-up, it's related but a bit separate, but given the difficulties that you had in the canned operations. I mean it's pretty disappointing that private label doesn't raise prices when the cost of the can goes up so much. So what I, what I hear from you guys at your Analyst Day and today is this amazing amount of new products in very exciting portions of the portfolio, but the can portion just doesn't feel like it and then we get this negative hit with private label just not acting well. Why not sell those canned portions of the portfolio, so that the residual leftover will really just get to focus on all these exciting new product opportunities that you lay out, I mean they all sound great. But it's, it hurts when you suddenly get these odd ball activities going on within the can portion of the portfolio. How do you think about that? How would you respond to that? Sean M. Connolly--President and Chief Executive Officer Yeah, we've got, it's a fair question, David. We've got a number of grocery businesses that we put under this heading we call reliable contributors, which is basically saying that's what we expect of them. We expect them to contribute reliably in the fullness of time, we have a variety can food businesses that have quite frankly been very reliable contributors over the last several years. Hunt's is a good example of one of those businesses as had Chef. It is quite possible than it from time to time for all the reasons we've discussed quite a bit today that we can see kind of this non-economic behavior by competition. That will happen from time to time, but it doesn't tend to happen often and it does tend to be transitory. So to label a reliable contributor as no longer reliably contributing is if that's a perpetual motion is a bit of an overreaction. But I'm not going to say that we don't evaluate these kinds of things all the time. I don't think you'll find a company in our space that's been as active as we have over the last five years in reshaping the portfolio and that includes divesting things that are kind of a chronic drag on what we're trying to accomplish. So we're always looking at that. We did more of that this quarter. I just wouldn't want you to paint to label canned foods as not reliably contributing as a perpetual motion when that's just not been what we experienced. In fact what we've experienced is, historically it's been a high cash flow business and it's, it's throwing off a lot of cash for us and a lot of fuel for growth elsewhere in the portfolio like Frozen. David Driscoll--Citi -- Analyst I appreciate the color. Thank you. Sean M. Connolly--President and Chief Executive Officer Thank you. Operator Our last question today comes from David Palmer with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead. David Palmer--Evercore ISI -- Analyst Thanks. I can imagine investors are coming out of today with the impression that you're -- that your guidance for fiscal 2020 is more optimistic than it was in the past or at least eating into a margin of safety as you need more things to come together to hit the plan given what you said about Hunt's and Chef Boyardee and Marie Callender's, which are likely a negative versus original planning into the first half. If that's true, I mean, perhaps you could tell us what positive offsets you're thinking about versus your original thinking for fiscal 2020 that are keeping you at that same guidance? And I have a quick follow-up. Sean M. Connolly--President and Chief Executive Officer Well, I think again, we're not sitting here patting ourselves on the back for what I would call a real raise for the '20 guidance at the high end of sales. It's not that, it's really a recovery in Q4 because the issues we experienced in Q4, we don't expect to repeat. So really we're just getting back to basically the same place we plan to all along. And underpinning that is a, is an operating plan that is counting on a lot from some very robust innovation that transcends our not only our most strategic segments Frozen and Snacks and Legacy CAG but also some of the big businesses and Pinnacle which will contribute for part of the year as organic. So we're counting on continued performance like we've seen on our innovation in the last few years. But now we're seeing it on a bigger slate. And we're excited about this Gardein opportunity, which is really not just a '20 opportunity, but that's to tee up the point that that will continue to serve us well and help us navigate other things we're doing as we move through fiscal 2022. David Palmer--Evercore ISI -- Analyst And then just a follow-up, you've talked about Hunt's canned tomatoes and Chef Boyardee after the pricing actions. What's the confidence and the potential timing of a recovery there or perhaps there's even visibility already that that's going to get out of the promotion penalty box? Thanks. Sean M. Connolly--President and Chief Executive Officer We will get out of it. I'm not going to give you exact timing, these are good businesses, I mean we've got unbelievable relative market share on both of those businesses. How we navigate through it? I'm not going to disclose that, it may come in a number of different ways, but we'll keep our powder dry on that but you're, you're talking about two brands here that our number one market share by far in their categories and when we've, as I mentioned earlier, when we get our price gaps right and our merchandising right we can recover volume rather quickly on these businesses. So it's just a question of how is that going to unfold and exactly when is that going to fold move. We're not going to get into that detail quite here today. David Palmer--Evercore ISI -- Analyst Thank you. Operator This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Brian Kearney for any closing remarks. Brian Kearney--Senior Director of Investor Relations Great. Thank you. So, as a reminder, this call has been recorded and will be archived on the web as detailed in our press release. The Investor Relations team is available for any follow-up discussions that anyone may have. Thank you for your interest in Conagra Brands. Operator The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect. Duration: 76 minutes Brian Kearney--Senior Director of Investor Relations Sean M. Connolly--President and Chief Executive Officer David S. Marberger--Chief Financial Officer Andrew Lazar--Barclays -- Analyst Ken Goldman--JPMorgan -- Analyst Bryan Spillane--Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst Steven Strycula--UBS -- Analyst Jason English--Goldman Sachs -- Analyst Christopher Growe--Stifel Nicolaus -- Analyst Robert Moskow--Credit Suisse -- Analyst David Driscoll--Citi -- Analyst David Palmer--Evercore ISI -- Analyst More CAG analysis All earnings call transcripts More From The Motley Fool • 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today • The $16,728 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss • 20 of the Top Stocks to Buy (Including the Two Every Investor Should Own) • What Is an ETF? • 5 Recession-Proof Stocks • How to Beat the Market This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see ourTerms and Conditionsfor additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability. Motley Fool Transcribershas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool is short shares of Conagra Brands. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy.
Patterson Companies Inc (PDCO) Q4 2019 Earnings Call Transcript Image source: The Motley Fool. Patterson Companies Inc(NASDAQ: PDCO)Q4 2019 Earnings CallJun 27, 2019,10:00 a.m. ET • Prepared Remarks • Questions and Answers • Call Participants Operator Good morning. My name is Julianne, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Patterson Companies Fourth Quarter Fiscal 2019 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions) Thank you. John Wright, Investor relations, you may begin your conference. John M. Wright--Vice President, Investor Relations Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for participating in Patterson Companies' fiscal 2019 fourth quarter and full year earnings conference call. Joining me today are Patterson President and Chief Executive Officer, Mark Walchirk; and Chief Financial Officer, Don Zurbay. After a review of the fiscal 2019 fourth quarter and full year by management, we will open up the call to your questions. Before we begin, let me remind you that certain comments made during this conference call are forward-looking in nature and subject to certain risks and uncertainties. These factors, which could cause actual results to materially differ from those indicated in such forward-looking statements, are discussed in detail in our Form 10-K and our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We encourage you to review this material. In addition, comments about the markets we serve, including growth rates and market shares, are based upon the company's internal analysis and estimates. The content of this conference call contains time-sensitive information that is accurate only as of the date of the live broadcast, June 27th, 2019. Patterson undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this call. Also a financial slide presentation can be found in the Investor Relations section of our website at pattersoncompanies.com. Please note that in this morning's conference call, we will reference our adjusted results for the fourth quarter and full year of both fiscal 2018 and fiscal 2019. The reconciliation table in our press release is provided to adjust reported GAAP measures, namely operating income, income before taxes, income tax expense or benefit, net income, net income attributable to Patterson Companies Inc., and diluted earnings per share attributed to Patterson Companies Inc., for the impact of deal amortization, integration and business restructuring expenses, legal reserve costs and discrete tax matters, along with the related tax effects of these items. We will also discuss free cash flow, which is a non-GAAP measure, and the impact of foreign currency. In particular, we will use the term internal sales to represent net sales adjusted to exclude foreign currency impact and changes in product selling relationships. The reconciliation of our reported and adjusted results can be found in this morning's press release. This call is being recorded and will be available for replay starting today at noon, Central Time for a period of one-week. Now, I'd like to hand the call over to Mark Walchirk. Mark Walchirk--President and Chief Executive Officer Thank you, John, and welcome, everyone. As you saw in our earnings press release this morning, Patterson had a strong fourth quarter to conclude the first full year of our strategic plan where we made great progress. We delivered our fourth consecutive quarter of positive year-over-year revenue growth as internal sales grew 4.1%. Our Animal Health segment grew internal sales 4.1%, as a result of continued strong performance in both our companion animal and production animal businesses. Our Dental segment grew internal sales 4.2% marking its second consecutive quarter of year-over-year sales growth fueled by strong growth across the equipment category and continued positive trending in consumables. For the company, we achieved year-over-year quarterly EPS growth for the first time in over two years and delivered fiscal 2019 earnings in line with our guidance. Our strong fourth quarter results reflect the successful execution against our key initiatives throughout the year including our efforts to improve the customer experience and our team's laser focus on stabilizing the core business. The combination of these helped enable us to drive strong top line growth. We also continue to see our margin stabilized from our ongoing initiatives to improve our strategic sourcing, grow our private label portfolio, manage our cost effectively and drive enhanced performance in our higher margin value added services. These areas of focus improved our profitability resulting in our return to year-over-year quarterly EPS growth in the fourth quarter. Importantly, the strength of our results also enabled us to make strategic investments in our business, the best physician Patterson for future success. We invested in our people who have been working hard to drive our turnaround and in the technology and services that enable strong execution and create customer value and loyalty. Taking advantage of opportunities to invest in our business motivates our employees and helps to build sustainable long-term value for our customers and shareholders. Overall, our fiscal 2019 performance demonstrates that the execution against our strategic priorities has enabled us to achieve our objective of stabilizing our core business and return both of our segments to growth. Following a successful first year of our three-year plan, I am confident we are well-positioned to build upon our performance going forward. Looking ahead, we issued fiscal year 2020 GAAP earnings guidance in the range of $0.99 to $1.09 per diluted share and adjusted earnings guidance in the range of $1.33 to $1.43 per diluted share. We believe this is an appropriate earnings guidance range based on a balanced forecast of the business. Don will discuss this in more detail shortly, but I will remind you that we had a $0.04 benefit during the second quarter of fiscal 2019, as a result of the accounting treatment of non-operating income that we do not expect to recur in fiscal 2020. Importantly, our fiscal 2020 guidance calls for Patterson to deliver continued sales growth in both our Dental and Animal Health segments, and we are confident in our ability to meet that expectation. It also takes into account additional strategic investments that will contribute to Patterson's long-term success. Finally, our outlook reflects our strong conviction in the fundamentals of our business, our compelling value proposition to our customers, and continued execution to further improve performance on both the top and bottom line. Let me now touch on the fourth quarter and fiscal 2019 results across our two business segments starting with Animal Health. As I noted earlier, our Animal Health team delivered very strong results with over 4% growth in the fourth quarter and over 4% internal sales growth for the full fiscal year. As the competitive landscape continues to evolve, our results reflect the performance of our Animal Health team as we continue to gain market share in both the companion and production animal businesses based on our estimates for the underlying markets. Our Animal Health team strong performance included growth in all channels and all species. Importantly, we also saw our operating margins for the Animal Health segment increased by 50 basis points on a year-over-year basis for the quarter, reflecting our ongoing disciplined approach to cost management, pricing considerations and thoughtful product mix management. On the companion animal side of the business, throughout fiscal 2019, we have continued to build out a comprehensive suite of solutions by adding new capabilities that allow that to better build relationships with our customers and serve them more broadly, while enhancing their customers compliance for the treatment prescribed for their pets. For example, in fiscal 2019, we launched and integrated our NaVetor Practice Management software into our offering to help vets manage every aspect of their practice through innovative and easy to implement technology solutions. We've continued our partnership with VetSource, which helps vets and animal hospitals better run their business through a range of technology solutions. VetSource also enables veterinarians to provide e-commerce solutions for patients and script right home delivery which has now been installed in over 21,000 vet clinics and hospitals across the country. Also in the fourth quarter, we continue to enhance our international veterinary business through the acquisition of VetIT a leading cloud-based practice management software in the United Kingdom. With this acquisition we enhanced our service offerings and technology capabilities to support more vets and build our position in a key geography. It also represents Patterson's focus on investing in high value products and services as a key piece of our growth strategy for this business. We are also encouraged by the positive feedback we continue to receive from the manufacturer community about the trajectory of our performance and the experience of our team and who view us as a true strategic partner to reach veterinarians and producers. On the Production Animal side, we exceeded our expectations for the fourth quarter driven by solid sales execution, a continued focus on meeting the product and service needs of our customers and increased international demand in the swine market. While the dairy and market continues to present challenges, we posted gains across all species and channel segments during the fourth quarter. Our Animal Health results in fiscal 2019 underscore our ability to grow despite the competitive environment, and I was particularly pleased with the growth of our private label portfolio and the strong performance of our equipment team. Last month we held our Animal Health sales meeting. Team with accelerate which really captures the essence of where we believe this business segment is headed. Our sales team is energized and excited about the opportunities ahead in both the companion and production animal markets and left the meeting focused on meeting and exceeding their fiscal 2020 sales and operational objectives. Turning now to our Dental segment. I'm very pleased with our performance during the fourth quarter and the momentum we are building. The execution against our strategic priorities resulted in strong revenue growth compared to the same period a year ago with internal sales up 4.2% in the quarter. I'm very proud of the progress our dental team has made over the past year. Following the fourth quarter of fiscal 2018, when we are just beginning our turnaround efforts, we shared that we are working hard to continue transitioning our offerings and dental equipment to reflect the demand for a wider range of digital solutions and that we expected to return this segment to growth in the second half of the 2019 fiscal year. I believe those efforts have paid off and in the fourth quarter our Dental segment delivered the second consecutive quarter of year-over-year sales growth. These results were fueled by strong performance in our equipment category, which was up 13% in the quarter driven by double-digit growth in both the CAD/CAM and core equipment categories. We are also encouraged by the increased equipment and technology purchases, which suggests that our customers are confident in the future growth of their practices and reinforces Patterson's expertise in delivering innovative new technologies. Given our large installed base, we are very pleased with the 5 -- with the over 5% growth we delivered in dental equipment in fiscal 2019. In addition, we saw strong growth in our higher margin labor and repair business during the fiscal 2019 fourth quarter. I often hear from our customers about how important it is for them to have a partner that can support them with exceptional service, especially when they make such a significant investment in their practice. The ability to connect our customers with our highly experienced technology support staff at the Patterson Technology Center and our local branch teams of service technicians is a clear competitive advantage. The ability to support our customers via this comprehensive, national support and local service is a crucial part of our value proposition. It saves our customers time and money, and drives customer loyalty and retention. Turning now to Dental consumables. Our year-over-year growth trends demonstrated continued sequential improvement and we accelerated the pace of our progress in the fourth quarter. While we still have work to do to deliver growth in our consumables business, we are confident that our strategy is working and we will maintain our focus on improving execution, continuing the expansion of our private label franchise, enhancing our sourcing efficiencies and making investments in our fields sales organization to drive stronger performance. We were very pleased to deliver our second consecutive quarter of year-over-year top line growth in our Dental business. Our fourth quarter and full year fiscal 2019 dental results clearly indicate that we have stabilized the business, which was a major year one goal of our turnaround plan. Our dental team just held its North American sales meeting earlier this week. The theme of their meeting was momentum, which really resonated with our dental team and sales organization, who are energized, focused and poised to capitalize on the opportunities ahead in fiscal 2020. Turning back now to Patterson's business as a whole. So I won't discuss all of our strategic initiatives in detail. There are a few specific accomplishments that I would like to highlight. We aligned our teams around key customer experience goals like fill rates, order quality and customer satisfaction. We made investments in our sales force and productivity tools that contributed to our top line growth we delivered in fiscal 2019. I'm proud of the strong leadership team assembled during fiscal 2019 to oversee our continued transformation, including our new Chief Financial Officer, Dental President and Chief Human Resources Officer. Importantly, we also improved our operating margins throughout the year through strategic sourcing, private label and cost management initiatives and notably improved our working capital performance as well. The result of our efforts is clear. Sharp execution and focus on our strategic plan drove continued progress throughout fiscal 2019. We are confident in the core fundamentals of our business, our value proposition to our customers, and our ability to deliver value to our shareholders. Fiscal 2019 represented the first full year of our three-year turnaround plan. Our focus during the year has been to stabilize the core business, and I believe we are right on track as we transition into fiscal 2020. Looking ahead to year-two of the plan, we will be focused on leveraging this momentum to grow our business on the top and bottom line. To achieve this goal in fiscal 2020, we will continue to align our focus on three strategic priorities; first, we will continue to focus on delivering revenue growth. Using the momentum we built, we will focus on the levers that have driven our sales growth in FY 2019, including sales execution, measuring and improving the customer experience, investing in our digital and service capabilities, and broadening our value proposition to our customers. Second, we will continue to hone our strategy around strategic margin management, their ongoing improvements in strategic sourcing, the continued expansion of our private label portfolio, as well as increasing sales of our higher margin software and e-services products. And finally, we'll continue driving improved cash flow through a combination of ongoing profitability improvement and working capital management. Over the longer term, in year-three of our strategic plan, we will focus on investing to expand our products, capabilities and service offerings via both organic and inorganic business development efforts. By continuing to stabilize the core and execute our growth initiatives, we will enhance our ability to invest for the future as we work to deliver increased value for our customers and our shareholders. I look forward to updating all of you on our progress against these focus areas throughout fiscal 2020. And with that context, I'll turn the call now over to Don for a deeper dive into our financial results. Don Zurbay--Chief Financial Officer Thank you, Mark, and good morning, everyone. My initial comments will highlight our performance in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2019, as I walk through the financial highlights for the entire company and each of our two business segments, and then cover a few balance sheet and cash flow items. Then I will walk through our outlook and guidance for fiscal 2020, including our thought process, guidance philosophy, and several modelling assumptions for the new fiscal year. As we have done on prior calls this fiscal year, I will generally be focusing more on the sequential view of the business instead of the typical year-over-year comparisons. We believe it is helpful to highlight the progress we are making in the business as we continue to focus on the business improvement initiatives that Mark has already reviewed in some detail. Now let me walk through the financials for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020. Consolidated reported sales for Patterson Companies in the fiscal 2019 fourth quarter were $1.4 billion, an increase of 2.6% versus the fourth quarter a year ago. Internal sales which are adjusted for the effects of currency translations and changes in products selling relationships increased 4.1%. This represents our fourth consecutive quarter of positive year-over-year revenue growth and a 160 basis point improvement in our year-over-year sales growth rate from what was reported in the third quarter of fiscal 2019. We believe this reflects the continued positive impact of our initiatives to bring growth back to the top line. Our fourth quarter consolidated gross margin was 21.8%, an improvement of 40 basis points on a sequential basis from what we achieved in Q3 of fiscal 2019. Operating expenses as a percentage of net sales for the fourth quarter were up sequentially reflecting the investments that Mark previously referenced in people, technology and services for the long-term health of our business, including investments to fund our ESOP and other employee incentive programs. We continue to carefully manage our operating expenses, while also balancing the need for certain investments to improve and grow the business for the long-term. In the fourth quarter, our consolidated operating margin was 3.9%, which included the investments I just mentioned and maintains the trend of flat to improving operating margins during fiscal 2019, as we work to stabilize our core business. On the bottom line, GAAP net income attributable to Patterson Companies Inc for the fourth quarter was $28.0 million, or $0.30 per diluted share. Adjusted net income attributable to Patterson Companies Inc, which excludes deal amortization costs and discrete tax matters totaled $35 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2019, and adjusted earnings per diluted share was $0.37 in the quarter representing 23% growth over the same period a year ago. Now let's turn to our business segments. Internal sales for our Animal Health business increased 4.1%, compared to the same period a year ago. In both the companion animal and production animal businesses, our top line growth rate is at or above what we believe is the current rate of growth in the market. Operating margins in our Animal Health segment were 3.9% in Q4, a sequential improvement of a 100 basis points over the operating margins in Animal Health in the third quarter of 2019. The sequential improvement in operating margin primarily reflects the impact of higher sales volume due to the seasonality of this business. As Mark outlined earlier, operating margins in our Animal Health segment were up 50 basis points in the quarter on a year-over-year basis. Now let's move on to the Dental business. In our Dental business, internal sales increased 4.1% versus the fourth quarter of fiscal 2018. On that same basis, Patterson sales of consumable dental supplies decreased 0.9% during the fourth quarter compared to a year ago. Consumable sales however, continue to improve sequentially as the experience and productivity of our more recent sales team hires steadily improves. Total equipment sales increased 13.1% versus last year. As Mark already highlighted, we posted solid performance for both core equipment and CAD/CAM equipment, which were up double-digits compared to the same period one-year ago. Operating margins in dental were 9.5% in the quarter and reflect a slight improvement from our operating margins in the third quarter of fiscal 2019. On a year-over-year basis, operating margins improved 100 basis points. This operating margin improvement was a result of continued sales execution, price discipline and expense management. Now let's look at several cash flow and balance sheet items. During fiscal 2019, we generated approximately $48.2 million in cash from operating activities. We collected deferred purchase price receivables of $402.4 million on a year to date basis, which is included in the investing activities section of the cash flow statement. This amount includes both the trade AR facility that we established in the first quarter of fiscal 2019, and our existing equipment financing facility. To fully appreciate our improved cash flow, the combined total of these two items equals $450.6 million, a significant increase over the $228.5 million fiscal 2018. This allowed us to reduce debt during fiscal 2019 by $265.5 million and also have an additional $32.7 million of cash on our balance sheet compared to the beginning of the fiscal year. In addition to the proceeds from our trade AR facility our year to date improvement in cash flow is also the result of our continued focus to decrease our net working capital. And I'm pleased to report that our net working capital numbers have improved by $237 million during fiscal 2019. We continue to believe there is more potential here for improving and working capital, and we will remain diligent in our focus and efforts to continue this trend and free up additional cash to put to work in the business return to shareholders. During the capital allocation, we continue to execute on our strategy to return cash to our shareholders. During fiscal 2019, we return $99.5 million to our shareholders in the form of dividends. Our board continues to view our dividend as an important component returning value to our shareholders and the current dividend yield of over 4% provides a nice baseline return to shareholders as we continue focusing on our plans to drive improved performance in the business. Let me conclude with some comments on our fiscal 2020 outlook and guidance. We finished fiscal 2019 with an adjusted EPS of a $1.40 per share and landed in the guidance range I established on the first quarter earnings call. Throughout the year we delivered sequential improvements and we are very encouraged by the positive trends in the business and the improvement shown throughout the year as we stabilize the core business during fiscal 2019. For fiscal 2020, as Mark mentioned earlier, we expect GAAP earnings to be in the range of $0.99 to $1.09 per diluted share. And we expect non-GAAP adjusted earnings to be in the range of $1.33 to $1.43 per share. As I articulated during my first Patterson earnings call last fiscal year, my guidance philosophy is to establish achievable earnings per share guidance that is based on a balanced credible forecast of the business. Our team is squarely focused on driving EPS growth in fiscal 2020. To help give additional context to our fiscal 2020 guidance, I would remind you that our adjusted earnings per share for fiscal 2019, included a one-time gain of $0.04 related to equity accounting that we recorded in the second quarter. Excluding this one-time gain, our fiscal 2020 guidance implies year-over-year adjusted EPS growth of approximately 2% to 5% in the upper half of the guidance range. This guidance range assumes low to mid single digit sales growth, slightly declining gross margin primarily related to segment mix and modest leveraging of operating expenses as a percentage of sales on a year-over-year basis. You can also assume an effective tax rate for the business in the range of 25% to 27% and our share count is forecasted to be in the range of 93 million to 94 million shares. For modeling purposes, I would like to highlight an additional item. We expect an approximate $0.04 headwind in our adjusted earnings per share for the first quarter of fiscal 2020, due to differences in accruals for incentive compensation related to our earnings per share revision that occurred at the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2019. This dynamic could impact comparisons for the remainder of the fiscal year. And now I will turn the call back over to Mark. Mark Walchirk--President and Chief Executive Officer Thank you, Don. Now before we wrap up and take your questions, I want to reiterate that we had a strong fiscal 2019 fourth quarter that clearly demonstrates the results of our key initiatives and our performance allowed us to make strategic investments in our people, technology and systems to drive future growth. We are very confident in Patterson's value proposition, which continues to benefit customers in both our Dental and Animal Health segments. We are experiencing good momentum that we will leverage going into fiscal 2020, and we are focused on delivering growth. Our improved performance during the fourth quarter is evidence of our team's hard work and execution, and I'm grateful for their ongoing commitment to Patterson's long-term growth and success. Our focus is clear to create long-term sustainable value for our customers and our shareholders. And after the first year of our three-year plan, I believe we are right on track. With that, we will open the line, so Don and I can take your questions. Operator? Operator Thank you. (Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from John Kreger from William Blair. Your line is open. John Kreger--William Blair & Company -- Analyst Hi. Thanks very much. Mark, can you just talk a little bit more about what you're seeing in the Dental and vet markets? And specifically are you seeing any leakage to other non-traditional channels and either that of the Dental business? Thanks. Mark Walchirk--President and Chief Executive Officer Yeah, John. Thanks for the question. Certainly as we look at both of our markets, our end markets, certainly some evolving trends that continue. I think first of all both markets are very stable. From a dental perspective, I think we see the growth rate in the 0% to 2%, probably little higher on the equipment side and perhaps a little bit lower on the consumable side. I think in the Animal Health segment, we see the market growth in the 2% to 4% range perhaps the production just given some of the (28:41) there, a little bit lower than the companion market. While we are seeing some channel evolution, I think we're very well positioned given the fact that we serve all of those channels and we're not seeing any significant impact from a leakage standpoint at this point. So, again both markets we view is, as stable certainly evolving and we feel good about our team's performance across the markets. John Kreger--William Blair & Company -- Analyst Great, thank you. And then a follow up on your strategic plan for the coming year. Are you still in a mode of investing in the sales force, so you're going to be adding new reps? And I guess the other question is, where is the private label build out? Where does that stand at this point? Mark Walchirk--President and Chief Executive Officer Yeah. So, first of all, with regard to our field sales organization and we certainly are continuing to invest in our field sales team both in terms of making sure we have adequate coverage across all of our geographies across North America. We continue to invest in building out the teams and the support infrastructure for the DSO market. We continue to invest in sales tools to help improve the productivity of our field sales teams, and also in our digital capabilities from an e-commerce standpoint to improve the customer experience. So a wide range of investments that we're making. Really all focused John, on how we can continue to drive improved customer satisfaction, loyalty and obviously the improved performance that comes from that. And certainly private label will absolutely continue to be a key focus for us. We view that as a big opportunity to help our customers, address their needs for competitive products, and we'll certainly continue to focus on that both our existing portfolio and adding new products to the portfolio going forward and consistent with what we've shared on some of the last calls our private label consumables business continues to grow faster than our overall consumables business. John Kreger--William Blair & Company -- Analyst Great. Thank you. Mark Walchirk--President and Chief Executive Officer Thank you. Operator Your next question comes from Jeff Johnson from Baird. Your line is open. Jason Bednar--Robert W. Baird & Co. -- Analyst Thanks, good morning. This is Jason on for Jeff. Mark, I just wanted to start with you for maybe a two part question, and then I have a quick follow up. So first on the Dental consumables business. You said you still have work to do in that segment, but maybe hoping you can speak to your confidence in that part of your business grow in fiscal 2020. And then connected to that can you help us understand for earnings guidance in the range of outcomes or scenarios that could play out for the year. Is the performance of Dental consumables and the associated incremental margins with that revenue the biggest swing factor embedded in your guidance assumption? Mark Walchirk--President and Chief Executive Officer Yeah, Jason, thanks for the question. Maybe, I'll cover the first part, Don can weigh in on the second part as well. First of all, we continue to see improving trends every quarter in our consumables business and certainly we would expect to be in a growth position for that part of our business in FY 2020, and certainly expect to grow at market rates going forward in our consumables business. Certainly the investments that we've talked about in our field sales team. We continue to see improved productivity from our sales organization and a big focus for us. As I mentioned our national sales meeting earlier this week for our dental team, a big focus on our consumables business and just making sure we have the right tools, the right programs and services for our reps to deliver in that area in FY 2020. So Don, maybe you can add some color on the guidance piece. Don Zurbay--Chief Financial Officer Yeah, I think, the consumables piece here, I wouldn't call it necessarily the biggest swing factor, obviously, the margin profile of consumables as you know is higher than that of our equipment sales. So to the extent we can boost the growth rate in consumables that's going to help not only obviously the revenue growth but really on the EPS front, that's a higher margin product that we think is going to add -- it could add. So it is a factor, I wouldn't call it the biggest factor. There's just a number of different moving parts with regard to the guidance. Jason Bednar--Robert W. Baird & Co. -- Analyst Okay. That's very helpful. And then just one quick one on Dental equipment. Hope you might be able to give us maybe a bit more context and the source of growth beyond the color you gave on the call there. And I know you don't want to get into too many details by manufacturer, but just any other color you can give on whether that 13% (ph) organic growth you posted was broad-based across all your relationships and product categories? Mark Walchirk--President and Chief Executive Officer Yeah. Thank you. This is certainly, a really strong part of our Q4 performance. And I think, if you look back a bit in terms of where we were from an equipment and technology standpoint, the decision that we made to really broaden our portfolio of products. Clearly that decision is paying off and we're seeing that show itself in terms of selling a wide-range of products. So the strength is not only in one specific product area or one specific manufacturer, certainly, we see strength across the categories. And in particular, in the overall equipment and technology area, both in core equipment and in CAD/CAM. And I would also add while we won't speak about a specific product or a specific manufacturer, we welcome the continued innovation of the manufacturers in the space. And I think they know that Patterson is a fantastic partner to help launch a new product innovation in the dental space and really our comprehensive support structure, local service, installation, support after the sale, really I think sets us apart frankly in terms of our ability to execute and drive the new innovation into the dental space. And we're also very encouraged by the fact that our customers are investing in technology, which we also believe sends a strong signal about their confidence in their businesses and the strength of the overall segment going forward. Jason Bednar--Robert W. Baird & Co. -- Analyst Great. Thanks for taking the questions. Mark Walchirk--President and Chief Executive Officer Thank you. Operator Your next question comes from Kevin Ellich from Craig-Hallum. Your line is open. Kevin Ellich--Craig-Hallum Capital Group -- Analyst Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. I guess, I wanted to start-off with the Animal Health business. You guys saw some pretty good growth there. In your prepared remarks, you did make some comment about, I guess, demand for swine products. Could you give a little bit color guys, so what you're seeing from the impact from African swine fever? Also any impact from flooding in the Midwest? And then there was also a 40 basis point other negative impact in fiscal Q4. Just wondering, if that was a manufacturers which to agency business? Mark Walchirk--President and Chief Executive Officer Yeah. So with regard I think to the end markets, there are certainly some dynamics there, Kevin. We talked a lot about the continued pressure on dairy. Certainly, I think the swine market is the healthiest to given all the various dynamics there. We certainly saw maybe some modest impact from the Midwest flooding, but I wouldn't say any tremendous impact, and I think more around a kind of delay and a timing issue. Obviously, we feel for those producers and those markets that were directly affected and our teams are absolutely supporting our customers that were affected in that area. So there's some dynamics that I shared in each of the end markets there in the production space, but we still believe that we're positioned well as I indicated we continue to drive growth across all channels and species and really pleased with the performance of our Production Animal business in FY 2020, excuse me, in FY 2019, and it's going forward in FY 2020. Kevin Ellich--Craig-Hallum Capital Group -- Analyst Got it. Don Zurbay--Chief Financial Officer Hey, Kevin, this is Don. Was the second part of your question related to the 40 basis points impact on our sales growth rate in Animal Health? Kevin Ellich--Craig-Hallum Capital Group -- Analyst Yes. Don Zurbay--Chief Financial Officer Okay, yeah. So just to kind of clarify on that, the total sales growth for Animal Health was 2.2%, but there was a 1.5% foreign exchange impact and then a 0.4% impact related to going agency basically. And that was that 0.4% impact that gets you to the 4.1% Animal Health growth rate that we reported. Kevin Ellich--Craig-Hallum Capital Group -- Analyst Got it. And then Don, since I have you, inventory was down $85 million sequentially you guys talked about working capital management, is that really where you see the greatest opportunities and levers?And then we see $60 million of CapEx guidance for fiscal 2020. How should we be thinking about your free cash flow going forward? Don Zurbay--Chief Financial Officer Yeah, I think, yeah, CapEx, we expect to be relatively flat. I think, if you look at our free cash flow opportunity, we would really think that inventory is the best place. We're obviously looking at all the levers, but we think inventory has the most potential. We're not where we need to be yet, and so that's going to help us next year. And yeah, I think free cash flow should really track. We're going to have improvement I think you should track roughly with -- the way the business operates, and I expect it to be another year of improvement next year. Kevin Ellich--Craig-Hallum Capital Group -- Analyst Great, thanks. Operator Your next question comes from Nathan Rich from Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Nathan Rich--Goldman Sachs Group Inc -- Analyst Hi, thanks for the questions. Mark, you talked about the progress that you guys have made, it kind of over the first year of the strategic plan. The guidance for fiscal 2020 though came in a little bit lighter than I think consensus had been expecting and I know you highlighted some of the ongoing investments that you're making and also the $0.04 one-time benefit that you're cycling. So I just be curious to get your view of what you feel like the normalized kind of earnings growth is for the business as you get further into your strategic plan? Don Zurbay--Chief Financial Officer Yeah, we will be a little careful to give any kind of long range guidance on a call like this. I think, we're obviously focused on -- this is Don. We're obviously focused on EPS growth. I think the way the guidance was set up, if you take out the $0.04 gain that we don't expect to recur, we really think the starting point for looking at EPS growth in fiscal 2020 was $1.36 in fiscal 2019. And we would focus a bit on the upper half of the range and we're thinking about this and that would imply 2% to 5% growth. I think for us, 5% growth at the top end is a number we like. We think, that's really essentially what our forecast outlined, but it's also a number where we don't want to get ahead of ourselves. We want to make sure we have the top end in a position that we can achieve, but we're trying to be little cautious, obviously first earnings call of the year and giving guidance. And also just given where we're at in the three-year plan and given the state of the business, which we really like the trends, but it's still a little bit early. We wanted to be somewhat conservative as we put that together. Nathan Rich--Goldman Sachs Group Inc -- Analyst Great. Thanks, Don. I appreciate that. Maybe just a follow up on your expectations for gross margin. Obviously you guys had made some nice improvement in the back half of the year, but I think you said for fiscal 2020 you think -- you expect it to be down slightly. Could you maybe just talk about kind of what the puts and takes are? And what we could -- should kind of keep in mind in terms of what will drive gross margin over the course of the year? Don Zurbay--Chief Financial Officer Yeah, well, we always have a certain amount of downward pressure on our gross margin at the moment, just given our segment mix and that would really be the fact that our Animal Health business has been growing at a faster rate than Dental with a lower margin. So we're dealing with that. We have been dealing with that. I think as Dental sales growth improves that should help that dynamic. And then there's always pressure in the market. We're in a very competitive environment, but we also feel like we have good programs and plans to offset that private label focusing on higher margin products that kind of thing. So I think when you put all of those things into the mix, I would maybe say flat to slightly down. I think we have the headwinds and we have the tailwinds, the things we're doing and that kind of comes out, in terms of guidance and how I would put that together again in the interest of being somewhat conservative, I would put that out flat to just very slightly down. Nathan Rich--Goldman Sachs Group Inc -- Analyst Okay, great. Thanks for the comments. Operator Your next question comes from Glen Santangelo from Guggenheim Securities. Your line is open. Glen Santangelo--Guggenheim Securities -- Analyst Yeah. Thanks for taking the question. Hey Mark, I just want to follow up on some of your prepared remarks where you were talking about the organic growth trends within the dental sector. If I heard you correctly, I think you said about 0% to 2% on equipment and maybe a little bit lower on consumables, that's kind of where you see the market right now. And so if you aggregate that, it feels like you're saying maybe 1%, maybe even a little less. And I'm a little bit surprised that we're seeing growth rates at low in this economic climate. You have any thoughts as to maybe what the disconnect is versus a more robust economy? Mark Walchirk--President and Chief Executive Officer Yeah, Glenn. Thanks for the question. I maybe just had to clarify a couple of things. I think we do see the overall growth rate in that called 0% to 2%, maybe a little higher in the equipment, although equipment is a little more lumpy, so trying to get kind of a true market growth rate with equipment is pretty difficult, also when you have new products that are entering the marketplace. I think that's just the fact that the market is stable. I think there's a lot of hypotheses out there in terms of the millennials and are they going to the dentist, the -- as frequently as maybe they should. And I think there's a variety of different factors out there that are driving the market. I think there's a lot of competitive activity that has always been in the marketplace. I think customers are looking to make sure that they have a competitive portfolio of products. So I just think there are a variety of factors. I don't know I would put -- pin one factor higher than the other, but I think it all works itself out where the market is stable. We have it in that kind of 0% to 2% growth and we certainly like the long-term demographics of the segment, but that's how we are thinking about the growth rate at this point and perhaps taking a modestly conservative view. Glen Santangelo--Guggenheim Securities -- Analyst I appreciate the conservatism. May be Don, if I can just follow up on one of those points. I think if I heard your answer to a previous question you said maybe one of the bigger swing factors within the guidance may be the margins on the consumable side of the business. Maybe could you guys comment with respect to what you're seeing with respect to DSOs, the evolution of sort of your customer and the impact that, that may be having on the margins and you touched on it a little bit market with the competitive landscape, maybe is evolving, any sort of thoughts on the competitive landscape and your customer segments and the impact on margins? Mark Walchirk--President and Chief Executive Officer Well, Glen, this is Mark again. I think there certainly as they mentioned earlier a wide range of factors that all are impacting where the Dental market is going. And certainly the DSO space is one of those factors. And so that's an important area of focus for us. Obviously there's some scale impact there. And certainly as we look to continue to grow our consumables business and continue to improve trends there, an opportunity for us to grow in the DSO space is certainly on our focus area and we continue to invest in that area. And I would say certainly we are focused on finding the larger DSO customers, regional DSOs that worked well with our value proposition and are looking for a broad solution set to work with Patterson on, not only around the consumables, but also I think our expertise in service, support, technology, equipment, et cetera. And so certainly that's a dynamic going on in the marketplace and one that we expected to take advantage of. Glen Santangelo--Guggenheim Securities -- Analyst Okay. Thanks for the comments. Mark Walchirk--President and Chief Executive Officer Thank you. Operator Your next question comes from Ross Muken from Evercore ISI. Your line is open. Elizabeth Anderson--Evercore ISI -- Analyst Hi, this is Elizabeth Anderson in for Ross. And one of the questions I had, you mentioned about obviously making some investments to support future growth. How are you thinking about that going forward into fiscal 2020 sort of any seasonality we should be thinking of as you go through your sort of multi-year restructuring plan? Mark Walchirk--President and Chief Executive Officer No, Elizabeth, thanks for the question. I wouldn't think that there's any seasonality from that standpoint. I think we obviously want to balance the need to ensure that our cost structure is -- meets the existing performance in our go forward expectations for the business, while also making sure we're making the right investments for the long-term. In some of those areas that we're focused on, I think we've spoken to earlier, continuing to invest in our field sales organization, and in the tools and resources to help the productivity of our field sales organization continuing to invest in supporting our customers be a digital capabilities continuing to invest in things that drive customer loyalty like our service and support areas. So in terms of any seasonality of those investments, I wouldn't suggest that there's any notable seasonality there. Elizabeth Anderson--Evercore ISI -- Analyst Okay, that's very helpful. And then in terms of some of -- you mentioned in terms of what you used to thought the overall dental market growth was? If you help just the couple of those into like pricing and volume growth, well, how would you say that would be split out maybe for consumables and equipment? Mark Walchirk--President and Chief Executive Officer Yeah, I wouldn't want to get into specifics around that. And obviously there are dynamics with regard to price, volume and mix. It's certainly in the consumable segment. It's very difficult to provide specific details around the equipment category especially in a time right now where we're seeing some great new innovation in the marketplace. But obviously as we think about the market, but we anticipate the market growth rates to be -- we take those variables, price, volume and mix into account and obviously we believe that the markets in that 0% to 2% range. Elizabeth Anderson--Evercore ISI -- Analyst Okay. Thank you. Operator Your next question comes from Kevin Caliendo from UBS. Your line is open. Kevin Caliendo--UBS -- Analyst Hi, thanks for taking my questions, guys. Oh, just getting back to Dental growth and the thought you said in your prepared comments that you felt like you were taking share in Animal Health, but you didn't make the same comment particularly about Dental almost I missed it. Are you -- do you think you're growing along with the market? Do you think you're losing share, how should we think about that, or do you think there's an opportunity to gain share in Dental? Mark Walchirk--President and Chief Executive Officer Well, first of all, I think as it relates to our equipment technology categories, I absolutely believe that we're growing at a faster rate and that we're getting certainly more than our fair share of the new -- the investment that our customers are making in equipment technology. And I think our performance in the quarter would certainly be evidence of that. So we believe that we're performing well there. As I mentioned earlier, we believe we're a fantastic partner for manufacturers that are bringing innovation to the dental industry. With regard to the consumables we're continuing to see positive trends there. And as I mentioned, I think our goal is to get back to market growth rates in our consumables business. We expect and are focused on that into FY 2020. And hopefully that gives you some color as to how we're thinking about that. Kevin Caliendo--UBS -- Analyst Is there any real correlation between the equipment and consumables, meaning is higher equipment sales potentially driving consumables or not? But in -- asset, we're trying to -- as we think about the product launch or product cycle of digital imaging, is there a corresponding technology service element that could increase or consumables sell through related to that or not, is there really no correlation? Mark Walchirk--President and Chief Executive Officer Well, I think it depends certainly on the type of equipment technology that's purchased. Certainly with regard to the kind of service and support areas of our business which is certainly highly accretive for us and we're seeing some very good results there. We believe that, that's an important kind of add-on fees to the growth that we've had in the equipment and technology side. But in terms of connecting specifically equipment and technology grow directly to consumables, I think that would be difficult to do. Kevin Caliendo--UBS -- Analyst Okay. And I guess the thing we're struggling just a little bit here is just trying to reconcile the guidance with sort of the expectations around growth. It would imply that the margin overall for the company would still be flattish or maybe down a little bit depending on where you are within the guidance range. If we look at the two business segments where would we have the chance for margin expansion on a year-over-year basis and where would we be most at risk in terms of margin expansion or margins year-over-year? Don Zurbay--Chief Financial Officer Well, I think -- this is Don. I think that obviously the Dental business is the business has been most challenged for us and has a higher-margin marketing profile ultimately. And so I think if you really wanted to pass it into those kind of pieces, you'd say that we're still in the stages of the turnaround of the Dental business and so there's opportunity there. Animal Health with low margin -- lower-margins, maybe you'd put it as a piece that's more at risk. But I think -- I mean, I guess, if you put it in those two buckets that's what I would say as an answer. Kevin Caliendo--UBS -- Analyst That's very, very helpful guys. Thank you so much. Mark Walchirk--President and Chief Executive Officer Thanks. And maybe just since we've got about a little less than 10 minutes, we want to make sure we get to everyone's questions. If you could just try to limit your question to one or maybe one with a second part, but we'll try to keep it moving. Thank you. Operator Your next question comes from David Larsen from SVB Leerink. Your line is open. David Larsen--SVB Leerink -- Analyst Hi. Sorry to harp on that Dental consumables piece, but we've done some survey work, it shows that the online suppliers like Net32 and Amazon are taking share on the consumable side. Are you seeing that and you've mentioned that you've invested in digital capabilities and technology solutions. Does your sales force have the ability to go in and then sort of see in a rapid manner? What the spending trends are by customer for consumables? How is your share of wallet doing for consumables for each client? Is it shrinking? And then are they able to go in and match price sort of, if they are in fact losing share to Amazon and Net32, can they do that, or do they need to sort of get authorization from higher level managers within the firm? So any color there would be helpful. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it. Don Zurbay--Chief Financial Officer Yeah, sure. So I think with regard to -- that was -- your question from an online perspective. Certainly, we stay very close to the marketplace and various companies that are selling in the marketplace. We're not seeing any significant impact from a share shift standpoint with regard to some of the non-traditional players, certainly they're there and we're very aware of them. In terms of kind of share of wallet, as I mentioned earlier, we just spent several days with the entire dental field sales organization. And certainly as you can imagine a big focus on continuing to drive momentum in our equipment and technology business and also continuing to drive improved trends in our consumables business and we launched a number of new tools to help our reps understand exactly what's going on in their accounts with ways to identify opportunities to improve share of wallet, et cetera, as a couple of examples. So we're investing in our field sales organization to help them be more productive and help them be more efficient and help them bring more value to our customers. Certainly across the consumable space and we've put some great new tools in their hands to do that. And as I indicated we expect to continue to see our consumables trends improve in FY 2020. David Larsen--SVB Leerink -- Analyst Great. Thanks very much. That's it for me. Thank you. Operator Your next question comes from Michael Cherny from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is open. Michael Cherny--Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst Good morning. Thanks for all the color, so far. Mark, Don, you talked about the gross margin performance. You talked about kind of some of the mix for the overall corporation. Diving into Dental maybe even more specifically on gross margin in particular. How do you think about the other swing factors there? I know we talk about swing factor, but I want to get a little more granular regarding the opportunities around new equipment and what that means for contribution, what it means as you invest and grow into DSO market and how you think about that trade off? And then do you have any intermediate plans for your private label penetration? What that can mean from a gross margin contribution perspective? Mark Walchirk--President and Chief Executive Officer Yeah, thank you for the question. I mean, obviously, you're laying out a lot of the things that are the dynamics in our Dental business and there are certainly different margin profiles for different customers, different products, margin profile of the different mix of products that we sell, et cetera. So, I mean, there's a variety of elements that obviously drive that gross margin. I think, Don shared what are our expectations are going forward in FY 2020. Certainly I can assure you that we're very focused on driving the parts of the business that help us continue to sustain and improve our margins over time. Certainly some of our service and support areas are very creative for us. Software, obviously is a very creative area for us. And that's a big focus in terms of where we have our sales teams, but there's mix issues and consumables, there's mix issues from a customer standpoint, and we obviously take all of those elements into account as we think about managing the portfolio and the P&L. Operator Your next question comes from Steven Valiquette from Barclays. Your line is open. Steven Valiquette--Barclays Bank PLC -- Analyst Great. Good morning, Mark and Don. Thanks for taking the question. As I have one here on Dental equipment, obviously it makes sense that your fiscal 4Q 2019 equipment sales were strong because of a key news scanner introduction in the marketplace. But now there's some discussion around potential supply shortages for the new scanner over the next three months to six months relative to demand. In the meantime there may be some pressure on sales for your older scanner products from that same key vendor as customers may just prefer to wait for the new product. I guess my question is, since you don't want to talk about specific products or suppliers, I'm curious how much the -- let's just say the general concept of potential supply shortages and key equipment products may be negatively impacting your fiscal 2020 guidance. Could there just be some general back-end loading of the equipment sales for you guys in your fiscal 2020 because of these types of shortages dynamics in the first half of your fiscal year. Thanks. Mark Walchirk--President and Chief Executive Officer Yeah. Well -- so short answer is we're not anticipating any type of significant shortages in certain product areas. And like we indicated, the equipment and technology sales can be a little bit more lumpy obviously just because of the nature of it. And certainly there's promotional activity in the marketplace from various manufacturers, it has some time element to it. But certainly in terms of any specific shortages of specific products, we don't anticipate that at this time. Steven Valiquette--Barclays Bank PLC -- Analyst Okay. That's helpful. Thanks. Mark Walchirk--President and Chief Executive Officer If you've got time ask couple of questions. Operator Your next question comes from Steve Beuchaw from Wolfe Research. Your line is open. Steve Beuchaw--Wolfe Research -- Analyst Hi, good morning, and thanks for the time here. Don, I'll apologize for piling them all your direction. But I wonder if you could just help us understand some of the moving parts on the margin bridge in the next year. I think everybody knows kind of what the items are. But would you be able to put any numbers around some of the variables that we're considering, including the incremental investments that you're making? What might be any offsetting savings associated with the ERP, install wind down or other cost cutting initiatives you had last year? Any numbers on any of those would be really helpful as we just try to get to an organic trend. And then the other piece for me on the outlook for fiscal 2020 is obviously two months into the first fiscal quarter here. There are a couple of moving parts, right, seasonality in the business on margins and comps on the top line. Can you help us put any guardrails around 1Q, and how 1Q compares to 4Q and the trend? Thank you. Don Zurbay--Chief Financial Officer Yeah. Then sorry -- Steve, I'm not going to try to not be helpful here, but I think in terms of a bridge on our forecast, we're really -- we don't even -- we just don't give overall gross margin guidance, that's too specific and we're really not in a position to give a lot of the details behind it. And then in terms of seasonality, I mean, the one thing I'd point out in terms of the quarterly cadence is the comments I made at the end of my prepared remarks that we have that kind of $0.04 headwind in the first quarter of fiscal 2020 on a year-over-year basis that related to how the accruals for incentive compensation played out over the year, just given the significant guidance reduction in the first quarter of fiscal 2019. So I would probably point that out maybe as the seasonality topic that I would be comfortable sharing in terms of our overall financial guidance. Mark Walchirk--President and Chief Executive Officer I think we have time for one last question. Operator Your last question comes from Kevin Kedra from G Research. Your line is open. Kevin Kedra--Gabelli & Company -- Analyst All right. Thanks for squeezing me in. Maybe one more to continue the theme on gross margins. You mentioned flat to slightly down being kind of the outlook for fiscal 2020. Just want to get a sense, longer-term personally is that how we should be thinking about where do you see the business, or as you kind of get Dental kind of back up the speed? Can we see that being a bit more favorable as kind of flat to slightly up? And then I know you don't want to go into details on the mix between price makes dental, but -- and the growth rate, but can you at least say, if the mix between the two has been stable, or is it kind of shifting more toward a volume versus price outlook? Don Zurbay--Chief Financial Officer Well, on the first part of the question on gross margins, I think, again, not really -- I don't really want to be in a position to give too much long-term guidance on a gross margin basis. I would tell you that, obviously as the dental growth rates continue to improve that as I mentioned earlier that right now at least has a higher margin profile. And so from a segment mix perspective that would -- that eliminates to some extent that headwind. And then as we move into our -- the next phases of the strategic plan that we're executing a lot of the focus is on our higher margin parts of the business that I think as we get those more and more into the mix should have a good impact on gross margin and help potentially more than offset the other kinds of headwinds we have. So that's probably the most color I can give you on that. Mark Walchirk--President and Chief Executive Officer Yeah. Just to add quickly, I mean with regard to -- I mean, there's so many factors that go into the consumables profitability price, volume, mix, et cetera, both at the customer level. And certainly there's customer mix issues with the various types of customers, private practice, regional DSOs, national DSOs, there in the space. So I think there's a lot of factors in play there and obviously something that we closely watch and monitor and we've used to build our plans and our guidance around for FY 2020. So, thank you. Thank you very much for the question. And thank you again all for joining us today, and we certainly look forward to providing another update on our first quarter fiscal 2020 earnings call. Thanks very much. Operator This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect. Duration: 64 minutes John M. Wright--Vice President, Investor Relations Mark Walchirk--President and Chief Executive Officer Don Zurbay--Chief Financial Officer John Kreger--William Blair & Company -- Analyst Jason Bednar--Robert W. Baird & Co. -- Analyst Kevin Ellich--Craig-Hallum Capital Group -- Analyst Nathan Rich--Goldman Sachs Group Inc -- Analyst Glen Santangelo--Guggenheim Securities -- Analyst Elizabeth Anderson--Evercore ISI -- Analyst Kevin Caliendo--UBS -- Analyst David Larsen--SVB Leerink -- Analyst Michael Cherny--Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst Steven Valiquette--Barclays Bank PLC -- Analyst Steve Beuchaw--Wolfe Research -- Analyst Kevin Kedra--Gabelli & Company -- Analyst More PDCO analysis All earnings call transcripts More From The Motley Fool • 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today • The $16,728 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss • 20 of the Top Stocks to Buy (Including the Two Every Investor Should Own) • What Is an ETF? • 5 Recession-Proof Stocks • How to Beat the Market This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see ourTerms and Conditionsfor additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability. Motley Fool Transcribershas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy.
Jackie Kennedy Onassis’ Martha’s Vineyard estate goes on market for $65M Jackie Kennedy Onassis’ oceanfront estate on Martha’s Vineyard along the New England coastline isup for sale. The former first lady’s daughter, Caroline Kennedy, placed the 340-acre property on the market for $65 million, 40 years after Onassis purchased the land and turned it into her summer home and escape from celebrity life, according toChristie’s International Real Estate, which is listing the compound. Called the Red Gate Farm, the estate includes a five-bedroom house, a two-story guest house with four bedrooms and other amenities such as a pool and tennis court. “Forty years ago, my mother fell in love with Martha’s Vineyard. When she found Red Gate Farm, it was a perfect expression of her romantic and adventurous spirit,” Caroline Kennedy said in a news release Thursday announcing the property listing. “The dunes and ponds and rolling hills of Aquinnah gave her the chance to create a world where she could be so close to nature, close to her family and friends, and, most importantly, close to her beloved books. She even built a fairy treehouse for her grandchildren.” Kennedy said she’s putting the compound her mother loved on the market so another family can make new memories there. “Now it is time for us to follow my mother’s example and create our own worlds. We hope that a new family will treasure this place as we have for three generations. We are excited about the next chapter for Red Gate Farm,” Kennedy said. The estate sits on over a mile of Atlantic Ocean beachfront near the Cliffs of Gay Head. When Onassis purchased the land, it was a former sheep farm with a small hunting cabin. She hired American architect Hugh Newell Jacobson, who designed the 6,456-square-foot main house, and her friend Rachel Bunny Mellon — who redesigned the White House’s Rose Garden when President John F. Kennedy was in office — to layout the estate’s landscape. The main house was completed in 1981, and by 2000, Onassis’ daughter had Deborah Berke, Dean of the Yale School of Architecture, renovate and expand the structure. The fairy treehouse built for her grandchildren still stands on the property today. “The ancillary structures include a three-bedroom caretaker's house, a barn, two garages (one with a two-bedroom apartment), a temperature-controlled storage building, and a boathouse,” the property’s listing stated. If Red Gate Farm sells for close to its $65 million asking price, it would break the record for a single-family estate on Martha’s Vineyard. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX BUSINESS APP The estate once owned by former Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham currently holds the record after the property sold for $32.5 million in January, theVineyard Gazettereported. That estate was listed in August 2018 for $39.5 million. Christie’s International Real Estate is represented by Tom LeClair and Gery Conover, agents of LandVest, the affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate on Martha’s Vineyard. Related Articles • How Much is Michael Phelps Worth? • Ryan Lochte's Brand Value Sinks Amid Rio Scandal • Here's How You Get a Body Like An Olympian
Were Hedge Funds Wrong About Counting On Varex Imaging Corporation (VREX)? IsVarex Imaging Corporation (NASDAQ:VREX)the right pick for your portfolio? The smart money is becoming more confident. The number of bullish hedge fund bets rose by 5 in recent months. Our calculations also showed that VREX isn't among the30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.VREXwas in 20 hedge funds' portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2019. There were 15 hedge funds in our database with VREX positions at the end of the previous quarter. At the moment there are numerous tools shareholders have at their disposal to evaluate stocks. A couple of the less known tools are hedge fund and insider trading signals. Our experts have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the top hedge fund managers can outclass the S&P 500 by a very impressive amount (see the details here). We're going to check out the key hedge fund action surrounding Varex Imaging Corporation (NASDAQ:VREX). At the end of the first quarter, a total of 20 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 33% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards VREX over the last 15 quarters. So, let's find out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves. The largest stake in Varex Imaging Corporation (NASDAQ:VREX) was held byPzena Investment Management, which reported holding $35.9 million worth of stock at the end of March. It was followed by SG Capital Management with a $21.2 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included D E Shaw, Rutabaga Capital Management, and Royce & Associates. As industrywide interest jumped, some big names have been driving this bullishness.SG Capital Management, managed by Ken Grossman and Glen Schneider, initiated the largest position in Varex Imaging Corporation (NASDAQ:VREX). SG Capital Management had $21.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Israel Englander'sMillennium Managementalso initiated a $3.4 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Benjamin A. Smith'sLaurion Capital Management, Andre F. Perold'sHighVista Strategies, and Israel Englander'sMillennium Management. Let's now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks - not necessarily in the same industry as Varex Imaging Corporation (NASDAQ:VREX) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Alector, Inc. (NASDAQ:ALEC), Stratasys, Ltd. (NASDAQ:SSYS), OneSmart International Education Group Limited (NYSE:ONE), and Bright Scholar Education Holdings Limited (NYSE:BEDU). All of these stocks' market caps are similar to VREX's market cap. [table] Ticker, No of HFs with positions, Total Value of HF Positions (x1000), Change in HF Position ALEC,12,358037,12 SSYS,14,137475,0 ONE,6,42937,-1 BEDU,9,85774,1 Average,10.25,156056,3 [/table] View table hereif you experience formatting issues. As you can see these stocks had an average of 10.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $156 million. That figure was $111 million in VREX's case. Stratasys, Ltd. (NASDAQ:SSYS) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand OneSmart International Education Group Limited (NYSE:ONE) is the least popular one with only 6 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Varex Imaging Corporation (NASDAQ:VREX) is more popular among hedge funds. Our calculations showed thattop 20 most popular stocksamong hedge funds returned 6.2% in Q2 through June 19th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by nearly 3 percentage points. Unfortunately VREX wasn't nearly as popular as these 20 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on VREX were disappointed as the stock returned -13.6% during the same period and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out thetop 20 most popular stocksamong hedge funds as 13 of these stocks already outperformed the market in Q2. Disclosure: None. This article was originally published atInsider Monkey. Related Content • How to Best Use Insider Monkey To Increase Your Returns • Billionaire Ken Fisher’s Top Dividend Stock Picks • 30 Stocks Billionaires Are Crazy About: Insider Monkey Billionaire Stock Index
Cabot Microelectronics Corporation (NASDAQ:CCMP): Immense Growth Potential? Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! In March 2019, Cabot Microelectronics Corporation (NASDAQ:CCMP) announced its earnings update. Overall, analyst consensus outlook appear vastly optimistic, as a 59% rise in profits is expected in the upcoming year, relative to the previous 5-year average growth rate of 18%. With trailing-twelve-month net income at current levels of US$110m, we should see this rise to US$175m in 2020. Below is a brief commentary on the longer term outlook the market has for Cabot Microelectronics. Readers that are interested in understanding the company beyond these figures shouldresearch its fundamentals here. Check out our latest analysis for Cabot Microelectronics Over the next three years, it seems the consensus view of the 3 analysts covering CCMP is skewed towards the positive sentiment. Generally, broker analysts tend to make predictions for up to three years given the lack of visibility beyond this point. I've plotted out each year's earnings expectations and inserted a line of best fit to calculate an annual growth rate from the slope in order to understand the overall trajectory of CCMP's earnings growth over these next few years. This results in an annual growth rate of 18% based on the most recent earnings level of US$110m to the final forecast of US$262m by 2022. This leads to an EPS of $10.15 in the final year of projections relative to the current EPS of $4.31. Margins are currently sitting at 19%, which is expected to expand to 27% by 2022. Future outlook is only one aspect when you're building an investment case for a stock. For Cabot Microelectronics, there are three fundamental factors you should further research: 1. Financial Health: Does it have a healthy balance sheet? Take a look at ourfree balance sheet analysis with six simple checkson key factors like leverage and risk. 2. Valuation: What is Cabot Microelectronics worth today? Is the stock undervalued, even when its growth outlook is factored into its intrinsic value? Theintrinsic value infographic in our free research reporthelps visualize whether Cabot Microelectronics is currently mispriced by the market. 3. Other High-Growth Alternatives: Are there other high-growth stocks you could be holding instead of Cabot Microelectronics? Exploreour interactive list of stocks with large growth potentialto get an idea of what else is out there you may be missing! We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
Michigan AG sues to shut down oil pipeline in Great Lakes LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan's attorney general sued Thursday to shut down twin 66-year-old oil pipelines in the Great Lakes, saying they pose an "unacceptable risk" and the state cannot wait five to 10 years for Enbridge Inc. to build a tunnel to house replacement pipes running through the Straits of Mackinac. Democrat Dana Nessel's move came the same day she also sought to dismiss the Canadian company's request for a ruling on the legality of a deal it struck last year with former Republican Gov. Rick Snyder to encase a new segment of its Line 5 in the proposed tunnel. "I have consistently stated that Enbridge's pipelines in the Straits need to be shut down as soon as possible because they present an unacceptable risk to the Great Lakes," Nessel said. Nessel said she acted after it became clear talks between Enbridge and Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer had broken down. Whitmer was pushing to finish the tunnel in two years, while Enbridge was insisting it could not be done before 2024, when it would decommission the existing pipes. "The continued operation of Line 5 presents an extraordinary, unreasonable threat to the public because of the very real risk of further anchor strikes, the inherent risks of pipeline operations and the foreseeable, catastrophic effects if an oil spill occurs at the Straits," Nessel said. The pipelines are part of Enbridge's Line 5, which carries 23 million gallons (87 million liters) of crude oil and propane daily between Superior, Wisconsin, and Sarnia, Ontario. Enbridge spokesman Ryan Duffy said decommissioning the pipes would result in a "serious disruption" to the energy market, saying the line meets 55% of Michigan's propane needs, including 65% used in northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula. Refineries served by Line 5 also supply a large portion of the aviation fuel at Detroit Metro Airport. "We remain open to discussions with the governor, and we hope we can reach an agreement outside of court," he said. "Enbridge is deeply committed to being part of Michigan's future. We believe the Straits tunnel is the best way to protect the community and the Great Lakes while safely meeting Michigan's energy needs." Story continues Enbridge insists the dual pipes, which have been in place since 1953, are in sound condition and could operate indefinitely. But the company, based in Calgary, Alberta, said it is willing to install a tunnel in bedrock 100 feet beneath the lakebed and foot the estimated $500 million bill to eliminate virtually any possibility of a leak. Opponents contend Enbridge's refusal to shut down the pipelines until the tunnel is completed means the Straits area would be endangered for at least another five years. They point to a vessel anchor strike in April 2018 that dented both pipes while damaging three nearby electric cables, which leaked 800 gallons of insulating mineral oil. Nessel's suit, which was applauded by environmental groups and criticized by Republican lawmakers, identifies a potential anchor strike as the most significant risk to Line 5. It asks an Ingham County judge to rule that the operation of the Straits pipelines under a state easement violates the public trust doctrine, is a public nuisance and violates the Michigan Environmental Protection Act because it is likely to cause pollution and destroy water and other natural resources. Earlier this year, Whitmer ordered her administration not to implement the tunnel plan after Nessel said authorizing legislation enacted in December violated the state constitution. "Although the governor remains willing to talk with Enbridge, her commitment to stopping the flow of oil through the Great Lakes as soon as possible — and Enbridge's decision to sue the governor rather than negotiate — will at some point require her to take legal action, as well," said spokeswoman Tiffany Brown. Whitmer directed the Department of Natural Resources to review Enbridge's compliance with the 1953 easement. Enbridge said Thursday it asked Whitmer last week to resume talks, offering to suspend the lawsuit it filed earlier this month and jointly appoint an independent moderator to help facilitate discussions. The company also pointed to safety actions that have been taken to prevent anchor strikes. ___ Follow Eggert on Twitter at https://twitter.com/DavidEggert00
UPDATE 1-Philadelphia Energy Solutions stopped buying biofuel credits ahead of closure -sources (Adds more details and comment) NEW YORK, June 27 (Reuters) - Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) built up a "significant" short position in the biofuel credit market in the months leading up to the announced closure of the refinery on Wednesday, two market sources told Reuters. The refiner built up a large short position valued at several hundred millions of dollars before heading into bankruptcy last year but was granted relief by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in a deal that was heavily criticized by the biofuels industry. The U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard requires refiners to blend biofuels like ethanol into the fuel pool or buy compliance credits generated by those who do. The company stopped buying credits around March, building up a shortfall of roughly 80 to 90 million credits, two market sources told Reuters on Thursday. "I have not seen them in the market for some time," said one of the sources. PES, which lacks blending facilities, entered bankruptcy owing 467 million credits from 2016 and 2017, with only 210 million credits in hand, the filing showed. The EPA said PES could comply with the program by turning over its available credits and would be excused from any shortfall, a huge win for the refiner. After exiting bankruptcy, PES would have to comply with the law on a semi-annual basis as opposed to annually and submit itself to more EPA scrutiny. It would face penalties for non-compliance with the agreement. (Reporting By Jarrett Renshaw Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
LeBron James giving Anthony Davis the No. 23 Lakers jersey LOS ANGELES — Lakers superstar LeBron James is gifting Anthony Davis his No. 23, league sources told Yahoo Sports. The league has been notified of the pending jersey change, sources said. Davis, 26, has worn No. 23 throughout his entire seven-year NBA career as a member of the New Orleans Pelicans. The Lakers agreed to acquire Davis on June 15 in a blockbuster deal that sent a number of assets to New Orleans . The Lakers' No. 23 will be worn by a new player this season. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images) James is laying the groundwork to make his soon-to-be new teammate as comfortable as possible, and the six-time All-Star was extremely grateful for the gesture, sources said. James has worn No. 6 with the Miami Heat and No. 23 with the Lakers and Cleveland Cavaliers. It is unclear what number James will select for the 2019-20 season, sources said. The Nos. 8, 13, 22, 24, 25, 32, 33, 34, 42, 44 and 52 are retired by the Lakers. The trade that sent Davis to the Lakers isn’t expected to be finalized until July 6. More from Yahoo Sports: USWNT needs Alex Morgan to step up vs. France Report: Celtics are the favorite to land Walker Sources: Hill meets with NFL over child abuse charges Heath not a fan of European women’s soccer: ‘Boring’
What Are the Hours of the Stock Market? There are several stock markets around the world. The New York Stock Exchange, also known as NYSE, is the largest stock exchange in the world; the NASDAQ (also located in New York City) and Tokyo Stock Exchange aren’t far behind. Stock exchanges are only open for trading during set hours, however. The NYSE and the NASDAQ are open Monday to Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time), and other stock exchanges have their own operating hours. Stock Market Hours Around the World Moststock market exchangesare open five days per week, Monday though Friday. If you wish to trade on any of these stock exchanges, you may need to consider which trading platform is best for you, such as anonline brokerage account. Additionally, you’ll need to know when exactly you can buy and sell on each market as not all are open at the same time. Here are the hours of operation for all of the major stock markets and exchanges around the world. North America The NYSE andthe NASDAQare the two main American exchanges, headquartered in New York. They are open from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time). Both markets are closed for nine federal holidays per year, including New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents’ Day/Washington’s birthday, Good Friday, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Additionally, these markets also have modified hours on three days per year, including the day before Independence Day, the day after Thanksgiving and on Christmas Eve. The Toronto Stock Exchange, or TMX Group, headquartered in Toronto, is also open from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time). It is closed for 10 holidays per year, including New Year’s Day, Family Day, Good Friday, Victoria Day, Canada Day, Civic Holiday, Labour Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Boxing Day. It has modified hours on Christmas Eve. Asia While the NYSE, NASDAQ and TMX Group exchanges do not close for lunch, many markets in Asia do, such as the Tokyo Stock Exchange, headquartered in Tokyo, which is open from 9 to 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 to 3 p.m. (Japan Standard Time). The Tokyo Stock Exchange is closed for 22 holidays per year, including New Year’s Day, market holidays on January 2 and 3, Coming of Age Day, National Foundation Day, Vernal Equinox, Showa Day, Abdication Day, Accession Day, National Holiday, Constitution Memorial Day, Greenery Day, Children’s Day, Marine Day, Mountain Day, Respect for the Aged Day, Autumnal Equinox, Health and Sports Day, Enthronement Ceremony Day, Culture Day, Labor Thanksgiving Day and a market holiday on December 31. Both the Shanghai Stock Exchange, headquartered in Shanghai, and Shenzhen Stock Exchange, headquartered in Shenzhen, China, are open from from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. and 1 to 3 p.m. (China Standard Time). Both are closed for 15 holidays per year, including New Year’s Day, five days for the Spring Festival in February, Ching Ming Festival, Labour Day, Tuen Ng Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival and five days for National Days in October. The Hong Kong Stock Exchange, headquartered in Hong Kong, is open from 9:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 1 to 4 p.m. (Hong Kong Standard Time). It is also closed for 15 holidays per year, including New Year’s Day, three days for the Lunar New Year, Ching Ming Festival, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Labour Day, The Birthday of Buddha, Tuen Ng Festival, Special Administration Region Establishment Day, National Day, Chung Yeung Festival, Christmas and the first weekday after Christmas. The Bombay Stock Exchange, headquartered in Mumbai, is open from 9:15 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. (India Standard Time). It is closed for 15 holidays per year, including Mahashrivati, Holi, Dr. Baba Saheb Ambedkar Jayanti, Good Friday, Maharashtra Day, Bakri Id, Independence Day, Ganesh Chaturthi, Muharram, Mahatma Gandhi Jayanti, Dussehra, Diwali, Gurunanak Jayanti and Christmas. Europe Euronext, headquartered in Amsterdam, is open from 9 a.m. to 5:40 p.m. (Central European Time). It is closed for six holidays per year, including New Year’s Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Labour Day, Christmas and Boxing Day. The Euronext exchange also has modified hours on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. The SIX Swiss Exchange, headquartered in Zurich, is open from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. (Central European Time). It is closed for 12 holidays per year, including New Year’s Day, the day after New Year’s Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Labor Day, Ascension Day, Whit Monday, Swiss National Day, Christmas Eve, Christmas, Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve. The London Stock Exchange Group, headquartered in London, is open from 8:15 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (Greenwich Mean Time or British Summer Time). It is closed for eight holidays per year, including New Year’s Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, an early May bank holiday, a spring bank holiday, a summer bank holiday, Christmas and Boxing Day. The exchange also has modified hours on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. Extended-Hours Trading Investors can trade stocks during the hours afterthe stock marketcloses. Known as after-hours trading, this means you can still place orders tobuy or sell stocksafter the market closes for the day. On the other hand, pre-market trading happens in the hours before the market opens. Together, after-hours and pre-market trading make up extended-hours trading. While investors can trade stocks during weekday mornings and evenings, trading on weekends is not allowed, unless it’s on an international exchange that is already open in that time zone, such as on Sundays in the U.S. For example, the NYSE offers extended-hours trading from 7 to 9:30 a.m. and from 4 to 8 p.m. The NASDAQ offers pre-market trading from 4 to 9:30 a.m. and after-hours trading from 4 to 8 p.m. Depending on the exchange, there may be different rules for extended-hours trading than for normal trading hours. In addition, each brokerage firm may have different rules for trading when the market is closed. Most brokerages require customers to agree to the Electronic Communication Network, or ECN, user agreement before engaging in extended-hours trading. Sometimes customers are required to discuss it with a representative so that they can understand the potential risks associated with extended-hours trading, such as less liquidity and more volatility. ECN electronically matches buyers and sellers to execute limit orders. Sometimes, extended-hours orders are executed by a dealer at a price that is better than or the same as the ECN’s best offer. At the end of extended-hours, any unexecuted orders are canceled. A few brokerages that offer extended-hours trading include TD Ameritrade, Fidelity and Charles Schwab. Pros and Cons of Extended-Hours Trading For starters, you can trade at any time with extended-hours trading. In other words, you can choose to trade when it is most convenient for you or in response to news events that happen before or after normal market hours. Many public companies release their quarterly earnings after 4 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, when the NYSE has closed. Investors can immediately place a trade after companies release their earnings, rather than being forced to wait until the market opens again. The U.S. employment report is released at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time the first Friday of every month. Rather than waiting until 9:30 a.m., an investor could adjust their position immediately after the report is released. There is no guarantee your order will be filled during the extended hours, even if you make the order. The vast majority of trading happens during normal business hours. That means if you are selling stock, there is more demand during normal business hours. If you arebuying stock, there is more supply during normal business hours. In addition,price volatilitytends to be higher during extended-hours trading, and there may be trading limitations imposed by your broker. For example, if you’re a new or inexperienced investor, your brokerage account may not allow for buying specific investments that are exceptionally volatile. However, one of the main potential disadvantages is that buying and selling outside of normal business hours could negatively impact your profitability. For example, if you are trying to sell shares of stock during extended hours, there might not be as many buyers interested in those shares – so you might not be able to get the price you want during extended hours. The Bottom Line Stock market hours may vary worldwide, but extended-hours trading offers you the ease of investing in the market when it’s most convenient for you. It can be useful if you need to make trades right away, and if you’ve figured out ways to minimize the risk. It might be smart toconsider a limit orderif you need to place an order immediately, but aren’t concerned about what time of day the trade is actually executed. A limit order will allow you to choose the price you’re comfortable buying or selling at, and can be placed after-hours or during regular market hours. It could be filled any time the price you selected is available. There are many different stock markets, so if you decide that extended-hours trading is not for you, consider a stock market with different hours or simply wait to buy or sell stocks during normal business hours. Tips on Buying And Selling Stocks • If you’re new to buying and selling stocks, you may want to consider working with a financial advisor who can help you navigate the market. Finding the right one thatfits your investing needsdoesn’t have to be hard.SmartAsset’s free toolmatches you with financial advisors in your area in five minutes. If you’re ready to be matched with local advisors that will help you achieve your financial goals,get started now. • The stock market isn’t the only place to invest your hard earned dollars. Consider learning aboutdifferent types of investments and how they workbefore deciding where to build your portfolio. • If you’re ready to start investing in the stock market on your own, consider using anonline brokerage accountas your trading platform. Whether it’s during normal business hours, early in the morning or late at night, you’ll be able to buy and sell stocks from the comfort of your own home. Photo credit: ©iStock.com/SARINYAPINNGAM, ©iStock.com/Easyturn, ©iStock.com/da-kuk The postWhat Are the Hours of the Stock Market?appeared first onSmartAsset Blog. • How Are Profit Margins Defined and Measured? • The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) • How to Buy Amazon Stock
Do Institutions Own Molson Coors Canada Inc. (TSE:TPX.B) Shares? Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Every investor in Molson Coors Canada Inc. (TSE:TPX.B) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. Institutions often own shares in more established companies, while it's not unusual to see insiders own a fair bit of smaller companies. I quite like to see at least a little bit of insider ownership. As Charlie Munger said 'Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.' Molson Coors Canada isn't enormous, but it's not particularly small either. It has a market capitalization of CA$1.3b, which means it would generally expect to see some institutions on the share registry. In the chart below below, we can see that institutions own shares in the company. We can zoom in on the different ownership groups, to learn more about TPX.B. View our latest analysis for Molson Coors Canada Institutional investors commonly compare their own returns to the returns of a commonly followed index. So they generally do consider buying larger companies that are included in the relevant benchmark index. We can see that Molson Coors Canada does have institutional investors; and they hold 14% of the stock. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. When multiple institutions own a stock, there's always a risk that they are in a 'crowded trade'. When such a trade goes wrong, multiple parties may compete to sell stock fast. This risk is higher in a company without a history of growth. You can see Molson Coors Canada's historic earnings and revenue, below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story. We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Molson Coors Canada. As far I can tell there isn't analyst coverage of the company, so it is probably flying under the radar. While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Management ultimately answers to the board. However, it is not uncommon for managers to be executive board members, especially if they are a founder or the CEO. I generally consider insider ownership to be a good thing. However, on some occasions it makes it more difficult for other shareholders to hold the board accountable for decisions. Our most recent data indicates that insiders own some shares in Molson Coors Canada Inc.. The insiders have a meaningful stake worth CA$72m. Most would see this as a real positive. Most would say this shows alignment of interests between shareholders and the board. Still, it might be worth checkingif those insiders have been selling. The general public -- mostly retail investors -- own 81% of Molson Coors Canada . With this size of ownership, retail investors can collectively play a role in decisions that affect shareholder returns, such as dividend policies and the appointment of directors. They can also exercise the power to decline an acquisition or merger that may not improve profitability. It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Molson Coors Canada better, we need to consider many other factors. I like to dive deeperinto how a company has performed in the past. You can accessthisinteractive graphof past earnings, revenue and cash flow for free. Of coursethis may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at thisfreefreelist of interesting companies. NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
Apple starts selling diabetes monitors in its stores Apple's health pushnow includes more tools for diabetics. Apple retail stores havestarted carryinga diabetes tracking product -- in this case, One Drop's blood glucose monitor. It's not a continuous monitor (you have to lance yourself), but its Bluetooth connection to your iPhone and Apple Watch helps you track blood sugar levels with the devices you already use every day. It sells for $70 and includes a year's worth of coaching from a diabetes educator. While this isn't directly linked to Apple'shealth software efforts, it reflects how important health tech is to the company's strategy. Apple stores' third-party selections frequently reflect the tech giant's priorities, whether it's smart homes or connected toys, and that's certainly true here. It wants you to see iPhones, Apple Watches and other Apple products as important parts of your health routine, whether by themselves or as part of a larger ecosystem.
If You Had Bought Cellular Biomedicine Group (NASDAQ:CBMG) Stock Three Years Ago, You Could Pocket A 25% Gain Today Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Cellular Biomedicine Group, Inc.(NASDAQ:CBMG) shareholders might be concerned after seeing the share price drop 13% in the last quarter. But at least the stock is up over the last three years. In that time, it is up 25%, which isn't bad, but not amazing either. View our latest analysis for Cellular Biomedicine Group With just US$222,707 worth of revenue in twelve months, we don't think the market considers Cellular Biomedicine Group to have proven its business plan. So it seems that the investors focused more on what could be, than paying attention to the current revenues (or lack thereof). For example, they may be hoping that Cellular Biomedicine Group comes up with a great new product, before it runs out of money. As a general rule, if a company doesn't have much revenue, and it loses money, then it is a high risk investment. There is usually a significant chance that they will need more money for business development, putting them at the mercy of capital markets. So the share price itself impacts the value of the shares (as it determines the cost of capital). While some companies like this go on to deliver on their plan, making good money for shareholders, many end in painful losses and eventual de-listing. When it reported in March 2019 Cellular Biomedicine Group had minimal cash in excess of all liabilities consider its expenditure: just US$16m to be specific. So if it has not already moved to replenish reserves, we think the near-term chances of a capital raising event are pretty high. It's a testament to the popularity of the business plan that the share price gained 7.7% per year, over 3 years, despite the weak balance sheet. The image below shows how Cellular Biomedicine Group's balance sheet has changed over time; if you want to see the precise values, simply click on the image. The image below shows how Cellular Biomedicine Group's balance sheet has changed over time; if you want to see the precise values, simply click on the image. In reality it's hard to have much certainty when valuing a business that has neither revenue or profit. One thing you can do is check if company insiders are buying shares. It's often positive if so, assuming the buying is sustained and meaningful. You canclick here to see if there are insiders buying. While the broader market gained around 6.9% in the last year, Cellular Biomedicine Group shareholders lost 22%. Even the share prices of good stocks drop sometimes, but we want to see improvements in the fundamental metrics of a business, before getting too interested. Longer term investors wouldn't be so upset, since they would have made 0.6%, each year, over five years. If the fundamental data continues to indicate long term sustainable growth, the current sell-off could be an opportunity worth considering. Most investors take the time to check the data on insider transactions. You canclick here to see if insiders have been buying or selling. If you like to buy stocks alongside management, then you might just love thisfreelist of companies. (Hint: insiders have been buying them). Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on US exchanges. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
Buy Ford and General Motors, but Sell Tesla Stock? Every day, Wall Street analysts upgrade some stocks, downgrade others, and "initiate coverage" on a few more. But do these analysts even know what they're talking about? Today, we're taking one high-profile Wall Street pick and putting it under the microscope... Swiss megabankerCredit Suissejust waded into the automotive market with a series of initiations on three of the most well-known car stocks in America. I won't keep you in suspense. According to Credit Suisse, the automotive stocks that you want to own areFord(NYSE: F)andGeneral Motors(NYSE: GM), and the one you want to sell isTesla(NASDAQ: TSLA). Here's why. Image source: Getty Images. Pondering the future of the car industry, Credit Suisse lifts a page from Ford's automotive playbook, in which that company measures its plans according to "Two Clocks" -- and uses it to weigh Ford stock itself. In the long term, says Credit Suisse, Ford is working to "reimagin[e]" its business to ensure it will have a future in a world going increasingly electric, and evolving towarddriverless cars. But at the same time, in the short term, the company has to fix its problem of declining profitability. Today's initiation of Ford stock at outperform (with a 12-month price target of $13) appears to focus on that short term. According to Credit Suisse, there are "early signs of improvement" on profitability at Ford, and perhaps "more to come." Gross profit margin -- which has been falling for three years straight, according to data fromS&P Global Market Intelligence-- ticked higher in Q1 2019. In fact, at 10.2%, Ford's gross margin was the highest we've seen since late 2017. Operating profit margin was up to 3.8% -- still not great, but the best it's been since early 2018. And Ford's net profit margin was 2.8% -- a nice reversal after the company's Q4 2018 net loss. General Motors also gets an outperform rating from Credit Suisse, this time with a $48 price target promising more than a 24% profit to new investors -- not quite as good as the 28% short-term upside Credit Suisse sees in Ford, but still nothing to sneeze at. The difference in potential payoffs may be explained by the fact that, whereas Ford can become a better investment by fixing its problems in the near term, GM is already doing pretty well on the profitability front. Like Ford, GM enjoyed a bump in gross margin last quarter. GM's operating profit margin of 4.3% over the past 12 months is superior to Ford's, and with tax benefits, GM's net profit margin is currently at 6.2% -- more than twice what Ford is earning. At the same time, it seems that Credit Suisse views GM as a better long-term bet than Ford. Indeed, according to the analyst, General Motors "is one of the best players in our coverage in balancing the 'near' and 'far,' offering a compelling narrative on both fronts." Not so with Tesla, though -- or at least, not according to Credit Suisse, which believes that in the long run, Tesla is doomed to end up as only "a niche automaker," hemmed in by bigger, better-capitalized rivals. In a report covered today by TheFly.com, Credit Suisse highlights the threat to Tesla from one rival in particular --Volkswagen-- which plans to unleash a torrent of50 new battery-electric vehiclesto compete with Tesla through 2025. Although Tesla has taken an early lead in such "future" technologies as electric cars and autonomous driving, this "strong push" by VW, argues the analyst, is likely to swamp Tesla and deny the company the kind of scale it will need to compete with more mass market automakers -- and the ability to earn "healthy" profit margins as well. And this last point may be key. Tesla may be enjoying a lot of popularity today, but as superinvestor Warren Buffett famously said, "In the short term, the market is a popularity contest; in the long term, it is a weighing machine" -- weighing profits, to be precise. Tesla, which scored negative operating margins for seven straight quarters before becoming (briefly) profitable in last year's second half, turned unprofitable again last quarter. Analysts forecast the company to continue losing money in three of the next four quarters -- at the very moment its rivals ramp up their own electric offerings. Unless Tesla can beat the odds and deliver profits where none are expected, it may soon lack the money it needs to compete, and be relegated to the "niche" player role that Credit Suisse predicts for it. This makes Tesla look like a much riskier bet than Ford, which costs only 13 times earnings, let alone GM, priced at just six times trailing profits. In the near term, both of these automotive giants look like better bets than Tesla -- and perhaps in the long term as well. More From The Motley Fool • 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today • The $16,728 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss • 20 of the Top Stocks to Buy (Including the Two Every Investor Should Own) • What Is an ETF? • 5 Recession-Proof Stocks • How to Beat the Market Rich Smithhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Tesla. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy.
Amal Clooney Just Wore The Chicest Dress for Date Night with George Photo credit: BACKGRID From Harper's BAZAAR Amal Clooney is enjoying some quality time with husband George in the beautiful city of Venice. The human rights lawyer has also been pulling out all the stops when it comes to her outfits. For a romantic dinner date last night, Clooney wore a stunning Cinq à Sept evening gown. The next day, she rocked a white one-shoulder minidress before boarding a private helicopter. Amal Clooney's off-duty style cannot be beaten. Last night, the highly esteemed human rights lawyer brought her elevated taste in fashion to Venice for a date with her husband George. The power couple, who tied the knot in 2014, enjoyed a romantic Italian dinner for two at Da Ivo restaurant. For the special occasion, Clooney sported a sleeveless high-low dress in black with an asymmetrical ruffled train and sweetheart neckline. The Cinq à Sept frock she wore hails from the New York-based brand's Spring 2019 collection. Photo credit: BACKGRID There are also some similar alternatives from the line to help you re-create Clooney's elegant going-out look. Nordstrom and Shopbop both carry a nearly identical floor-length dress with a ruffled high-low hemline. If you prefer a pop of color in your wardrobe or want a more affordable option, Rent the Runway has a red version of the second dress that you can rent for $95 or $110, depending on which membership plan you have. The following morning, the pair were snapped walking hand in hand making their way from their Venetian hotel to a private helicopter ride. For their daytime outing, Clooney looked breezy and fresh in her white one-shoulder minidress, nude suede mules, and oversized woven straw hat. She accessorized her elegant look with a pair of black sunglasses, black drop earrings, and a white leather shoulder bag. Photo credit: BACKGRID George also looked dapper in his relaxed outfit. The Catch 22 actor and director donned a navy polo, khaki pants, dark-tinted sunglasses, and a pair of suede olive loafers that matched his backpack. ('You Might Also Like',) The Essential British Packing List 30 Facial Moisturizers for Every Budget We Cut Bangs on 16 Different Women With The Help of Celebrity Stylist Justine Marjan
Market-Beating Fixed Income ETFs of Q2 Second-quarter 2019 has all been about renewed U.S.-China trade tensions and dovish comments from big central banks, including the Fed and ECB. May was a month of staggering success for fixed-income securities. Trade tensions were rife as the Trump administration intensified its battle against China and Mexico. Trump lifted tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods from 10% to 25%, while China enacted a retaliatory move — a tariff hike on $60 billion worth of American goods to 25% starting Jun 1. Trump is considering additional tariffs on an incremental $325 billion of Chinese imports. At May-end, Trump announced tariffs on all goods imported from Mexico in order to put a check on illegal immigration. Though things settled with Mexico later on, issues with China are yet to be resolved. Sensing U.S. tariffs could undermine growth prospects, the Fed has offered dovish cues in its latest meeting. Not only the Fed, the ECB harped on the same tune (read: ECB Considers Further Stimulus: ETFs to Top & Flop). This has brought down bond yields materially. Yield on benchmark 10-year U.S. treasury yield slipped to 2.05% on Jun 26 from 2.66% recorded at the start of the year, with the lowest half-yearly yield of 2% recorded on Jun 25. Parts of the yield curve inverted this year on cues of recessionary fears. Notably, 10-year yields plunged to the lowest level since October 2017 in May. In the latest June meeting, federal funds rate projections for 2019 were kept intact at 2.4% but lowered to 2.1% from 2.6% for 2020 and to 2.4% from 2.6% for 2021. Over the longer term, the rate was projected at 2.9%, the same was cut to 2.5% from 2.8% projected in March (read: ETF Winners & Losers Post Fed Meet). Investors should note that markets started pricing in a substantial chance of Fed rate cuts long ago. As of Jun 26, according to CME FedWatch tool, there is a 60% chance of a 50-bp rate cut in the Sep 18 meeting, followed by a 23.4% probability of 25-bp rate cut and 16.6% likelihood of a 75-bp rate cut. Since bond yields and prices are inversely-related, slumps in yields bode well for bond prices. Then there was flare-up in geopolitical crisis, which in turn brightened the appeal for safe-haven treasury ETFs. Against this backdrop, we highlight a few fixed-income ETFs that beat the broader market in 2019 and also led the bond ETF world (read: Intensifying Trade Woes Trigger Rally in Treasury ETFs). Outperforming ETFs iPath US Treasury 5-year Bull ETNDFVL — Up 19.5% The Barclays 5Y US Treasury Futures Targeted Exposure Index is designed to fall in response to an increase in the 5-year Treasury note yields and to rise in response to a fall in 5-year Treasury note yields. The product charges 75 bps in fees. iPath US Treasury 2-year Bull ETNDTUL — Up 18.4% The Barclays 2Y US Treasury Futures Targeted Exposure Index is designed to drop in response to a rise in the 2-year Treasury note yields and to climb in response to a fall in 2-year Treasury note yields. It also charges 75 bps in fees. PIMCO 25+ Year Zero Coupon U.S. Treasury Index Exchange-Traded FundZROZ — Up 6.6% This ETF follows the BofA Merrill Lynch Long Treasury Principal STRIPS Index. The principal STRIPS comprising the Underlying Index must have 25 years or more remaining term to final maturity and must be stripped from U.S. Treasury bonds having at least $1 billion in outstanding face value. Vanguard Extended Duration Treasury Index Fund ETF SharesEDV – Up 6.3% The underlying Bloomberg Barclays US Treasury STRIPS 20-30 Year Equal Par Bond Index includes zero-coupon U.S. Treasury securities, which are backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government, with maturities ranging from 20 to 30 years. The product charges 7 bps in fees (read: Go for Safe-Haven ETFs Amid Rising Geopolitical Risks). iShares 10+ Year Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETFLLQD – Up 5.4% The Markit iBoxx USD Liquid Investment Grade Long Index comprises U.S. dollar-denominated, investment-grade corporate bonds with remaining maturities greater than 10 years. The fund charges 6 bps in fees. Want key ETF info delivered straight to your inbox? Zacks’ free Fund Newsletter will brief you on top news and analysis, as well as top-performing ETFs, each week.Get it free >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportPIMCO 25+ Year Zero Coupon U.S. Treasury Index ETF (ZROZ): ETF Research ReportsVanguard Extended Duration Treasury ETF (EDV): ETF Research ReportsiPath US Treasury 2-year Bull ETN (DTUL): ETF Research ReportsiShares 10+ Year Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF (LLQD): ETF Research ReportsiPath US Treasury 5-year Bull ETN (DFVL): ETF Research ReportsTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment ResearchWant the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report
Marriott Exec: We Want to Be Involved in Travel Beyond 4 Walls of a Hotel Marriott wants to become a critical part of customers’ travel journey beyond the hotel experience, according to Stephanie Linnartz, the hotel giant’s global chief commercial officer. Such a feat will be achievable through technological investment in its loyalty program, machine learning to draw insights from customer data, and select partnerships with tech heavyweights around the world to grow its business. Speaking at the second annualSkift Tech Forumin San Francisco, Thursday, Linnartz said Marriott’s core business is franchising and managing hotels, but technology is fundamental to delivering a great guest experience — starting with its website and app. “We want to be involved in the travel journey beyond the four walls of a hotel,” said Linnartz. “Travel is a big space. There will be a lot of winners at the end of the day. The winners will be those who think about the guest experience holistically.” On Marriott’s agenda is to offer every conceivable offering to its guests to bolster its loyalty program, which currently has 130 million members worldwide. When the chain broughtHomes & Villas by Marriott to market in April, the brand showed it would not shy away from taking on Airbnb head on. According to Linnartz, Marriott views its entry into the homesharing market as a complementary component to its core business, one that loyalty members were already gravitating towards based on company data. After pilots run last year in four European cities (London, Lisbon, Barcelona and Rome), Marriott felt it could plug the gaps in what is usually a hit or miss experience for customers — and at times illegal, Linnartz said. Airbnb has both acquired Hotel Tonight and also launched a new luxury rental tier this week in attempts to take away market share from its new-found competitors. “The difference [between our offerings and others in the market] is it’s branded, and we have very strict criteria about how you [properties] get in,” said Linnartz. “But the most significant difference is the ability to use Bonvoy perks.” About 90 percent of customers booking homes & villas through Marriott are Bonvoy members. That’s on purpose, Linnartz added. “We wanted to make Bonvoy stickier, deeper, richer, so it’s not surprising the bookings are mainly from loyalty.” According to Marriott, north of 40 percent of new Bonvoy signups are from China, resulting from the brand’s recently agreed partnership with Alibaba. Chinese travelers are able to book stays at all 7,000 of Marriott’s hotels worldwide through Alibaba’s travel site, Fliggy. North of 40 percent of new signups are coming from China. Of Marriott’s 30 existing brands, 23 are already available in China, where Marriott is launching about one new hotel each week, Linnartz said. The hotel chain is also training hotels around world to have Chinese speakers on hand, along with Chinese cuisine and newspapers in “gateway cities,” where Chinese outbound travels are going. Subscribe to Skift newsletterscovering the business of travel, restaurants, and wellness.
Best summer rain jackets for women and men Image via Getty It’s been a wet start to summer here in Toronto, with record levels of rain that isn’t likely to let up any time soon. Many regions across Canada are dealing with extreme precipitation as well, making rain gear a top priority when staying dry outdoors. With the combination of heat and humidity, many raincoats can leave you feeling sticky in no time, which is not ideal when you’re headed for a day at the office. To avoid the dreaded sweat that accompanies a thick plastic raincoat, you’ll want a breathable and lightweight coat that also manages to keep you dry. We’ve found some of the best options on the market that are proven to keep the rain off and the heat out for a comfortable feel no matter the temperature. Keep reading to see our top picks for summer rain jackets you’ll actually want to wear. Top Picks for Women Lululemon Rain Rebel Jacket Image via Lululemon With a waterproof exterior and a sweat-wicking inner layer, this hooded raincoat will keep you feeling cool and dry all day long. Customer Review: “This is by far the best rain coat I’ve ever owned. It’s stylish, lightweight, waterproof and comfortable. I love it so much that when I recently lost it on a flight, I immediately ordered another one!” SHOP IT: Lululemon, $228 The North Face Venture 2 Jacket Image via Altitude Sports. More than 2,800 reviewers have raved about this lightweight rain jacket that’s easily packable and completely waterproof, with underarm vents for added breathability in the summer. Customer Review: “Bought this for spring/summer showers in the city that is functional and still looks fun and sporty. Packs up super light and I can toss this into my bag for work or travel.” SHOP IT: Altitude Sports, $150 Old Navy Water-Resistant Hooded Windbreaker for Women Image via Old Navy. Shoppers are loving the affordable price and functional design of this cute raincoat. It has a built-in hood that can be zipped up into the collar, and an adjustable waist for your perfect fit. Customer Review: “Recently purchased when looking for something lightweight for the rain. I didn't want anything too expensive but with decent quality. This jacket checks all the boxes. It looks sporty and cute.” SHOP IT: Old Navy, $51 (originally $57) Hunter Women's Original Waterproof Cotton Hunting Coat Image via Hunter. The brand’s waterproof protection is enhanced on this women's jacket with a durable water repellent finish, while cool cotton construction and a mesh lining ensures breathability on warmer days. Customer Review: “I bought this coat a month ago and really love how it's both rain and wind proof! Great coat to layer during the spring/fall months or wear alone during warmer months. The zipper was a bit tricky at first, but it works very well after a couple of times of being used.” Story continues SHOP IT: Hunter, $295 Top Picks for Men Helly Hansen Seven J Jacket Image via Helly Hansen. This clean, classic rain jacket is ideal for outdoor activities and has a fully waterproof exterior with a convenient quick-dry lining. Customer Review: “I used this jacket for the first time on vacation this past week. It kept me dry for three days worth of walking through heavy rain and wind and cool enough in temps well into the 90s [30 ° C +]. Very high quality item!” SHOP IT: Helly Hansen, $120 Arc’teryx Zeta LT Jacket Image via Arc'teryx. The Zeta LT jacket is made for trekking and adventuring, with a durable, Gore-Tex waterproof construction. Lined in GORE C-KNIT™ fabric, it’s also breathable and moisture-wicking to keep you feeling dry. Customer Review: “Best rain jacket I have had hands down. The new backer really does show in this piece it is softer than any other rain jacket I've seen. It's thin, light, and breathes wells. Another outstanding piece from Arc'teryx in my opinion.” SHOP IT: Arc’Teryx, $550 Columbia Men's Watertight™ II Jacket Image via Columbia. Weatherproof Omni-Tech technology keeps protects this ultra-light jacket from the elements, whether it’s a rainy or windy day. Customer Review: “It’s super lightweight and very waterproof! It also works great as a windbreaker! I would recommend this jacket for anyone who is outdoors in the elements. It’s small and compacts I fit it right in my bag like it’s not even there!” SHOP IT: Columbia, $100 Patagonia Men's Torrentshell Jacket Image via Patagonia. Made from 100% recycled plastic, this breathable shell is fully wind and waterproof. For added air flow on warm days, open up this jacket’s adjustable air vents to stay cool. Customer Review: “I live in a reputably wet and rainy area of Hawaii if not the most rainy. My first time using the Torrentshell jacket was during a category 4 hurricane when we had 64 inches of rain in 48 hours and I was thankful to have it.” SHOP IT: Patagonia, $129 The editors at Yahoo Lifestyle Canada are committed to finding you the best products at the best prices. At times, we may receive a share from purchases made via links on this page. Let us know what you think by commenting below and tweeting @ YahooStyleCA! Follow us on Twitter and Instagram . View comments
Will Turners Automotive Group Limited's (NZSE:TRA) Earnings Grow In Next 12 Months? Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Looking at Turners Automotive Group Limited's (NZSE:TRA) recent earnings update on 31 March 2019, analyst forecasts appear to be bearish, as a 10% fall in profits is expected in the upcoming year relative to the past 5-year average growth rate of 15%. With trailing-twelve-month net income at current levels of NZ$23m, the consensus growth rate suggests that earnings will decline to NZ$20m by 2020. I will provide a brief commentary around the figures and analyst expectations in the near term. For those interested in more of an analysis of the company, you canresearch its fundamentals here. Check out our latest analysis for Turners Automotive Group The longer term expectations from the 2 analysts of TRA is tilted towards the positive sentiment. Given that it becomes hard to forecast far into the future, broker analysts tend to project ahead roughly three years. I've plotted out each year's earnings expectations and inserted a line of best fit to calculate an annual growth rate from the slope in order to understand the overall trajectory of TRA's earnings growth over these next few years. From the current net income level of NZ$23m and the final forecast of NZ$25m by 2022, the annual rate of growth for TRA’s earnings is 3.6%. EPS reaches NZ$0.29 in the final year of forecast compared to the current NZ$0.26 EPS today. Margins are currently sitting at 6.9%, approximately the same as previous years. With analysts forecasting revenue growth of 0.11424 and TRA's net income growth expected to roughly track that, this company may add value for shareholders over time. Future outlook is only one aspect when you're building an investment case for a stock. For Turners Automotive Group, I've compiled three fundamental aspects you should look at: 1. Financial Health: Does it have a healthy balance sheet? Take a look at ourfree balance sheet analysis with six simple checkson key factors like leverage and risk. 2. Valuation: What is Turners Automotive Group worth today? Is the stock undervalued, even when its growth outlook is factored into its intrinsic value? Theintrinsic value infographic in our free research reporthelps visualize whether Turners Automotive Group is currently mispriced by the market. 3. Other High-Growth Alternatives: Are there other high-growth stocks you could be holding instead of Turners Automotive Group? Exploreour interactive list of stocks with large growth potentialto get an idea of what else is out there you may be missing! We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
How Much Are Turners Automotive Group Limited (NZSE:TRA) Insiders Taking Off The Table? Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! We often see insiders buying up shares in companies that perform well over the long term. On the other hand, we'd be remiss not to mention that insider sales have been known to precede tough periods for a business. So shareholders might well want to know whether insiders have been buying or selling shares inTurners Automotive Group Limited(NZSE:TRA). Most investors know that it is quite permissible for company leaders, such as directors of the board, to buy and sell stock on the market. However, rules govern insider transactions, and certain disclosures are required. We don't think shareholders should simply follow insider transactions. But it is perfectly logical to keep tabs on what insiders are doing. As Peter Lynch said, 'insiders might sell their shares for any number of reasons, but they buy them for only one: they think the price will rise.' See our latest analysis for Turners Automotive Group Over the last year, we can see that the biggest insider sale was by the Deputy Chairman, Paul Byrnes, for NZ$186k worth of shares, at about NZ$2.42 per share. So what is clear is that an insider saw fit to sell at around the current price of NZ$2.34. While we don't usually like to see insider selling, it's more concerning if the sales take price at a lower price. Given that the sale took place at around current prices, it makes us a little cautious but is hardly a major concern. Paul Byrnes was the only individual insider to sell over the last year. You can see a visual depiction of insider transactions (by individuals) over the last 12 months, below. By clicking on the graph below, you can see the precise details of each insider transaction! I will like Turners Automotive Group better if I see some big insider buys. While we wait, check out thisfreelist of growing companies with considerable, recent, insider buying. Another way to test the alignment between the leaders of a company and other shareholders is to look at how many shares they own. We usually like to see fairly high levels of insider ownership. Turners Automotive Group insiders own about NZ$38m worth of shares. That equates to 19% of the company. This level of insider ownership is good but just short of being particularly stand-out. It certainly does suggest a reasonable degree of alignment. An insider hasn't bought Turners Automotive Group stock in the last three months, but there was some selling. Looking to the last twelve months, our data doesn't show any insider buying. Insiders own shares, but we're still pretty cautious, given the history of sales. We're in no rush to buy! Of course,the future is what matters most. So if you are interested in Turners Automotive Group, you should check out thisfreereport on analyst forecasts for the company. But note:Turners Automotive Group may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at thisfreelist of interesting companies with high ROE and low debt. For the purposes of this article, insiders are those individuals who report their transactions to the relevant regulatory body. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
Democratic debate showed most every 2020 candidate talks like Bernie Sanders on wealth inequality Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was not among the 10 Democratic presidential hopefuls whotook the debate stagein Miami on Wednesday. But his brand of attack on the power of wealthy people and large corporations — made famous with an insurgent presidential campaign in 2016 — stood behind just about every podium. Progressive Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), a longtime ally of Sanders on the left, opened the night with a broadside against an economic system that unfairly favors the rich. Later, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio echoed the sentiment: “This is supposed to be the party of working people.” But even moderate candidates, like Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH), highlighted the economic injustice that divides haves from have nots. In all, eight of the 10 candidates voiced Sanders-style economic populism — though a sharp disagreement over “Medicare for All” showed divides in the substance behind their rhetoric. From the outset of the debate, the rich came under fire. “If billionaires can pay off their yachts, students should be able to pay off their student loans,” Klobuchar said. Former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke, who advocated for raising the corporate tax rate, said the economy “is rigged to corporations and to the very wealthiest” who “can pay for access and outcomes.” Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) added, “The American people deserve a president who will put your interests ahead of the rich and powerful.” Even Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), known for rhetoric that favors optimism over finger-pointing, said “dignity is being stripped from labor” by large companies. But he reserved his strongest criticism for thepharmaceutical and insurance industries, which he said “are profiteering off of the pain of people in America.” Exceptions to the populist stance came from former United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro and former Maryland congressman John Delaney, who described himself as “different than everyone else here on stage.” “Prior to being in Congress, I was an entrepreneur. I started two businesses,” Delaney said, suggesting he considers issues from the perspective of both working people and the business owners who employ them. Early in the two-hour debate, a divide over “Medicare for All” revealed policy differences behind the room’s populist fervor. When MSNBC host Lester Holt asked the candidates to raise their hands if they supported getting rid of private health insurance in favor of a government-run plan, only two candidates complied: Warren and de Blasio. Warren defended her position, describing the business model of insurance companies as an effort “to bring in as many dollars as they can in premiums and to pay out as few dollars as possible for your health care.” Soon afterward, O’Rourke forwarded a healthcare policy proposal that calls for a mix of publicly provisioned Medicare and privately held insurance. “If you're a member of a union that negotiated for a health care plan that you like because it works for you and your family, you're able to keep it,” he said. In one of the most contentious exchanges of the night, de Blasio then confronted O’Rourke: “Private insurance is not working for tens of millions of Americans,” de Blasio said. “When you talk about the co-pays, the deductibles, the premiums, the out-of-pocket expenses. It's not working. How can you defend a system that's not working?” “For those for whom it's not working, they can choose Medicare,” O’Rourke responded. While the Democratic field largely shares a goal of providing insurance for all Americans, the question of whether to do away with private insurers has been a sticking point for months. In January, Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA)saidin a CNN town hall that she would eliminate private insurers, but backtracked a day later, when her campaign said she would be open to more moderate plans. The candidates differ over the cost and effectiveness of competing proposals. But on Wednesday, a final attack from de Blasio on O’Rourke played into the tenor of the night, underscoring ideology rather than policy outcomes: “Why are you defending private insurance to begin with?” he asked. Ten more Democratic presidential hopefuls are set to debate in Miami on Thursday night. It is yet to be seen whether the night’s candidates, among them South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Harris, will aim verbal pitchforks at the rich. Viewers can count on Sanders-like rhetoric from at least one candidate: Sanders. Max Zahn is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Read more: • How black women could give Kamala Harris a financial boost in 2020 • Amazon's HQ2 was a showdown between a union city and a tech giant • How Donald Trump strengthened The New York Times and grew a Mexican billionaire's fortune Follow Yahoo Finance onTwitter,Facebook,Instagram,Flipboard,SmartNews,LinkedIn,YouTube, andreddit.
Turners Automotive Group Limited (NZSE:TRA) Insiders Have Been Selling Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! We've lost count of how many times insiders have accumulated shares in a company that goes on to improve markedly. The flip side of that is that there are more than a few examples of insiders dumping stock prior to a period of weak performance. So we'll take a look at whether insiders have been buying or selling shares inTurners Automotive Group Limited(NZSE:TRA). It is perfectly legal for company insiders, including board members, to buy and sell stock in a company. However, most countries require that the company discloses such transactions to the market. We don't think shareholders should simply follow insider transactions. But logic dictates you should pay some attention to whether insiders are buying or selling shares. For example, a Harvard Universitystudyfound that 'insider purchases earn abnormal returns of more than 6% per year.' See our latest analysis for Turners Automotive Group In the last twelve months, the biggest single sale by an insider was when the Deputy Chairman, Paul Byrnes, sold NZ$186k worth of shares at a price of NZ$2.42 per share. So what is clear is that an insider saw fit to sell at around the current price of NZ$2.34. While insider selling is a negative, to us, it is more negative if the shares are sold at a lower price. In this case, the big sale took place at around the current price, so it's not too bad (but it's still not a positive). The only individual insider seller over the last year was Paul Byrnes. The chart below shows insider transactions (by individuals) over the last year. By clicking on the graph below, you can see the precise details of each insider transaction! If you are like me, then you willnotwant to miss thisfreelist of growing companies that insiders are buying. Looking at the total insider shareholdings in a company can help to inform your view of whether they are well aligned with common shareholders. I reckon it's a good sign if insiders own a significant number of shares in the company. Insiders own 19% of Turners Automotive Group shares, worth about NZ$38m. We've certainly seen higher levels of insider ownership elsewhere, but these holdings are enough to suggest alignment between insiders and the other shareholders. An insider sold Turners Automotive Group shares recently, but they didn't buy any. Looking to the last twelve months, our data doesn't show any insider buying. Insiders own shares, but we're still pretty cautious, given the history of sales. So we'd only buy after careful consideration. If you are like me, you may want to think about whether this company will grow or shrink. Luckily, you can check thisfreereport showing analyst forecasts for its future. But note:Turners Automotive Group may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at thisfreelist of interesting companies with high ROE and low debt. For the purposes of this article, insiders are those individuals who report their transactions to the relevant regulatory body. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
We Tried 4 Canned Cherry Pie Fillings and This Was the Best It’s finally almost July, and that can only mean one thing: cherry pie season. Cherries are at their peak right now, and a certain American holiday on the horizon pretty much guarantees you’ll have a slice of cherry pie right before gazing at fireworks. But to new bakers, pie can be intimidating, especially when it’s filled with a finicky fruit like fresh cherries . While nothing beats homemade cherry pie , there’s no shame in using a canned filling, which leaves little margin for error. Plus, some canned pie filling is downright delicious. So we did that thing we do: We bought every brand of cherry pie filling we could find and baked pies using the same crust for each one. Then we held a blind pie tasting, pitting the fillings against one another. Here’s what everyone thought. Get the recipe: Stars-and-Stripes Cherry Pie The Contenders Duncan Hines Comstock Original Country Cherry Pie Filling & Topping Duncan Hines Along with Betty Crocker and Pillsbury, Duncan Hines has a monopoly on the baking market. They have 12 different varieties of cherry pie filling, and our local Publix didn’t even carry them all, so we went with the option that looked the best. Perhaps we made the wrong choice. Comstock Country Cherry was way too sweet, with a goopy, gelatinous texture, and definitely not what we’d expect out of a brand that makes pretty good box mix . In the words of Tyra Banks, “we were all rooting for you. How dare you?” Solo Cherry Cake & Pastry Filling Walmart When I dumped Solo’s cherry filling into a pie crust, it stood out. The cherries in this filling were pureed instead of bulbous balls, so I hypothesized that the Solo pie would have a distinct flavor. Well, that’s not the only thing the pureed cherries affected. This pie was super sweet, but also thick and sticky like the filling inside a Pop-Tart. One taster noted that it tasted “like canned filling with sugar added on top,” which was, in this case, a compliment. Lucky Leaf Cherry Fruit Filling & Topping Walmart Unlike the first two, Lucky Leaf's filling had a key component of quintessential cherry pie: tartness. This filling had a nice mixture of tart and sweet flavors, but it wasn’t tangy enough to secure the top spot. One taster also noted that this filling had an artificial, metallic aftertaste. Story continues The Unanimous Winner: Market Pantry Cherry Pie Filling & Topping Target Market Pantry, better known as Target’s in-house brand, was the only pie filling that didn’t get any negative responses. (Interestingly enough, Market Pantry also won our chocolate chip taste test , so clearly they’re doing something right.) Our Market Pantry pie had a great tartness and wasn’t overly sweet like the other brands. The cherries tasted and felt real, and the filling’s texture was much more enjoyable. If you prefer less tartness, then Lucky Leaf is probably the way to go. But if you’re looking for a cherry pie filling that’s both tangy and flavorful, then it’s time for a Target run.
State Street pays $94.3 million to settle U.S., state charges over hidden fund markups By Jonathan Stempel (Reuters) - State Street Corp agreed to pay $94.3 million to settle federal and state regulatory charges it routinely overcharged mutual fund customers and other clients over roughly 17 years by adding hidden markups on back-office expenses. Thursday's settlements with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey resolve allegations that State Street overbilled clients by more than $170 million related to its custody of their assets. The SEC said roughly 5,000 clients incurred more than $110 million of the overcharges when State Street tacked on markups for sending messages through SWIFT, a secured international payments network used by banks and other financial companies. "Fund expenses make a big difference to mutual fund investors and advisers," Paul Levenson, director of the SEC office in Boston, said in a statement. "They have a right to receive honest information about what they're paying for." State Street will pay a $40 million civil fine plus $48.8 million of disgorgement and interest in the SEC settlement, and a $5.5 million civil fine to Massachusetts. It did not admit or deny wrongdoing, and was credited by the SEC for disclosing its conduct and cooperating. State Street previously set aside money to cover both settlements. "We regret these invoicing errors and the impact on our clients," State Street said in a statement. State Street is one of the world's largest custodial banks, which provide services such as accounting, asset valuations, currency trading, portfolio servicing and stock lending. The Boston-based company had $32.6 trillion of assets under custody and administration as of March 31, as well as $2.81 trillion of assets under management. State Street said it began reviewing customer invoices in 2015, and has since reimbursed most customers affected by the overcharges, while also improving its billing processes. It has said it was cooperating with probes by the U.S. Department of Justice's civil and criminal divisions into its invoicing, which Thursday's settlements do not cover. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In July 2016, State Street agreed to pay $530 million to settle regulatory probes and private lawsuits claiming it overcharged clients on foreign currency transactions. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Additional reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Editing by G Crosse and Lisa Shumaker)
Does Cathay General Bancorp's (NASDAQ:CATY) CEO Salary Compare Well With Others? Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Pin Tai has been the CEO of Cathay General Bancorp (NASDAQ:CATY) since 2016. This report will, first, examine the CEO compensation levels in comparison to CEO compensation at companies of similar size. Then we'll look at a snap shot of the business growth. And finally - as a second measure of performance - we will look at the returns shareholders have received over the last few years. This process should give us an idea about how appropriately the CEO is paid. Check out our latest analysis for Cathay General Bancorp Our data indicates that Cathay General Bancorp is worth US$2.8b, and total annual CEO compensation is US$2.3m. (This number is for the twelve months until December 2018). That's below the compensation, last year. While we always look at total compensation first, we note that the salary component is less, at US$784k. We looked at a group of companies with market capitalizations from US$2.0b to US$6.4b, and the median CEO total compensation was US$5.2m. Most shareholders would consider it a positive that Pin Tai takes less total compensation than the CEOs of most similar size companies, leaving more for shareholders. Though positive, it's important we delve into the performance of the actual business. You can see, below, how CEO compensation at Cathay General Bancorp has changed over time. Over the last three years Cathay General Bancorp has grown its earnings per share (EPS) by an average of 16% per year (using a line of best fit). Its revenue is up 12% over last year. Overall this is a positive result for shareholders, showing that the company has improved in recent years. It's a real positive to see this sort of growth in a single year. That suggests a healthy and growing business. You might want to checkthis free visual report onanalyst forecastsfor future earnings. Boasting a total shareholder return of 36% over three years, Cathay General Bancorp has done well by shareholders. As a result, some may believe the CEO should be paid more than is normal for companies of similar size. Cathay General Bancorp is currently paying its CEO below what is normal for companies of its size. Since the business is growing, many would argue this suggests the pay is modest. And given most shareholders are probably very happy with recent returns, you might even think that Pin Tai deserves a raise! It's not often we see shareholders do so well, and yet the CEO is paid modestly. But it is even better if company insiders arealsobuying shares with their own money. Whatever your view on compensation, you might want tocheck if insiders are buying or selling Cathay General Bancorp shares (free trial). If you want to buy a stock that is better than Cathay General Bancorp, thisfreelist of high return, low debt companies is a great place to look. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
Two River Bancorp (NASDAQ:TRCB) Shareholders Booked A 76% Gain In The Last Five Years Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Stock pickers are generally looking for stocks that will outperform the broader market. And while active stock picking involves risks (and requires diversification) it can also provide excess returns. To wit, the Two River Bancorp share price has climbed 76% in five years, easily topping the market return of 38% (ignoring dividends). See our latest analysis for Two River Bancorp There is no denying that markets are sometimes efficient, but prices do not always reflect underlying business performance. By comparing earnings per share (EPS) and share price changes over time, we can get a feel for how investor attitudes to a company have morphed over time. Over half a decade, Two River Bancorp managed to grow its earnings per share at 16% a year. This EPS growth is higher than the 12% average annual increase in the share price. So one could conclude that the broader market has become more cautious towards the stock. This cautious sentiment is reflected in its (fairly low) P/E ratio of 10.80. The image below shows how EPS has tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail). We like that insiders have been buying shares in the last twelve months. Having said that, most people consider earnings and revenue growth trends to be a more meaningful guide to the business. It might be well worthwhile taking a look at ourfreereport on Two River Bancorp's earnings, revenue and cash flow. It is important to consider the total shareholder return, as well as the share price return, for any given stock. The TSR incorporates the value of any spin-offs or discounted capital raisings, along with any dividends, based on the assumption that the dividends are reinvested. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. As it happens, Two River Bancorp's TSR for the last 5 years was 88%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. And there's no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence! While the broader market gained around 6.9% in the last year, Two River Bancorp shareholders lost 24% (even including dividends). Even the share prices of good stocks drop sometimes, but we want to see improvements in the fundamental metrics of a business, before getting too interested. Longer term investors wouldn't be so upset, since they would have made 13%, each year, over five years. If the fundamental data continues to indicate long term sustainable growth, the current sell-off could be an opportunity worth considering. Investors who like to make money usually check up on insider purchases, such as the price paid, and total amount bought.You can find out about the insider purchases of Two River Bancorp by clicking this link. There are plenty of other companies that have insiders buying up shares. You probably donotwant to miss thisfreelist of growing companies that insiders are buying. Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on US exchanges. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
UPDATE 2-Mexico central bank holds rates steady but board splits (Adds details from statement) By Dave Graham MEXICO CITY, June 27 (Reuters) - Mexico's central bank held its benchmark interest rate steady on Thursday, as expected, although as worries over the economy grew, the board was not united in its decision for the first time since two new members joined at the start of 2019. In a statement, the Bank of Mexico (Banxico) said one member had voted to lower borrowing costs by 25 basis points, while the remainder of the five-strong board opted to hold the overnight interbank rate unchanged at 8.25%. The split decision hinted the new government was starting to leave a mark on monetary policy, after Carlos Urzua, now finance minister, expressed a desire for new "blood" at the bank during last year's presidential election campaign, which leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador won by a landslide. All 16 analysts and economists surveyed in a Reuters poll had forecast that Banxico would keep its key lending rate at 8.25%, the level it has been at since Dec. 20. The bank said some inflationary risks had increased and some had diminished since its last monetary policy meeting on May 16, and it struck a downbeat note on the outlook for the economy. "The balance of risks for growth has become more uncertain and the downward bias has increased," the bank said. Some analysts saw the latest monetary policy decision as evidence the bank was getting closer to cutting interest rates, which are at their highest since 2008. "We wouldn't (overplay) this but, combined with a less hawkish accompanying statement, it does suggest that Banxico is inching closer to easing," analysts at Capital Economics wrote in a note, noting that investors' expectations for monetary easing over the next 12-18 months had risen "dramatically". "That comes on the back of weaker-than-expected growth so far this year, but also expectations for larger U.S. rate cuts." Other analysts were more skeptical. The bank did not say which board member had voted against holding rates steady, though minutes from the last monetary policy meeting offered a potential clue. During that session, one new board member, Gerardo Esquivel, dissented on the tone of the policy statement, calling it too hawkish and worrying that the bank's language was fueling higher inflation expectations, the minutes showed. Esquivel, who had been tapped as deputy finance minister in the Lopez Obrador administration before moving to the bank at short notice, voted to hold rates steady in May. He and Jonathan Heath, a well-known private economist who was previously chief economist for HSBC bank in Mexico, were ratified to serve on the bank's board in January. Alfredo Coutino, an economist at Moody's Analytics, said even though inflation eased to 4.0% in the first half of June, core inflation was rising and conditions did not look favorable for the bank to be cutting rates soon. "The central bank should not be in a hurry to lower rates because it doesn't have enough justification to do so," Coutino wrote in a research note. (Reporting by Dave Graham; additional reporting by Frank Jack Daniel; editing by Lisa Shumaker and James Dalgleish)
DMZ Diplomacy? Trump Invites Kim to Border Rendezvous President Donald Trump issued a Twitter invitation Saturday to North Korea’s Kim Jong Un to meet for a handshake at the demilitarized zone that separates the North and South, and expressed a willingness to cross the border for what would be a history-making photo opportunity. The invitation, while long rumored in diplomatic circles, still came across as an impulsive display of showmanship by a president bent on obtaining a legacy-defining nuclear deal. North Korea responded by calling the offer a “very interesting suggestion.” Presidential visits to the DMZ are traditionally carefully guarded secrets for security reasons. White House officials couldn’t immediately say whether Kim had agreed to meet with Trump. The president himself claimed he wasn’t even sure Kim was in North Korea to accept the invitation. “All I did is put out a feeler, if you’d like to meet,” Trump said later of the message to Kim. He added, somewhat implausibly: “I just thought of it this morning.” Later, after arriving in South Korea from a conference in Japan of world leaders, Trump offered no further insight into his planned trip to the heavily fortified border. “It will be very interesting,” he said. While in Japan, Trump said at a news conference that he was “literally visiting the DMZ,” but wasn’t sure whether Kim would meet him. Trump said he’d “feel very comfortable” crossing the border into North Korea if Kim showed up, saying he’d “have no problem” becoming the first U.S. president to step into North Korea. His comments followed hours after Trump asked for Kim to meet him there. “If Chairman Kim of North Korea sees this, I would meet him at the Border/DMZ just to shake his hand and say Hello(?)!” he wrote. It was not immediately clear what the agenda, if any, would be for the potential third Trump-Kim meeting. “If he’s there we’ll see each other for two minutes,” Trump predicted. Such a spectacle would present a valuable propaganda victory for Kim, who, with his family, has long been denied the recognition they sought on the international stage. Despite Trump’s comments Saturday, he had told The Hill newspaper in Washington in an interview this past week that he would be visiting the DMZ and “might” meet with Kim. The paper reported it had withheld Trump’s comments, citing security concerns by the White House. North Korea’s first vice foreign minister, Choe Son Hui, said the meeting, if realized, would serve as “another meaningful occasion in further deepening the personal relations between the two leaders and advancing the bilateral relations.” South Korea’s presidential Blue House said in a tweet that Trump asked South Korean President Moon Jae-in at the Group of 20 meetings whether he’d seen Trump’s Twitter message to Kim. When Moon replied he had, Trump said “(Let’s) try doing it” and raised his thumb, the Blue House said. Trump’s summit with Kim in Vietnam earlier this year collapsed without an agreement for denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula. He became the first sitting U.S. president to meet with the leader of the isolated nation last year, when they signed an agreement in Singapore to bring the North toward denuclearization. Substantive talks between the nations have largely broken down since then. The North has balked at Trump’s insistence that it give up its weapons before it sees relief from crushing international sanctions. Still, Trump has sought to praise Kim, who oversees an authoritarian government, in hopes of keeping the prospects of a deal alive, and the two have traded flowery letters in recent weeks. Every president since Ronald Reagan has visited the 1953 armistice line, except for George H.W. Bush, who visited when he was vice president. The show of bravado and support for South Korea, one of America’s closest military allies, has evolved over the years to include binoculars and bomber jackets. Trump, ever the showman, appears to be looking to one-up his predecessors with a Kim meeting. As he left the White House for Asia earlier this week, Trump was asked whether he’d meet with Kim. “I’ll be meeting with a lot of other people … but I may be speaking to him in a different form,” Trump said. Such trips to the demilitarized zone are usually undertaken under heavy security and the utmost secrecy. Trump tried to visit the DMZ when he was in Seoul in November 2017, but his helicopter was grounded by heavy fog. Trump has staked his self-professed deal-making reputation on his rapprochement with the North and has even turned it into a campaign rallying cry. Trump has repeatedly alleged that if he had lost the 2016 presidential campaign, the U.S. would be “at war” with North Korea over its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. The meeting would come at a time of escalating tensions. While North Korea has not recently tested a long-range missile that could reach the U.S., last month it fired off a series of short-range missiles. Trump has brushed off the significance of the tests, even as his own national security adviser, John Bolton, has said they violated U.N. Security Council resolutions. Trump also suggested Saturday that the North was prepared to turn over additional unidentified remains of unknown American and allied service-members. At least six Americans have been identified from 55 boxes of remains delivered by the North last year after Trump’s first meeting with Kim, but the Defense Department announced in May that it was halting efforts to recover additional remains, citing lack of cooperation from North Korea. — A fear at the G20 summit: that theU.S.-China trade warturns into a currency conflict —Trade war be damned,Apple is moving its Mac Pro production to China —What the2020 Democratic candidates didn’t sayduring the second debate —Harris has a strong showing, stuns Biden on night 2 of Democratic debate —Fact-checkingclaims from night 1 of the Democratic debate —Fact-checkingclaims from night 2 of the Democratic debate
Illegal Dog Slaughterhouse Shutdown in China Days After Notorious Yulin Festival Days after the end of China’s Yulin Dog Meat Festival , authorities in Dalian, China, shut down an illegal dog slaughterhouse, saving the lives of seven dogs, according to Humane Society International (HSI). The bust came after a tip from an outraged citizen, the organization reports. Among the dogs rescued were German shepherds, golden retrievers, and a Rottweiler. The slaughterhouse owner surrendered the dogs to the organization, Vshine, a partner of the Humane Society International, who provided veterinary assistance to the dogs at their shelter. The rescued dogs are currently at Vshine’s animal shelter, where they will continue to receive veterinary care, according to HSI. Vshine/HSUS “We are very proud that in Dalian you will rarely find a restaurant serving dog meat, and generally citizens here care very much about their dogs and cats,” said Dezhi Yu of Vshine in a statement obtained by PEOPLE. “So when we received a call about this new slaughterhouse, we and the law enforcement officers acted immediately to shut it down. Whenever anyone dares to open such a cruel business here, they are very quickly reported and the police take immediate action. If all police across China were as active as Dalian police, we could crack down on the cruel dog and cat meat trade almost overnight.” RELATED: The World’s Cutest Rescue Dog Contest is Here to Turn Your Dog Into a Superstar One of the dogs was reported to have been wearing a pet collar, leading authorities to suspect that the animals were former guard or farm dogs that had been stolen or purchased from their previous owners. “Most people in China don’t eat dogs, but the city of Dalian is particularly progressive on animal welfare, and a shining example of what the whole of China could achieve if animal protection were taken more seriously,” said Dr. Peter Li, Humane Society International’s China policy expert. “The dog meat trade is not welcome in Dalian, with the local police and animal activists using China’s food safety laws to eliminate this cruelty in the absence of any animal protection legislation. If all Chinese police acted the same, we could have a massive impact on the dog and cat meat trade. If China went further and introduced a robust animal cruelty law, we could eradicate the trade very quickly.” Story continues Vshine/HSUS RELATED: Large South Korea Dog Meat Market to Shut Down: It’s ‘a Sign of More Compassionate Times’ An estimated 10 million dogs a year are killed in China’s dog meat trade, according to HSI. The organization says thieves snatch the dogs and cats right off of the streets, as well as from people’s backyards. According to a 2016 survey commissioned by the China Animal Welfare Association and Humane Society International, about 52 percent of Chinese citizens believe the dog meat trade should be banned, 64 percent want the Yulin festival ended for good, and nearly 70 percent have never tried dog meat.
Is Casa Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CASA) A High Quality Stock To Own? Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Many investors are still learning about the various metrics that can be useful when analysing a stock. This article is for those who would like to learn about Return On Equity (ROE). We'll use ROE to examine Casa Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CASA), by way of a worked example. Casa Systems has a ROE of 61%, based on the last twelve months. One way to conceptualize this, is that for each $1 of shareholders' equity it has, the company made $0.61 in profit. Check out our latest analysis for Casa Systems Theformula for ROEis: Return on Equity = Net Profit ÷ Shareholders' Equity Or for Casa Systems: 61% = US$40m ÷ US$65m (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2019.) Most know that net profit is the total earnings after all expenses, but the concept of shareholders' equity is a little more complicated. It is all the money paid into the company from shareholders, plus any earnings retained. The easiest way to calculate shareholders' equity is to subtract the company's total liabilities from the total assets. Return on Equity measures a company's profitability against the profit it has kept for the business (plus any capital injections). The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. That means that the higher the ROE, the more profitable the company is. So, all else being equal,a high ROE is better than a low one. That means ROE can be used to compare two businesses. Arguably the easiest way to assess company's ROE is to compare it with the average in its industry. However, this method is only useful as a rough check, because companies do differ quite a bit within the same industry classification. Pleasingly, Casa Systems has a superior ROE than the average (8.6%) company in the Communications industry. That is a good sign. I usually take a closer look when a company has a better ROE than industry peers. For example,I often check if insiders have been buying shares. Companies usually need to invest money to grow their profits. The cash for investment can come from prior year profits (retained earnings), issuing new shares, or borrowing. In the first two cases, the ROE will capture this use of capital to grow. In the latter case, the debt required for growth will boost returns, but will not impact the shareholders' equity. In this manner the use of debt will boost ROE, even though the core economics of the business stay the same. It appears that Casa Systems makes extensive use of debt to improve its returns, because it has a relatively high debt to equity ratio of 4.51. Its ROE is clearly quite good, but it would probably be significantly lower without all the debt. Return on equity is one way we can compare the business quality of different companies. In my book the highest quality companies have high return on equity, despite low debt. If two companies have the same ROE, then I would generally prefer the one with less debt. Having said that, while ROE is a useful indicator of business quality, you'll have to look at a whole range of factors to determine the right price to buy a stock. The rate at which profits are likely to grow, relative to the expectations of profit growth reflected in the current price, must be considered, too. So you might want to check this FREEvisualization of analyst forecasts for the company. Of courseCasa Systems may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see thisfreecollection of other companies that have high ROE and low debt. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
Democratic Presidential Contenders Debate the Future of Health Care Democratic Party presidential hopefuls wrangled over health care policy during this week’s two-night debate, discussing whether to build upon the current system or blow it up and replace it with a government-run program. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio led the charge for scrapping private insurance in favor of “Medicare for All” — a proposal that would let all Americans join the government-sponsored program currently reserved for the elderly and a few select groups. Speaking on the first night of the debate, Warren said that one of the biggest reasons families go broke is because of medical bills, even among those who have health insurance. Since insurers are in business to make money, she said, consumers must often fight for the coverage they need. Instead, she said she supported Medicare for All. Sanders defended the idea on the second night of the debate, though he also admitted that while Americans would pay no premiums and have lower healthcare costs under his version of the plan, they would also pay more in taxes. Former Vice President Joe Biden pushed back on Medicare for All, however, instead voicing support for preserving the Affordable Care Act (ACA) — also known as “Obamacare” — the healthcare reform law enacted in 2010 when he served under President Barack Obama. Taking part in the second night of the debate, Biden said that the fastest way to ensure that all Americans had access to healthcare is “to build on what we did.” Likewise, former congressman John Delaney said that parts of the current system are working and that the Democrats should be the “party that keeps what’s working, and fixes what’s broken.” Many candidates endorsed a combination of public and private options. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, for example, said that a government-sponsored plan would create healthy competition in the insurance market, while Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota urged against forcing Americans to get kicked off their insurance plans if they didn’t want to be. South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg cautioned that those advocating for “Medicare for All” must explain how the country will pay for it, as well as how the U.S. transitions from the current system to that one. He said he was in favor of expanding access to Medicare while continuing to have a private insurance sector. “I would call it Medicare for all who want it,” he said. One thing the candidates did seem to agree on was that healthcare is a basic right for everyone. Sen. Kamala Harris of California pointed out how the average American struggles under the current insurance system with deductibles they can’t afford to pay. Several candidates also described their personal experiences with healthcare. Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado recounted his recent bout with prostate cancer; Biden talked about the role of the healthcare system when his son Beau was diagnosed with brain cancer; and Buttigieg discussed his experience seeing Medicare work when his late father was ill. The two-day event at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami marked the first debate in the race for the Democratic Party nomination. On Wednesday, 10 candidates took part, including former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.), former housing secretary Julián Castro, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii) and Rep. Tim Ryan (Ohio), along with de Blasio, Delaney, Klobuchar and Warren. They were followed on Thursday night by former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, Rep. Eric Swalwell (Calif.), author Marianne Williamson and entrepreneur Andrew Yang, as well as Bennet, Biden, Buttigieg, Gillibrand, Harris and Sanders.
Iran seizes 1,000 bitcoin mining machines using subsidized power DUBAI (Reuters) - Iranian authorities have seized about 1,000 bitcoin mining machines in two abandoned factories, state television reported, after warnings that the activity had led to a spike in consumption of government-subsidized electricity. "Two of these bitcoin farms have been identified, with a consumption of one megawatt," Arash Navab, a power official in the central province of Yazd, told the television. The machines, which produce cryptocurrencies that are banned in Iran, were mostly to blame for a 7% increase in power consumption in the month to June 21, according to an Energy Ministry spokesman, quoted by the website of state-run Press TV. In 2018, Iran's central bank banned the country's banks from dealing in cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, over money-laundering concerns. (Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)
Does Targa Resources Corp. (NYSE:TRGP) Have A Place In Your Dividend Stock Portfolio? Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Dividend paying stocks like Targa Resources Corp. (NYSE:TRGP) tend to be popular with investors, and for good reason - some research suggests a significant amount of all stock market returns come from reinvested dividends. If you are hoping to live on your dividends, it's important to be more stringent with your investments than the average punter. Regular readers know we like to apply the same approach to each dividend stock, and we hope you'll find our analysis useful. With a eight-year payment history and a 9.5% yield, many investors probably find Targa Resources intriguing. It sure looks interesting on these metrics - but there's always more to the story . Some simple analysis can reduce the risk of holding Targa Resources for its dividend, and we'll focus on the most important aspects below. Click the interactive chart for our full dividend analysis Dividends are usually paid out of company earnings. If a company is paying more than it earns, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. So we need to form a view on if a company's dividend is sustainable, relative to its net profit after tax. Although it reported a loss over the past 12 months, Targa Resources currently pays a dividend. When a company is loss-making, we next need to check to see if its cash flows can support the dividend. Last year, Targa Resources paid a dividend while reporting negative free cash flow. While there may be an explanation, we think this behaviour is generally not sustainable. Given Targa Resources is paying a dividend but reported a loss over the past year, we need to check its balance sheet for signs of financial distress. A rough way to check this is with these two simple ratios: a) net debt divided by EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation), and b) net interest cover. Net debt to EBITDA is a measure of a company's total debt. Net interest cover measures the ability to meet interest payments. Essentially we check that a) the company does not have too much debt, and b) that it can afford to pay the interest. Targa Resources has net debt of 5.71 times its EBITDA, which implies meaningful risk if interest rates rise of earnings decline. Net interest cover can be calculated by dividing earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) by the company's net interest expense. With EBIT of 1.53 times its interest expense, Targa Resources's interest cover is starting to look a bit thin. High debt and weak interest cover are not a great combo, and we would be cautious of relying on this company's dividend while these metrics persist. Consider gettingour latest analysis on Targa Resources's financial position here. Before buying a stock for its income, we want to see if the dividends have been stable in the past, and if the company has a track record of maintaining its dividend. Looking at the last decade of data, we can see that Targa Resources paid its first dividend at least eight years ago. The company has been paying a stable dividend for a while now, which is great. However we'd prefer to see consistency for a few more years before giving it our full seal of approval. During the past eight-year period, the first annual payment was US$1.03 in 2011, compared to US$3.64 last year. This works out to be a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 17% a year over that time. Targa Resources has been growing its dividend quite rapidly, which is exciting. However, the short payment history makes us question whether this performance will persist across a full market cycle. Examining whether the dividend is affordable and stable is important. However, it's also important to assess if earnings per share (EPS) are growing. Growing EPS can help maintain or increase the purchasing power of the dividend over the long run. In the last five years, Targa Resources's earnings per share have shrunk at approximately 46% per annum. If earnings continue to decline, the dividend may come under pressure. Every investor should make an assessment of whether the company is taking steps to stabilise the situation. We'd also point out that Targa Resources issued a meaningful number of new shares in the past year. Trying to grow the dividend when issuing new shares reminds us of the ancient Greek tale of Sisyphus - perpetually pushing a boulder uphill. Companies that consistently issue new shares are often suboptimal from a dividend perspective. When we look at a dividend stock, we need to form a judgement on whether the dividend will grow, if the company is able to maintain it in a wide range of economic circumstances, and if the dividend payout is sustainable. Targa Resources's dividend is not well covered by free cash flow, plus it paid a dividend while being unprofitable. Earnings per share are down, and to our mind Targa Resources has not been paying a dividend long enough to demonstrate its resilience across economic cycles. Using these criteria, Targa Resources looks quite suboptimal from a dividend investment perspective. Without at least some growth in earnings per share over time, the dividend will eventually come under pressure either from costs or inflation. Businesses can change though, and we think it would make sense to see whatanalysts are forecasting for the company. We have also put together alist of global stocks with a market capitalisation above $1bn and yielding more 3%. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
Lakers clear max cap space to pursue third star The Los Angeles Lakers got their max cap space after all. The Lakers convinced Anthony Davis to waive his $4 million trade bonus in addition to dealing Moe Wagner, Jemerrio Jones, Isaac Bonga and a 2022 second-round pick to the Washington Wizards, according to multiple reports . The move clears $32 million in cap space, enough to sign a max player with up to six years of experience or just shy of the projected $32.7 million max for a player with 7-9 years in the NBA. That opens the door for the Lakers to extend a max offer sheet to restricted free agent D’Angelo Russell or recruit any of the other top-tier available players not named Kevin Durant, including Kawhi Leonard, Kyrie Irving and Jimmy Butler. The Lakers could also use the cap space to pursue multiple free agents to fill out a 12-man roster that now features only Davis, LeBron James and Kyle Kuzma. In that scenario, they would target Danny Green, Terrence Ross and Seth Curry, among others, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, Zach Lowe and Bobby Marks. Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka found a taker for his salary cap scraps. (Getty Images) The trade with Washington is part of the deal for Davis that already includes the New Orleans Pelicans, Atlanta Hawks, Philadelphia 76ers and Detroit Pistons: Lakers get: Davis. Pelicans get: Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball, Josh Hart, Jaxson Hayes, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Marcos Louzada Silva, a heavily protected 2020 first-round pick from the Cleveland Cavaliers (via Atlanta), either a top-eight pick from the Lakers in 2021 or their unprotected pick in 2022, first-round pick swap rights with the Lakers in 2023 and an unprotected 2024 first-round pick that can be deferred to 2025. Hawks get: De’Andre Hunter, Bruno Fernando, Solomon Hill and a future second-round pick from the Pelicans. 76ers get: The Pistons’ 2024 second-round pick and two future second-round picks from the Hawks. Pistons get: Jordan Bone. Wizards get: Wagner, Jones, Bonga and the Lakers’ 2022 second-round pick. Washington also has to send out something by league rules, although that could be cash, the rights to a player who will never see the NBA or a heavily protected second-round pick. The No. 57 pick in this month’s draft, which became Bone, has changed hands three times since the Lakers and Pelicans agreed to the Davis trade two weeks ago. It went from the Pelicans to the Hawks to the 76ers to the Pistons on draft night, all tied to the No. 4 overall pick that went from L.A. to New Orleans. Story continues None of this will be completed until July 6, when the league office opens after a weeklong moratorium on official business. Free agency opens on Sunday at 6 p.m., at which point the NBA will have set the salary cap for the 2019-20 season. The $32.7 million max figure is based on 30 percent of a projected $109 million salary cap, and that number could shift higher or lower come this weekend. For example, the 2017-18 salary cap came in $5 million lower than the league’s projections. There was some question as to whether the Lakers could get to $32 million in cap space after agreeing to the Davis deal. Separate ESPN reports suggested that Davis did not intend to relinquish his trade bonus and Pelinka did not prioritize cap space in his initial conversations with the Pelicans. The Lakers GM reportedly called New Orleans back after the initial agreement in an attempt to salvage enough room for a third star. New Orleans was open to amending the deal to include another team if Pelinka could find a taker for the last few extraneous players on his roster. Pelinka found that taker in the Wizards, who landed Wagner — a promising 2018 first-round pick who they reportedly had interest in drafting a year ago — and whose basketball operations are currently being run by an interim general manager. It’s been a wild couple of weeks, folks, and it’s just getting started. – – – – – – – Ben Rohrbach is a staff writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at rohrbach_ben@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @brohrbach More from Yahoo Sports: USWNT needs Alex Morgan to step up vs. France Rapinoe stands ground in cross-Atlantic Trump spat Report: Celtics are the favorite to land Walker Sources: Hill meets with NFL over child abuse charges
Cumulus Media To Sell WABC To Red Apple Media For $12.5M Cumulus Media(NASDAQ:CMLS) hasentered into an agreementto sell WABC in New York City to Red Apple Media for $12.5 million in cash. Under the terms of the agreement, Red Apple will take responsibility for programming WABC immediately following the close of the sale. "Today's agreement with Red Apple is yet another step in the execution of our portfolio optimization priority to drive Cumulus's long-term success,” said Mary Berner, CEO of Cumulus Media. “Consistent with our financial goals, we intend to use the sale's net cash proceeds to pay down debt and invest in the Company to better serve our 250 million listeners and the advertisers who want to reach them. We are also pleased that WABC's excellent team will work with Red Apple following the transaction's close to continue building this iconic station's legacy." Cumulus Media shares traded higher by 2.3% at $17.56 on Thursday afternoon. Related Links: Accenture Ticks Lower Despite Q3 Earnings Beat McCormick Reports Mixed Q2 Earnings See more from Benzinga • Apogee Trades Higher On Q1 Earnings Beat • Peak Resorts Trades Higher On Positive Q4 Earnings • Patterson Falls After Mixed Q4 Earnings © 2019 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Is Targa Resources Corp.'s (NYSE:TRGP) 9.5% Dividend Sustainable? Want to participate in a short research study ? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Dividend paying stocks like Targa Resources Corp. ( NYSE:TRGP ) tend to be popular with investors, and for good reason - some research suggests a significant amount of all stock market returns come from reinvested dividends. If you are hoping to live on your dividends, it's important to be more stringent with your investments than the average punter. Regular readers know we like to apply the same approach to each dividend stock, and we hope you'll find our analysis useful. With a eight-year payment history and a 9.5% yield, many investors probably find Targa Resources intriguing. It sure looks interesting on these metrics - but there's always more to the story . Some simple analysis can offer a lot of insights when buying a company for its dividend, and we'll go through this below. Click the interactive chart for our full dividend analysis NYSE:TRGP Historical Dividend Yield, June 27th 2019 Payout ratios Dividends are typically paid from company earnings. If a company pays more in dividends than it earned, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. Comparing dividend payments to a company's net profit after tax is a simple way of reality-checking whether a dividend is sustainable. Although Targa Resources pays a dividend, it was loss-making during the past year. When a company is loss-making, we next need to check to see if its cash flows can support the dividend. Last year, Targa Resources paid a dividend while reporting negative free cash flow. While there may be an explanation, we think this behaviour is generally not sustainable. Is Targa Resources's Balance Sheet Risky? Given Targa Resources is paying a dividend but reported a loss over the past year, we need to check its balance sheet for signs of financial distress. A rough way to check this is with these two simple ratios: a) net debt divided by EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation), and b) net interest cover. Net debt to EBITDA measures total debt load relative to company earnings (lower = less debt), while net interest cover measures the ability to pay interest on the debt (higher = greater ability to pay interest costs). With net debt of 5.71 times its EBITDA, Targa Resources could be described as a highly leveraged company. While some companies can handle this level of leverage, we'd be concerned about the dividend sustainability if there was any risk of an earnings downturn. Story continues Net interest cover can be calculated by dividing earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) by the company's net interest expense. With EBIT of 1.53 times its interest expense, Targa Resources's interest cover is starting to look a bit thin. High debt and weak interest cover are not a great combo, and we would be cautious of relying on this company's dividend while these metrics persist. Consider getting our latest analysis on Targa Resources's financial position here. Dividend Volatility Before buying a stock for its income, we want to see if the dividends have been stable in the past, and if the company has a track record of maintaining its dividend. Looking at the last decade of data, we can see that Targa Resources paid its first dividend at least eight years ago. Its dividend has not fluctuated much that time, which we like, but we're conscious that the company might not yet have a track record of maintaining dividends in all economic conditions. During the past eight-year period, the first annual payment was US$1.03 in 2011, compared to US$3.64 last year. Dividends per share have grown at approximately 17% per year over this time. We're not overly excited about the relatively short history of dividend payments, however the dividend is growing at a nice rate and we might take a closer look. Dividend Growth Potential Examining whether the dividend is affordable and stable is important. However, it's also important to assess if earnings per share (EPS) are growing. Growing EPS can help maintain or increase the purchasing power of the dividend over the long run. Over the past five years, it looks as though Targa Resources's EPS have declined at around 46% a year. Declining earnings per share over a number of years is not a great sign for the dividend investor. Without some improvement, this does not bode well for the long term value of a company's dividend. We'd also point out that Targa Resources issued a meaningful number of new shares in the past year. Trying to grow the dividend when issuing new shares reminds us of the ancient Greek tale of Sisyphus - perpetually pushing a boulder uphill. Companies that consistently issue new shares are often suboptimal from a dividend perspective. Conclusion To summarise, shareholders should always check that Targa Resources's dividends are affordable, that its dividend payments are relatively stable, and that it has decent prospects for growing its earnings and dividend. We're a bit uncomfortable with Targa Resources paying a dividend while loss-making, especially since the dividend was also not well covered by free cash flow. Second, earnings per share have been in decline, and the dividend history is shorter than we'd like. There are a few too many issues for us to get comfortable with Targa Resources from a dividend perspective. Businesses can change, but we would struggle to identify why an investor should rely on this stock for their income. Without at least some growth in earnings per share over time, the dividend will eventually come under pressure either from costs or inflation. Very few businesses see earnings consistently shrink year after year in perpetuity though, and so it might be worth seeing what the 8 analysts we track are forecasting for the future. Looking for more high-yielding dividend ideas? Try our curated list of dividend stocks with a yield above 3%. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com . This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
Hedge Funds Piled Into This Stock Right Before Its 40% Ascend We at Insider Monkey have gone over 738 13F filings that hedge funds and prominent investors are required to file by the SEC The 13F filings show the funds' and investors' portfolio positions as of March 31st. In this article, we look at what those funds think of Control4 Corp (NASDAQ:CTRL) based on that data. Control4 Corp (NASDAQ:CTRL)was in 17 hedge funds' portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2019. CTRL investors should be aware of an increase in enthusiasm from smart money recently. There were 12 hedge funds in our database with CTRL positions at the end of the previous quarter. Overall hedge fund sentiment towards this small-cap stock is at its all time high. This is usually a very bullish signal. We observed this in other stocks like Roku, Uniqure,Avalara, Lindblad Expeditions, andDisney.Roku returnedreturned 45%,Uniqure and Avalara delivereda 30% gain each, andDisney outperformedthe market by 23 percentage points in Q2. Lindblad Expedition investorsexperienceda relatively modest 15.2% gain during the same period. In the 21st century investor’s toolkit there are several gauges stock market investors put to use to analyze their holdings. A duo of the less utilized gauges are hedge fund and insider trading signals. Our researchers have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the best fund managers can beat the S&P 500 by a very impressive margin (see the details here). We're going to go over the new hedge fund action regarding Control4 Corp (NASDAQ:CTRL). At Q1's end, a total of 17 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 42% from the previous quarter. By comparison, 11 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in CTRL a year ago. So, let's review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves. According to Insider Monkey's hedge fund database,Renaissance Technologies, managed by Jim Simons, holds the biggest position in Control4 Corp (NASDAQ:CTRL). Renaissance Technologies has a $10.4 million position in the stock, comprising less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio. Coming in second is AQR Capital Management, managed by Cliff Asness, which holds a $4 million position; the fund has less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other peers that are bullish include John Overdeck and David Siegel's Two Sigma Advisors, Ken Griffin's Citadel Investment Group and Charles Paquelet'sSkylands Capital. As aggregate interest increased, some big names have jumped into Control4 Corp (NASDAQ:CTRL) headfirst.Arrowstreet Capital, managed by Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell, created the biggest position in Control4 Corp (NASDAQ:CTRL). Arrowstreet Capital had $0.8 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Minhua Zhang'sWeld Capital Managementalso made a $0.6 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new CTRL investors: D. E. Shaw'sD E Shaw, Paul Tudor Jones'sTudor Investment Corp, and Chuck Royce'sRoyce & Associates. Let's now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Control4 Corp (NASDAQ:CTRL). These stocks are Hi-Crush Partners LP (NYSE:HCLP), Haverty Furniture Companies, Inc. (NYSE:HVT), Adaptimmune Therapeutics plc (NASDAQ:ADAP), and PCM, Inc. (NASDAQ:PCMI). This group of stocks' market caps resemble CTRL's market cap. [table] Ticker, No of HFs with positions, Total Value of HF Positions (x1000), Change in HF Position HCLP,4,1583,-1 HVT,11,75476,1 ADAP,10,152333,-2 PCMI,17,40529,6 Average,10.5,67480,1 [/table] View table hereif you experience formatting issues. As you can see these stocks had an average of 10.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $67 million. That figure was $30 million in CTRL's case. PCM, Inc. (NASDAQ:PCMI) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Hi-Crush Partners LP (NYSE:HCLP) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. Control4 Corp (NASDAQ:CTRL) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our calculations showed thattop 20 most popular stocksamong hedge funds returned 6.2% in Q2 through June 19th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by nearly 3 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on CTRL as the stock returned 40.3% during the same period and outperformed the market by an even larger margin. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness. Disclosure: None. This article was originally published atInsider Monkey. Related Content • How to Best Use Insider Monkey To Increase Your Returns • Billionaire Ken Fisher’s Top Dividend Stock Picks • 30 Stocks Billionaires Are Crazy About: Insider Monkey Billionaire Stock Index
Success Is Sweet For Hershey, A Shipper Of Choice The Hershey Company(NYSE:HSY) earns recognition as a "Shipper of Choice" because of efforts to optimize its network and reduce its carbon footprint. ""We are proud of this focus," Hershey spokesman Jeff Beckman said. FreightWaves and its partnerConvoyconducted a survey to determine the top 25 manufacturers, distributors and retailers that do the best job in removing supply chain inefficiencies. These companies, voted on by carrier members of theTruckload Carriers Associationand members of theBlockchain in Transport Alliance, take additional steps to ensure good relationships with their carrier partners through efforts such as providing accessible facilities and fighting driver detention. Iconic American chocolatier and sweets maker Hershey tied for 18th place, alongside flooring manufacturer Shaw Industries. Hershey has focused on creating efficiencies by unloading all inbound shipments to its distribution centers within 24 hours, which reduces the total number of trailers needed and cuts fuel use at Hershey's distribution centers. "For us, this is a big win, and we have saved unloading detention spend in the process," Beckman said. Hershey has also focused on increasing the payload on its distribution center-to-customer shipments to reduce the number of trucks on the road, he said. A desire to work with customers and supply chain partners also makes the sweets maker stand out. "Communication between supply chain and our commercial partners is necessary to understand and better support the needs of retailers," said Josh Veara, business unit leader for Hershey's Kisses at the West Hershey plant. Veara's comments are from an April 9 post of Hershey's blog, The Plume. Hershey is in the midst of a multi-million-dollar effort to modernize its supply chain to accommodate consumers' changing preferences to use technology to inform purchasing decisions, according to an October 2018 Supply Chain Dive article. "By leveraging consumer insights and new capacity, our team drove strong growth and share gains during the Halloween and holiday sales period, while improving our sell-through and reducing markdowns," Hershey chief executive officer Michele Buck said during her company's fourth quarter 2018 earnings call in January. Hershey said during its third quarter 2018 earnings call in October 2018 that it has invested more than $150 million in U.S. supply chain advancements. The investments will enable the company to have a more flexible supply chain. "Hershey is clearly customer-focused, which helps to drive improvement for carriers," said Mary Long, director of the Supply Chain Forum with the Haslam School of Business at the University of Tennessee – Knoxville. Long was previously vice president of logistics and network planning at Domino's, and she has also had extensive supply chain experience through her work at Campbell's Soup, General Mills, Pillsbury and Quaker Oats/Gatorade. "If the focus shifts to on-time deliveries, then fixing your upstream procedure constraints can improve customer service results," Long said. The company also recently promoted Jason Reiman to senior vice president, chief supply chain officer. Reiman has over 25 years of experience at Hershey, serving in executive roles in which he oversaw all aspects of the supply chain, including manufacturing, engineering, supply chain planning and logistics for the U.S. and international markets. Supply chain efficiencies can manifest itself across the board, including areas such as marketing. For instance, Hershey now uses "Simple Packaging," which is the redesign of packaging so that a retailer can use the packaging to serve as a display case. That effort enables a retailer to have more creativity in how to use their floor space, Veara said. "If we can do something that decreases the work for our retailers while continuing to deliver products customers love, then we're doing our job. In the process, we're driving efficiency–not just in our own supply chain, but also in our customers' supply chains," Veara said. Image Sourced From Pixabay See more from Benzinga • Sales Of Used Class 8 Trucks Plummet 22 Percent From Previous Year • Cyber Crimes Are Increasing, But Those With Cyber Insurance Are Not • Commentary: Does The GDP Matter? Chapter Deux © 2019 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Kakao launches blockchain platform Klaytn South Korean internet company Kakao has rolled out a public network platform,The Korea Herald reports. Kakao’s blockchain subsidiary Ground X has officially launched Klaytn as its mainnet, now available for commercial use. Besides Kakao affiliates, a number of tech companies have joined the blockchain project in order to promote the technology. Klaytn has support from South Korean tech giants like LG, Celltrion and Netmarble, as well as other Southeast Asian companies. Twenty companies have formed Klaytn’s “governance council;” they will be part of the decision-making process. “The launch paves the way for commercialization of the blockchain system,” said Ground X chief Han Jae-sun. The combined market value of all the companies taking part in the project equals 75 trillion won ($64.8 billion), added Han. He believes with the help of Klaytn’s partners, the platform’s “stability and reliability” can be further enhanced to bring in new partnerships. Some of the partners are using their own cryptocurrencies for the blockchain transactions; others need to use Kakao’s cryptocurrency Klay for rewards. In order to promote participation, users will get Klay for their contributions to the platform. There are nine applications available on the platform, with 34 expected to be available by October. Kakao refers to them as “BApp”—blockchain apps—instead of opting for the traditionally used term “decentralised apps.” However, the two terms describe the same type of applications, and the decision to use a different name stems from “want[ing] to give the impression that users are capable of experiencing various blockchain services based on the Klaytn platform,” a Kakao official said.
UPDATE 1-Russia's Putin says liberal values are obsolete -FT (Adds quotes, details) MOSCOW, June 27 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview published on Thursday that liberal values were obsolete because they had been rejected by the majority of the people in Western nations. Putin told the Financial Times newspaper that German Chancellor Angela Merkel had made a cardinal mistake by adopting a liberal policy towards immigration from the Middle East. "The liberal idea presupposes that nothing needs to be done. The migrants can kill, plunder and rape with impunity because their rights as migrants must be protected. What rights are these? Every crime must have its punishment," Putin said in the interview. "So, the liberal idea has become obsolete. It has come into conflict with the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population," he said. Putin said Russia is not homophobic, but that a Western willingness to embrace homosexuality and gender fluidity seemed excessive to him. "Traditional values are more stable and more important for millions of people than this liberal idea, which, in my opinion, is really ceasing to exist." Putin also said he had the impression that liberal circles were set on using problems being experienced by the Catholic church to destroy the church. (Reporting by Christian Lowe Editing by Mark Heinrich)
Is Tabula Rasa HealthCare, Inc. (NASDAQ:TRHC) A Financially Sound Company? Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Investors are always looking for growth in small-cap stocks like Tabula Rasa HealthCare, Inc. (NASDAQ:TRHC), with a market cap of US$975m. However, an important fact which most ignore is: how financially healthy is the business? Since TRHC is loss-making right now, it’s crucial to understand the current state of its operations and pathway to profitability. Let's work through some financial health checks you may wish to consider if you're interested in this stock. However, these checks don't give you a full picture, so I suggest youdig deeper yourself into TRHC here. Over the past year, TRHC has ramped up its debt from US$1.9m to US$245m – this includes long-term debt. With this rise in debt, TRHC's cash and short-term investments stands at US$50m to keep the business going. Moving on, operating cash flow was negative over the last twelve months. As the purpose of this article is a high-level overview, I won’t be looking at this today, but you can examine some of TRHC’soperating efficiency ratios such as ROA here. At the current liabilities level of US$56m, it seems that the business has been able to meet these commitments with a current assets level of US$101m, leading to a 1.8x current account ratio. The current ratio is the number you get when you divide current assets by current liabilities. Usually, for Healthcare Services companies, this is a suitable ratio since there's a sufficient cash cushion without leaving too much capital idle or in low-earning investments. TRHC is a highly-leveraged company with debt exceeding equity by over 100%. This is a bit unusual for a small-cap stock, since they generally have a harder time borrowing than large more established companies. However, since TRHC is presently unprofitable, there’s a question of sustainability of its current operations. Running high debt, while not yet making money, can be risky in unexpected downturns as liquidity may dry up, making it hard to operate. Although TRHC’s debt level is towards the higher end of the spectrum, its cash flow coverage seems adequate to meet obligations which means its debt is being efficiently utilised. Since there is also no concerns around TRHC's liquidity needs, this may be its optimal capital structure for the time being. This is only a rough assessment of financial health, and I'm sure TRHC has company-specific issues impacting its capital structure decisions. I suggest you continue to research Tabula Rasa HealthCare to get a better picture of the small-cap by looking at: 1. Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for TRHC’s future growth? Take a look at ourfree research report of analyst consensusfor TRHC’s outlook. 2. Valuation: What is TRHC worth today? Is the stock undervalued, even when its growth outlook is factored into its intrinsic value? Theintrinsic value infographic in our free research reporthelps visualize whether TRHC is currently mispriced by the market. 3. Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore ourfree list of these great stocks here. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
Bunge's Brazil sugar unit posts record cane crushing numbers -company SAO PAULO, June 27 (Reuters) - Bunge Açúcar & Bioenergia, the Brazilian sugar unit of commodities trader Bunge Ltd, posted in May and June some of its best results yet for cane crushing volumes, the company said on Thursday. Bunge said its eight mills operating in Brazil crushed 2.65 million tonnes of cane in May, the largest amount of cane processing reported by the Brazilian sugar unit since the food processor started operations in Brazil in 2007. The company said operations continued strong in June, when it reached peaks for average daily crushing over a 30-day period. Rogério Bremm, the unit's agriculture director, said the numbers are a result of work done by the company to increase agricultural yields, aimed at turning the operation profitable in any market condition. Brazil's center-south, in general, is harvesting a better crop this year compared to the previous season. Agricultural yields were around 5% higher in May compared to the previous season, but they fell 2% in the first two weeks of June, according to cane industry group Unica. Bunge said the high crushing numbers are also a result of improvements in its industrial capacity. The U.S.-based company tried to sell its sugar operation in Brazil in the past, with no success. It then tried to do an initial public offering (IPO) of shares of the unit in Sao Paulo last year, but later canceled the plan citing adverse market conditions. Since then, market conditions improved in the ethanol side in Brazil, with strong demand and better prices. The sugar side, however, remains sluggish globally. (Reporting by Marcelo Teixeira; editing by Grant McCool)
Michelle Williams Talks Battling Through Her Depression: 'I Didn't Think I Would Be Alive' Today Michelle Williams knows from personal experience that happier days are always waiting around the corner. The former Destiny’s Child star, 38, has faced a difficult stretch in recent months, splitting from fiancé Chad Johnson in December after a brief engagement. In a new interview with Essence , Williams, who has battled depression since she was 13 years old, revealed the break-up left her shattered and, just as she did while in Destiny’s Child, fighting suicidal thoughts. “I was weak, very depressed and thinking it was the end of my life,” she told the outlet. “If someone had asked me where I would be today, I didn’t think I would be alive, because I was so broken.” She continued, “It felt as though I had failed publicly and privately, too, and that was just not like me. And I was like, God, there’s got to be more.” Williams and Johnson, a pastor, were engaged in March 2018 , though the star told PEOPLE in October she fell into a deep depression as she began planning their wedding. She eventually sought mental health treatment in July. David Livingston/Getty “I thought I was over depression. I thought, ‘I’m good!’ I’ve got love, I’m working out,” she told PEOPLE. “But I was so angry. The rage built up in me. I did not attempt suicide, but I was questioning [life].” The singer suffered another blow in December, when she was forced to step down from the Broadway production of Once on This Island on doctor’s orders. She revealed to Essence that she suffered a “nervous breakdown” shortly after opening day. RELATED: Michelle Williams Transforms Into Diana Ross in First Photos from American Soul Williams told the outlet that in the months since calling off her engagement and leaving the Great White Way behind, she’s been feeling better, with March and April of 2019 having been exceptionally positive months. Chad Johnson, Michelle Williams | Noel Vasquez/Getty “I am in a better place now. I am not perfect. I’m not preaching. I’m just telling you what I’m doing right now – I’m sticking to my routine,” she said. “When people say it gets better, it does. It just takes time. The days do get brighter.” Story continues As for advice, Williams encouraged others dealing with similar thoughts to lean into their pain instead of trying to shut it off. RELATED: Michelle Williams Reveals She and Chad Johnson Ended Their Engagement: ‘Things Didn’t Work Out’ “But then tell yourself you’ve got to get up,” she said. “Because some people won’t tell you to get up or know what to say. I pray you find that inner strength to say, ‘Okay, I’ve been down. I’ve been in this bed too long. I’ve got to get up.’ That’s what I did.” Michelle Williams | Cheriss May/NurPhoto/Getty Williams has long been open about her battle with depression, and in October 2017, revealed that she’d suffered suicidal thoughts while in Destiny’s Child. “I’m in one of the top-selling female groups of all time, suffering with depression,” she said on The Talk . “When I disclosed it to our manager [Mathew Knowles] at the time, bless his heart, he was like, ‘You all just signed a multi-million dollar deal. You’re about to go on tour. What do you have to be depressed about?’” “So I was like, ‘Oh, maybe I’m just tired,’” Williams continued, adding her depression worsened “to the point where I was suicidal … and wanted out.” If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), text “home” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 or go to suicidepreventionlifeline.org.
Franklin Covey Co. to Host Earnings Call NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / June 27, 2019 /Franklin Covey Co. (NYSE:FC) will be discussing their earnings results in their 2019 Third Quarter Earnings to be held on June 27, 2019 at 5:00 PM Eastern Time. To listen to the event live or access a replay of the call - visithttps://www.investornetwork.com/company/C-A09E8B45F3806 To receive updates for this company you can register by emailinginfo@investornetwork.comor by clicking get investment info from the company's profile. About Investor Network Investor Network (IN) is a financial content community, serving millions of unique investors market information, earnings, commentary and news on the what's trending. Dedicated to both the professional and the average traders, IN offers timely, trusted and relevant financial information for virtually every investor. IN is an Issuer Direct brand, to learn more or for the latest financial news and market information, visitwww.investornetwork.com. Follow us on Twitter@investornetwork. SOURCE:Investor Network View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/549989/Franklin-Covey-Co-to-Host-Earnings-Call
Why TripAdvisor, Inc. (NASDAQ:TRIP) Could Be Worth Watching Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! TripAdvisor, Inc. (NASDAQ:TRIP), which is in the interactive media and services business, and is based in United States, received a lot of attention from a substantial price movement on the NASDAQGS over the last few months, increasing to $56.22 at one point, and dropping to the lows of $42.27. Some share price movements can give investors a better opportunity to enter into the stock, and potentially buy at a lower price. A question to answer is whether TripAdvisor's current trading price of $44.05 reflective of the actual value of the mid-cap? Or is it currently undervalued, providing us with the opportunity to buy? Let’s take a look at TripAdvisor’s outlook and value based on the most recent financial data to see if there are any catalysts for a price change. See our latest analysis for TripAdvisor According to my valuation model, TripAdvisor seems to be fairly priced at around 19% below my intrinsic value, which means if you buy TripAdvisor today, you’d be paying a fair price for it. And if you believe that the stock is really worth $54.42, then there isn’t much room for the share price grow beyond what it’s currently trading. Although, there may be an opportunity to buy in the future. This is because TripAdvisor’s beta (a measure of share price volatility) is high, meaning its price movements will be exaggerated relative to the rest of the market. If the market is bearish, the company’s shares will likely fall by more than the rest of the market, providing a prime buying opportunity. Investors looking for growth in their portfolio may want to consider the prospects of a company before buying its shares. Buying a great company with a robust outlook at a cheap price is always a good investment, so let’s also take a look at the company's future expectations. With profit expected to grow by 95% over the next couple of years, the future seems bright for TripAdvisor. It looks like higher cash flow is on the cards for the stock, which should feed into a higher share valuation. Are you a shareholder?It seems like the market has already priced in TRIP’s positive outlook, with shares trading around its fair value. However, there are also other important factors which we haven’t considered today, such as the financial strength of the company. Have these factors changed since the last time you looked at the stock? Will you have enough conviction to buy should the price fluctuates below the true value? Are you a potential investor?If you’ve been keeping an eye on TRIP, now may not be the most advantageous time to buy, given it is trading around its fair value. However, the positive outlook is encouraging for the company, which means it’s worth further examining other factors such as the strength of its balance sheet, in order to take advantage of the next price drop. Price is just the tip of the iceberg. Dig deeper into what truly matters – the fundamentals – before you make a decision on TripAdvisor. You can find everything you need to know about TripAdvisor inthe latest infographic research report. If you are no longer interested in TripAdvisor, you can use our free platform to see my list of over50 other stocks with a high growth potential. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
Slavery reparations could carry a $17 trillion price tag A new bill would calculate potential costs of reparations — and by Yahoo Finance estimates, these could reach as high as $17.1 trillion. Last week, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties held the first hearing in a decade on H.R. 40, theCommission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act. The bill was first introduced in 1989 by former Congressman John Conyers (D-MI). Conyers reintroduced the bill each year until his retirement in 2017 — and each year, the bill languished in Congress. The bill’s focus was not to pass reparations, but to research the impact slavery had on black Americans and develop proposals for redress. The subject of reparations has remained a political hot potato, with presidential candidates Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Beto O’Rourke and Julian Castro supporting some form of reparations. But while the Democratic-controlled House is willing to hear the bill, it seems likely that a bill on reparations will die in the Senate where Republicans have a majority. When asked about the hearing, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said he opposed the measure, given that “not one of us currently living are responsible” for slavery. McConnell continued, adding: "We've tried to deal with our original sin of slavery by fighting a civil war, by passing landmark civil rights legislation. We elected an African-American president.” Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), a sponsor of H.R. 40 — named after the40 acres and a mule promisedto freed slaves — responded to McConnell’s comments in a statement to Yahoo Finance. “Payments are not the focus of H.R. 40,” the congresswoman said. “Knowledge is the focus of H.R. 40.” “The Majority Leader may want to deny this bill a hearing, but he cannot deny the horror and the denial of freedom that human bondage represents,” she said. “The Majority Leader can't deny the free labor that slavery brought; he can't deny the people who died in transit; and he can't deny that this is the 400th anniversary of the beginning of the slave trade.” Activists have been calling for reparations for years, and in 2016, aUN paneldeclared that the U.S. owed black Americans reparations because of slavery and its link to injustices today in America. “In particular, the legacy of colonial history, enslavement, racial subordination and segregation, racial terrorism and racial inequality in the United States remains a serious challenge, as there has been no real commitment to reparations and to truth and reconciliation for people of African descent,” the report states. “Contemporary police killings and the trauma that they create are reminiscent of the past racial terror of lynching. Impunity for State violence has resulted in the current human rights crisis and must be addressed as a matter of urgency.” H.R. 40 co-sponsor Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) says that reparations aren’t about “playing victim” or “race baiting”. “If the best policies are informed by data, the data supports the fact that black Americans continue to be in the bottom of every outcome when it comes to health, education, and economics,” Pressley said in a statement to Yahoo Finance. “So much work remains to be done in order for us to bend the arc of justice to ensure the full freedom for black Americans.” African-Americans aredisproportionately targetedby the criminal justice system, accounting for 33% of the prison population, but only 12% of the adult population in the country. According to Pew Research, this is in comparison to their white counterparts who make up a third of the prison population, but over 60% of the adult population in the U.S. But there are other disparities between the black community and their counterparts.Unemployment ratesfor African-Americans are twice as high as that of white workers, while black poverty rates are more thantwice as highas that of their white counterparts. According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the black poverty rate was 22% in 2016 — the same year, it was 8.8% for white Americans. The national poverty rate, by contrast, was 12.7%. Wealth inequality between the races has only increased throughout the years. In 2016, according to the Inequality Project at theInstitute for Policy Studies, the U.S. median wealth — or the total of all assets — for white families was just under $150,000, compared to the national median wealth of $82,000. In 2016, the median figure for African-Americans stood at roughly $3,500. That’s less than half the median black wealth 35 years ago. And though Brown v. Board of Education integrated the nation’s schools, today, they aremore segregatedthan ever. According to a recent study by the education research group EdBuild, there is a$23 billion gapin funding between white and non-white school districts of equal size. Roughly, this means that non-white school districts receive $2,226 less on average for each enrolled student than predominately white districts. William Darity, a public policy professor at Duke University, has researched reparations for decades. With Professor Dania Francis at UMass Amherst, their paper, “The Economics of Reparations,” notes that the United States has paid reparations to wronged communities before, including Japanese families kept in internment camps, and Native-American tribes. But, they write, “almost 250 years of domestic enslavement of African people and their descendants have not elicited a similar response from the U.S. government.” If reparations were to be paid to descendants of slaves, it would be costly. Many researchers have tried to place a dollar figure on the economic cost associated with hundreds of years of free labor, and accumulated wealth Southerners gained from enslaving blacks. Darity and Francis argue that any reparations paid should also be tax-free, given the nearly 100 years that black people paid taxes “while being disenfranchised in the U.S. South, a paradigmatic case of ‘taxation without representation.’” In the essay collection “Wealth of Races,” several researchers tried to calculate the cost or “present value of benefits from past injustices.” Roger Ransom and Richard Sutch calculated that cost to be $3.4 billion between 1810 and 1860. In 2019, that would come to roughly $8.5 billion. Economist Larry Neal tried to tabulate the price tag of unpaid wages to slaves from 1620 to 1840. In 1983 when he calculated the number, he estimated that slaves were owed $1.4 trillion in unpaid wages, or $3.6 trillion today. Economist James Marketti estimated that unpaid wages totaled somewhere between $3 trillion and $5 trillion dollars — again in 1983. Today, whenaccounting for inflationthat number leaps to $7.7 trillion to $12.9 trillion. But these costs do not include the lingering economic impact of Jim Crow and current discrimination that black people face in the labor market, health care system, or education and criminal justice systems. According to “The Economics of Reparations,” that figure stands at an additional $1.3 trillion to $4.2 trillion today. When totaling Marketti’s estimates along with restitution costs for racial injustice since the end of slavery, reparations could range from $9 to $17.1 trillion. “Suffice it to say,” Darity and Francis write, “the damages to the collective well-being of black people have been enormous and, correspondingly, so is the appropriate bill.” But are reparations possible? H.R. 40 aims to determine just that. First, the U.S. government would have to determine who is eligible for reparations, and then figure out how to pay for it. There have been different reparation proposals made through the years, and historically the U.S. has paid restitution to groups that have suffered injustices at the hands of the government. Reparations proposals have run the gamut from lump-sum payouts to a “trust fund” that could be used to finance black Americans’ pursuit of higher education or home purchases. Other options include reparations modeled after Germany’s postwarrestitution plan, which combined both individual payments with financing institutions and resettlement of Jewish people in Israel. It’s unclear how a sum as potentially as large as $17.1 trillion would be financed. Darity’s research posits that it could be financed through additional taxes, or by issuing bonds. But Darity and Francis make clear that “African-Americans should not bear the tax burden of financing their own reparations payments.” Though H.R. 40 is seeing the light of the debate floor, the measure is still deeply unpopular. According to a2016 Marist poll, only 26% of Americans support reparations. More than 80% of white Americans disapprove of restitution to African-Americans, while nearly 60% of black Americans support the proposal. Read more: • Republicans strike back at ActBlue, launch ‘WinRed’ • Minimum wage hasn't been raised for the longest time in history • Abortion bans could cost American taxpayers billions of dollars each year • Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance Follow Yahoo Finance onTwitter,Facebook,Instagram,Flipboard,LinkedIn,YouTube, andreddit.
More than 1,000 People Want to Adopt Baby Found in Plastic Bag Whose Rescue Was Captured on Video More than 1,000 People Want to Adopt Baby Found in Plastic Bag Whose Rescue Was Captured on Video More than 1,000 people from around the world have come forward offering to adopt “Baby India,” the newborn found wrapped in a plastic bag in a wooded area in Georgia. The Today Show reports that people have reached out to Forsyth County authorities eager to provide a home for the newborn who was found crying and covered in blood with the umbilical cord still attached. The baby is currently in the care of the county’s Division of Family and Children Services. “It’s amazing the number of people who are looking to take on a new life into their families,” Forsyth County Sheriff Ron Freeman says, “and we got somebody who tried to throw one away.” Baby India was discovered in a wooded area on June 6. In video footage released by the sheriff’s office, a man can be seen kneeling in grass next to the infant, telling emergency responders that he heard the baby crying from his home. RELATED: Police Release Video of the Dramatic Moment They Found a Newborn Baby in a Plastic Bag in the Woods “My kids said, ‘That’s a baby,’ and I said ‘That’s an animal,’ ” the man says in the video. The man explains he later went outside to check and called the authorities. Police then rip open the bag to find the crying newborn covered in blood with the umbilical cord still attached. “Look at you sweetheart. I’m so sorry,” an officer says. As they assess her for injuries, the tiny infant firmly grips one of the officer’s fingers and makes direct eye contact. WARNING: SOME READERS MAY FIND THE VIDEO BELOW DISTRESSING RELATED: Where Is Baby India’s Mom? Search Continues After Infant Discovered in Plastic Bag 15 Days Ago Police then tightly wrap the baby in a number of blankets before transporting her to a nearby hospital, where it was determined she was in good health . With no information on who her mother was or where she was from, investigators gave the baby the name of India. • Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter. Story continues Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office Explaining their decision to share the video, police said they hope the footage will lead to them receiving “credible information on the identity of Baby India and to show how important it is to find closure in this case. “We are happy to report that Baby India is thriving and is in the care of the Georgia Department of Family and Children Services,” police added. Anyone with information regarding her mother, her birth or family is urged to call the sheriff’s office at 770-781-3087.
3 Top Stocks Under $20 A stock price alone doesn't tell you anything about how cheap or expensive a stock truly is. A $20 stock can be far more expensive than a $100 stock based on earnings, cash flow, and growth prospects, even though the price tag is lower. Still, focusing on low-priced stocks can make sense if you have a small amount to invest. We asked three of our Motley Fool contributors to each discuss a stock trading for less than $20. Here's why they say investors should considerEnergy Transfer(NYSE: ET),Hanesbrands(NYSE: HBI), andCodexis(NASDAQ: CDXS). Image source: Getty Images. Matt DiLallo(Energy Transfer):Energy Transfer is one of the largest energy infrastructure companies in North America. It currently transports 30% of all the natural gas consumed in the U.S. each day -- as well as significant quantities of oil, natural gas liquids, and refined petroleum products -- on its more than 86,000 miles of pipelines. Overall, the company operates an estimated $90 billion ofmidstreamassets that span all major U.S. supply basins and market centers. Despite its massive size, Energy Transfer has a rather diminutive stock price, having recently traded for less than $15. That low price is mainly due to the number of new shares the company has issued to finance its growth initiatives over the past few years. It has handed out more than 1 billion new shares in the last three years alone -- a nearly 150% increase -- to help fund expansion projects and acquisitions, which has weighed on share prices. Those investments, however, are starting to pay dividends, with cash flow zooming more than 30% on a per-share basis during thefirst quarteralone. As a result, the company generated enough cash to cover its high-yielding dividend with $856 million to spare. That trend should continue throughout the year, putting the company on track to produce between $2.5 billion and $3 billion in excess cash for 2019. Because of that, Energy Transfer is starting to pivot away from its dilutive ways since it's now producing enough money to cover its dividend and invest in a large slate of expansion projects. That ability to self-fund growth should help to start lifting the weight holding down the price of the stock. Tim Green(Hanesbrands):Shares of basic apparel and activewear manufacturer Hanesbrands have been sitting under $20 for nearly a year. The stock was trading for more than $30 as recently as 2015, but the market has become increasingly pessimistic since then. That pessimism doesn't seem to be fully warranted. There are risks, including a potential recession, additional tariffs, and more upheaval in the brick-and-mortar retail industry. But the company has a lot going for it. Its core business is innerwear -- underwear, socks, intimates, for example. Innerwear get replaced more often than other types of clothing, and the per-capital consumption rate has been stable over the past five years. More importantly,the industry is heavily branded, with private-label merchandise accounting for just 10% of U.S. innerwear sales in 2018. That skew toward branded products is even stronger online, where 93% of innerwear sales last year were branded. Hanesbrands also sells activewear. The company'sChampion brand has been growing fastoutside of large mass-market retailers, and it expects Champion to reach $2 billion of revenue by 2022. The athleisure trend doesn't seem to be fading, so it should continue to grow that part of its business. Hanesbrands expects to produce non-GAAP(adjusted) earnings per share of $1.76 this year at the midpoint of its guidance range. With the stock hovering below $17, the price-to-earnings ratio is below 10. The company has been putting up some solid growth numbers recently, with organic sales jumping by 10% year over year in the first quarter. There seems to be a disconnect between the beaten-down valuation and the company's performance. Hanesbrands isn't an exciting company, but if you're looking for a sub-$20 stock to add to your portfolio, look no further. Maxx Chatsko(Codexis):The company started 2019 on a promising trajectory with a few different growth opportunities within reach, but in late June it announced a $50 million investment from Casdin Capital to accelerate the necessary capital investments. The private purchase of equity nearly doubled its cash position from the end of March, which stood at $47 million. The extra funds should be put to good use. Codexis has built and tweaked aleading technology platform for engineering enzymes-- the tiny molecules that power life and a lot of other chemistry. Enzymes can be inserted into industrial processes to suck carbon dioxide out of flue gas and boost the efficiency of food ingredient manufacturing, added to consumer products such as laundry detergents, or used to power diagnostics for clinical and research applications. The business has done a solid job diversifying revenue in recent years among customers in pharmaceuticals and food manufacturing, licensing its proprietary software, and even licensing a biologic drug it developed in-house that's currently in a phase 1 trial. In addition to expanding those opportunities, Codexis is keen to ramp up a new suite of diagnostic products aimed at next-generation sequencing (NGS) markets. While it has garnered attention from established companies looking for a piece of the action, the new infusion of capital suggests the enzyme leader might be interested in building the portfolio itself or owning more of a partnered program than might have been previously expected. No matter how the newest opportunity is pursued, investors have to be excited about the padded balance sheet. Considering Codexis expects to grow full-year 2019 revenue about 16% over last year, the new capital is likely to enable double-digit growth in 2020 -- and perhaps beyond. More From The Motley Fool • 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today • The $16,728 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss • 20 of the Top Stocks to Buy (Including the Two Every Investor Should Own) • What Is an ETF? • 5 Recession-Proof Stocks • How to Beat the Market Matthew DiLallohas no position in any of the stocks mentioned.Maxx Chatskohas no position in any of the stocks mentioned.Timothy Greenowns shares of Hanesbrands. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy.
Analyst: Buy These 2 Chip Stocks Now The trade war between the U.S. and China has had far-reaching effects on several sectors of the economy. The semiconductor industry recently became a focal point, especially over concerns about intellectual property. The Trump administration began restricting the export of high-tech goods and sensitive technology to China, and the Middle Kingdom has responded in kind. Since China makes about 35% of global semiconductor purchases, U.S. chip makers are getting hit hard. Despite the trade battle, there are still compelling opportunities for investors in the chip sector, according to Wedbush analyst Matthew Bryson. On Thursday, he made upbeat calls onNVIDIA(NASDAQ: NVDA)andAdvanced Micro Devices(NASDAQ: AMD). Let's take a look at what has the analyst so bullish and consider whether investors should follow his advice. Image source: Getty Images. Bryson initiated coverage on NVIDIA at outperform (essentially a buy rating) and expects the price to rise to $184 in the coming 12 months, about 16% higher than Wednesday's closing price. This upgrade comes on the heels of a challenging time for NVIDIA. Its shares have been pummeled in recent months, the result of much more than just trade war concerns. The company suffered from slowing sales in two markets that were previously soaring -- cryptocurrency and data centers. NVIDIA rode the wave of the growing popularity of cryptocurrency in recent years, and the process of validating the digital transactions was best performed by its graphics processing units (GPUs). When the cryptocurrency trade bubble burst and prices plunged, a significant amount of GPU oversupply had to be cleared from sales channels. The company saw a similar slowdown in demand for the GPUs used for cloud computing, data centers, and artificial intelligence as the trade war and economic uncertainty took center stage. Bryson believes these issues are largely behind NVIDIA. "While we aren't forecasting a rebound in cryptocurrency-related demand (though recent rising prices certainly create the potential for a bounce in mining builds), we do believe that inventories of gaming GPUs have largely normalized (in-line with the slight rebound in NVIDIA gaming sales last quarter)." Further, the analyst also believes that NVIDIA has established itself as a leader in these high-growth markets -- namely data centers, gaming, and intelligent andself-driving vehicles-- and these technologies will help drive future growth. AMD's line of Ryzen chips could take share from Intel. Image source: AMD. Bryson also initiated coverage on AMD with an outperform (buy) rating and a $35 price target, about 17% higher than its closing price on Wednesday. "We believe AMD's early adoption of a distributed 'chiplet' architecture combined with a shift to leading edge geometries positions the company to take meaningful share from [Intel(NASDAQ: INTC)] in both the PC and server markets over the next few years," Bryson wrote. For the uninitiated, chiplet architecture is a way of assembling multiple smaller building blocks to build a processor rather than cutting them as a single chip. This is a way to boost performance, as cramming increasing numbers of transistors onto ever-smaller microchips becomes increasingly difficult -- if not impossible. AMD's latest processors could also take market share from industry leader Intel in the CPU market. Industry watchers took notice when AMD released its new line of Zen 2 desktop processors, which will begin selling next month.The Ryzen-based processorsoutperformed competing Intel chips in leaked benchmark tests, which could result in greater demand. AMD has already gained more than 65% so far this year, but with its leading-edge chip designs and speedy new processors, AMD could see even better days ahead. The entire chip sector got a lift earlier this week when flash memory makerMicron Technology(NASDAQ: MU)soared double digits after reportingbetter-than-expected resultsthat seemed to signal that the global oversupply of processors was abating as customers worked through their chip inventories. There's no way to know for sure if the worst has passed for the semiconductor industry, but these companies offer compelling opportunities despite the ongoing trade uncertainties. More From The Motley Fool • 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today • The $16,728 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss • 20 of the Top Stocks to Buy (Including the Two Every Investor Should Own) • What Is an ETF? • 5 Recession-Proof Stocks • How to Beat the Market Danny Venaowns shares of NVIDIA. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends NVIDIA. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy.
UPDATE 1-U.S. 30-year mortgage rates fall to lowest since Nov 2016 -Freddie (Adds quotes, graphic) June 27 (Reuters) - Interest rates on U.S. 30-year fixed-rate mortgages declined to their lowest levels since November 2016 as U.S. bond yields have fallen on expectations the Federal Reserve may lower interest rates as early as July, Freddie Mac said on Thursday. A further decline in home borrowing costs should support the housing sector as other parts of the U.S. economy seem to be softening partly due to global trade tensions. “While the industrial and trade related economic data continues to dominate the news, the drop in mortgage rates over the last two months is already being felt in the housing market," Freddie Mac's chief economist Sam Khater said in a statement. "In the near-term, we expect the housing market to continue to improve from both a sales and price perspective,” he added. Earlier Thursday, the National Association of Realtors said its index on U.S. pending home sales, which is a proxy on future housing activity, rose 1.1% to a reading of 105.4 in May. Thirty-year mortgage rates averaged 3.73% in the week ended June 27, down from 3.84% a week earlier and lower than 4.55% a year ago, the mortgage finance agency said. A week ago, benchmark 10-year Treasury yields fell to 1.974%, which was the lowest level since November 2016. They have been trading on either side of 2% since then. Last Wednesday, the U.S. central bank signaled it was ready to lower interest rates to counter risks from global trade tensions and sluggish domestic inflation. Interest rates futures implied traders fully expect the Fed would cut borrowing costs by at least a quarter point to 2.00%-2.25% at the end of July. Fifteen-year mortgage rates averaged 3.16% in the latest week, the lowest since October 2017. They were down from 3.25% a week earlier and 4.04% a year ago. The average interest rate on five-year adjustable-rate mortgages fell to 3.39%, the lowest since December 2017. They were lower than 3.48% the week before and 3.87% a year earlier. (Reporting by Richard Leong Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
Teen Miraculously Catches Girl, 2, Who Fell from a Second-Floor Window in Viral Video A teenager is being hailed as a hero for catching a toddler who fell from an open window in Istanbul, and security cameras caught footage of the dramatic rescue. According to the Independent , Feuzi Zabaat noticed 2-year-old Dora Muhammed dangling from a second-story window while he was out on a walk last Thursday. Video of the 17-year-old shows him pointing up at Dora hanging from the window as a passerby and children remain oblivious to the situation. Zabaat continues to look around, seemingly in disbelief, until he reaches out his arms and catches Dora just a fraction of a second before she would slam into the ground. “I was walking down the road when I saw a 2-year-old girl hanging from a window,” Zabaat told the outlet. “I walked closer to her, and as she fell I held on to her.” Zabaat then cradled Dora in his arms as witnesses nearby ran over to them. Fortunately, Dora suffered no injuries, all thanks to her hero. “I was walking from the top of the street toward the bottom,” witness Izzet Bayir said, according to the Independent . “I saw this man looking up. It caught my attention — ‘What’s happening?’ And I saw that this little girl was about to fall.” “This lion of a person caught this child in mid-air and reunited her with her family,” Bayir continued. Dora’s father, Yusuf Muhammed, reportedly gifted Zabaat a 200 Turkish lira (about $35 in the U.S.) for saving his daughter’s life. RELATED: French Music Producer Philippe Zdar Dies After Accidentally Falling Out of a Window in Paris Feuzi Zabaat catches 2-year-old Dora Muhammed | AP The dramatic ordeal raises awareness about the risk of children falling out of windows, which increases in the summer months when families typically leave them open for ventilation during hot days. In June 2017, four toddlers in San Jose, California, fell out of second- or third-story windows in just a two-week span, according to the Mercury News . RELATED: Woman on Spring Break Trip Killed After Falling Out Car Window While Yelling ‘Bye Miami’ “The best recommendation we have for parents is to move furniture away from a window,’’ Dr. Adella Garland told the newspaper of the influx of accidents, adding, “window screens do not prevent falls.” The pregnancy and parenting website Very Well Family recommends using a window guard or gate to keep a child from falling out, or installing a window stop or ledge that would prevent it from being opened more than four inches.
Crypto News: Bitcoin Plunges, Coinbase Suffers Outage The crypto marketplace is like the Wild West of the financial world -- and it's been even wilder than normal over the past 24 hours. Here's a recap of some notable events that took place over the past day. Bitcoin's volatility is back. After surging more than 300% from its lows near $3,200 back in December, the world's most valuable cryptocurrency has seen its price sink by more than 20% from its recent highs near $13,800 in the past 24 hours. Other cryptocurrencies -- including Litecoin, Ripple's XRP, Ethereum, and Bitcoin Cash -- are also down more than 15%. Overall, the total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies at large fell by roughly $75 billion over the past day. Image source: Getty Images. Some traders are chalking up Bitcoin's fall to a simple technical correction after being "overbought," alleging that traders are taking gains after the cryptocurrency's huge recent upward move. Others say the vicious drop was amplified by excessive leverage in the marketplace. Some crypto exchanges offer margin services that allow traders to leverage their bets by as much as 100 times. "The presence of leverage exacerbates the moves in both directions and affects the speed dramatically," Genesis Global Trading CEO Michael Moro toldCNBC. One thing is for sure: Bitcoin's notorious volatility has returned. Where it takes the popular cryptocurrency's price next remains to be seen. Popular crypto exchange Coinbase experienced a service outage on Wednesday. This was likely another factor that contributed to price declines for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, as exchange problems tend to reduce investor confidence and overall market sentiment. Bitcoin's recent surge has brought many traders back into the marketplace. Exchanges such as Binance, Bitstamp, and Coinbase have experienced record-high trading in Bitcoin and other digital currencies in recent days. While this is profitable for the exchanges, it appears such activity may have placed a strain on Coinbase's systems. Coinbase's site was down "for a short period of time due to high volume," a company spokesperson toldCNBC. Coinbase wasn't the only trading service that experienced issues during the day. Popular trading app Robinhood was also rendered inaccessible for a brief period of time, according toCoindesk. These trading platform outages highlight one of the many risks inherent in the crypto markets: You may not be able to access your investments when you want to. Traders should plan accordingly, and factor the possibility of additional exchange outages into their strategies. More From The Motley Fool • Crypto, Blockchain & Bitcoin Articles Joe Tenebrusohas no position in any of the cryptocurrencies mentioned. The Motley Foolhas no position in any of the cryptocurrencies mentioned.The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy.
GLOBAL MARKETS-Stocks gain on U.S.-China trade truce hopes, dollar flat (Adds oil, gold settlement prices) * Wall Street edges higher as tech, financials rise * Dollar trades flat as market awaits news from G20 summit * Crude prices slip ahead of G20, OPEC meeting By Herbert Lash NEW YORK, June 27 (Reuters) - Global equity markets gained and the dollar held steady on Thursday ahead of the G20 summit where a much-anticipated meeting of U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping may lead to a truce in the U.S.-China trade war. The world's two largest economies have agreed to a tentative truce in their trade dispute before the planned meeting on Saturday, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post reported, citing sources. The report rekindled investor interest in riskier assets and weighed on safe-havens as it dialed down fears that Trump would impose new tariffs on $300 billion in Chinese goods. A Wall Street Journal report that Xi planned to present Trump with a set of terms Washington should meet before Beijing is ready to settle their dispute tempered optimism. "I continue to be very skeptical that the U.S., at least this current administration, will reach a deal with China," said Kristina Hooper, chief global market strategist at Invesco in New York. "I can't find any compelling reasons why China would make real concessions to the U.S.," Hooper said. The dollar index, which tracks the dollar against the euro, Japanese yen, sterling and three other currencies, traded slightly lower at 96.205. The dollar was little changed against the euro and the yen. MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe gained 0.46%, while both the pan-European STOXX 600 index and the FTSEurofirst 300 index of leading regional shares closed basically at break-even. Stocks on Wall Street gained. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 33.31 points, or 0.13%, to 26,570.13. The S&P 500 gained 12.85 points, or 0.44%, to 2,926.63 and the Nasdaq Composite added 57.31 points, or 0.72%, to 7,967.28. Healthcare rose 0.82% and financials gained 0.78%, with big lenders leading the charge ahead of results of the second part of the Federal Reserve's annual stress test for banks. Semiconductor companies, which have a sizable revenue exposure to China, traded higher, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor index rising 1.55%. U.S. Treasury debt yields fell on concerns that trade discussions between the United States and China on Saturday may be more complicated than previously expected. News headlines suggest that "the meeting in Osaka is going to be a lot more tense than some of the initial optimism suggested," said Ian Lyngen, head of U.S. rates strategy at BMO Capital Markets in New York. The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note rose 12/32 in price to push its yield lower to 2.0054%. German government bond yields fell back toward record lows after data showed annual inflation in the euro zone's biggest economy remained well below the European Central Bank's target. Germany's 10-year bond yield was down 1.2 basis points at minus 0.32%, nearing Tuesday's record low of minus 0.336%. Oil prices settled little changed, weighed by concerns over whether the G20 summit will produce a breakthrough on trade and perceptions that supply is ample despite prospects for continued curbs by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Brent crude, the global benchmark, rose 6 cents to settle at $66.55 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude settled up 5 cents to $59.43. U.S. gold futures settled 0.2% lower at $1,412 an ounce. (Reporting by Herbert Lash in New York Editing by James Dalgleish)
Woman Charged With Manslaughter After Gunshot Wound Causes Miscarriage An Alabama woman who reportedly suffered a miscarriage after being shot in the abdomen has been charged with manslaughter in the death of the fetus. Marshae Jones, 27, of Birmingham, was indicted by a Jefferson County grand jury on Wednesday and was ordered jailed on $50,000 bond. She was accused of starting a Dec. 4 fight with another woman who fired the shot, AL.com reported. The accused shooter, Ebony Jemison, 23, was initially charged with manslaughter, but a grand jury declined to indict her and the charge was dropped, the news outlet reported. Jones was five months pregnant when Jemison shot her outside of a Dollar Store during an argument over the father, according to Pleasant Grove police. Cops called the shooting an act of self-defense. “The investigation showed that the only true victim in this was the unborn baby,’’ Pleasant Grove police Lt. Danny Reid said after the shooting, according to AL.com. “It was the mother of the child who initiated and continued the fight which resulted in the death of her own unborn baby.” Police, reached for comment by HuffPost on Thursday, referred questions to the district attorney’s office, which did not immediately respond to requests for comment. It’s unclear whether Jones is represented by an attorney. Alabama’s Yellowhammer Fund, which advocates for abortion rights in the state, cautioned that Jones’ treatment is part of “a new beginning” in Alabama’s zeal to undermine women’s reproductive rights and the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. Alabama’s governor in May signed the nation’s strictest abortion law, making it a felony for a doctor to perform an abortion in nearly all cases, including rape and incest. “Today, Marshae Jones is being charged with manslaughter for being pregnant and getting shot while engaging in an altercation with a person who had a gun,” Amanda Reyes, the Yellowhammer Fund’s executive director, said in a statement. “Tomorrow, it will be another black woman, maybe for having a drink while pregnant. And after that, another, for not obtaining adequate prenatal care.” Story continues Reyes added: “Jones’s case may seem extreme, but far too soon it will be commonplace. And it will be poor, marginalized and black people who will feel this pain the most.” Reyes said her group would assist Jones with her defense. Related... Over 40 Prosecutors Refuse To Enforce New Anti-Abortion Laws Alabama Governor Signs Bill Requiring Chemical Castration For Child Sex Offenders 'Handmaid's Tale' Stars Stand Against Anti-Abortion Laws In New PSA Abortion Rights Activists Rally In All 50 States In Wake Of Restrictive Laws ACLU, Planned Parenthood Sue Alabama Over Abortion Ban Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today. This article originally appeared on HuffPost .
Do Institutions Own Shares In Compugen Ltd. (NASDAQ:CGEN)? Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! If you want to know who really controls Compugen Ltd. (NASDAQ:CGEN), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. Institutions will often hold stock in bigger companies, and we expect to see insiders owning a noticeable percentage of the smaller ones. Companies that have been privatized tend to have low insider ownership. Compugen is a smaller company with a market capitalization of US$235m, so it may still be flying under the radar of many institutional investors. Our analysis of the ownership of the company, below, shows that institutions own shares in the company. Let's delve deeper into each type of owner, to discover more about CGEN. View our latest analysis for Compugen Institutional investors commonly compare their own returns to the returns of a commonly followed index. So they generally do consider buying larger companies that are included in the relevant benchmark index. We can see that Compugen does have institutional investors; and they hold 25% of the stock. This suggests some credibility amongst professional investors. But we can't rely on that fact alone, since institutions make bad investments sometimes, just like everyone does. When multiple institutions own a stock, there's always a risk that they are in a 'crowded trade'. When such a trade goes wrong, multiple parties may compete to sell stock fast. This risk is higher in a company without a history of growth. You can see Compugen's historic earnings and revenue, below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story. Compugen is not owned by hedge funds. There is some analyst coverage of the stock, but it could still become more well known, with time. While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Management ultimately answers to the board. However, it is not uncommon for managers to be executive board members, especially if they are a founder or the CEO. Most consider insider ownership a positive because it can indicate the board is well aligned with other shareholders. However, on some occasions too much power is concentrated within this group. Our most recent data indicates that insiders own some shares in Compugen Ltd.. As individuals, the insiders collectively own US$9.6m worth of the US$235m company. Some would say this shows alignment of interests between shareholders and the board. But it might be worth checkingif those insiders have been selling. The general public -- mostly retail investors -- own 71% of Compugen . This level of ownership gives retail investors the power to sway key policy decisions such as board composition, executive compensation, and the dividend payout ratio. It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Compugen better, we need to consider many other factors. I like to dive deeperinto how a company has performed in the past. You can findhistoric revenue and earnings in thisdetailed graph. Ultimatelythe future is most important. You can access thisfreereport on analyst forecasts for the company. NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
Dova Pharmaceuticals Options Red-Hot During Breakout Session It's a breakout session forDova Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:DOVA), after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the company's blood disorder drug, Doptelet. At last check, DOVA shares were up 22% at $13.01 -- near the top of the Nasdaq, and pacing for their best day ever -- and options traders are rushing the pharma stock. Most recently, 3,000 calls and 1,100 puts have changed hands on DOVA -- nine times what's typically seen at this point, and volume pacing in the 99th annual percentile. The July 10 call is most active, and it looks like speculators may be liquidating positions amid today's massive pop. Elsewhere, speculators appear to be purchasing new positions at the July 12.50 put. If this is the case, put buyers expect DOVA to retreat back below the strike price over the next few weeks. This could also be indicative of shareholders protecting paper profits with anoptions hedge. Looking at the charts, Dova Pharmaceuticals has been edging higher since its Dec. 20 record low of $5.62. Today's surge puts the stock on track for its first close above the 200-day moving average since last July, though it's running out of steam near a Dec. 17 bear gap. Nevertheless, DOVA stock is now poised for a 48% June gain, which will mark its best monthly return since its public trading debut two years ago.
How Many Compugen Ltd. (NASDAQ:CGEN) Shares Do Institutions Own? Want to participate in a short research study ? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! A look at the shareholders of Compugen Ltd. ( NASDAQ:CGEN ) can tell us which group is most powerful. Large companies usually have institutions as shareholders, and we usually see insiders owning shares in smaller companies. Companies that used to be publicly owned tend to have lower insider ownership. Compugen is a smaller company with a market capitalization of US$235m, so it may still be flying under the radar of many institutional investors. In the chart below below, we can see that institutions are noticeable on the share registry. Let's delve deeper into each type of owner, to discover more about CGEN. See our latest analysis for Compugen NasdaqGM:CGEN Ownership Summary, June 27th 2019 What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Compugen? Institutions typically measure themselves against a benchmark when reporting to their own investors, so they often become more enthusiastic about a stock once it's included in a major index. We would expect most companies to have some institutions on the register, especially if they are growing. Compugen already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own 25% of the company. This implies the analysts working for those institutions have looked at the stock and they like it. But just like anyone else, they could be wrong. If multiple institutions change their view on a stock at the same time, you could see the share price drop fast. It's therefore worth looking at Compugen's earnings history, below. Of course, the future is what really matters. NasdaqGM:CGEN Income Statement, June 27th 2019 Compugen is not owned by hedge funds. There is a little analyst coverage of the stock, but not much. So there is room for it to gain more coverage. Insider Ownership Of Compugen While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it. Story continues Most consider insider ownership a positive because it can indicate the board is well aligned with other shareholders. However, on some occasions too much power is concentrated within this group. We can see that insiders own shares in Compugen Ltd.. It has a market capitalization of just US$235m, and insiders have US$9.6m worth of shares, in their own names. It is good to see some investment by insiders, but it might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying. General Public Ownership The general public -- mostly retail investors -- own 71% of Compugen . This level of ownership gives retail investors the power to sway key policy decisions such as board composition, executive compensation, and the dividend payout ratio. Next Steps: I find it very interesting to look at who exactly owns a company. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. I like to dive deeper into how a company has performed in the past. You can find historic revenue and earnings in this detailed graph . Ultimately the future is most important . You can access this free report on analyst forecasts for the company . NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com . This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
Google Maps can now predict how crowded your train will be You know it's going to be crowded on the bus to work, but now Google Maps can give you a heads up on just how bad it'll be. Similar to when crowded restaurant and store predictionsrolled out in 2017, Google Maps took user data on past rides to map out when certain train, bus, and subway lines are the most crowded. Now you'll see on your transit directions just how packed of a ride to expect. Google first tested the feature inSydneyin October. Starting Thursday,it will be availableto iOS and Android users in 200 cities around the world. Those include 46 metro areas in the U.S., including Los Angeles, New York, Portland, and the Bay Area.Read more... More aboutGoogle Maps,Commuting,Apps And Software,Tech, andTransportation
Why Trinity Industries, Inc. (NYSE:TRN) Could Be Worth Watching Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Trinity Industries, Inc. (NYSE:TRN), which is in the machinery business, and is based in United States, received a lot of attention from a substantial price movement on the NYSE over the last few months, increasing to $23.97 at one point, and dropping to the lows of $19.2. Some share price movements can give investors a better opportunity to enter into the stock, and potentially buy at a lower price. A question to answer is whether Trinity Industries's current trading price of $19.82 reflective of the actual value of the mid-cap? Or is it currently undervalued, providing us with the opportunity to buy? Let’s take a look at Trinity Industries’s outlook and value based on the most recent financial data to see if there are any catalysts for a price change. Check out our latest analysis for Trinity Industries The stock seems fairly valued at the moment according to my relative valuation model. I’ve used the price-to-earnings ratio in this instance because there’s not enough visibility to forecast its cash flows. The stock’s ratio of 22.99x is currently trading slightly above its industry peers’ ratio of 20.53x, which means if you buy Trinity Industries today, you’d be paying a relatively reasonable price for it. And if you believe Trinity Industries should be trading in this range, then there isn’t really any room for the share price grow beyond what it’s currently trading. So, is there another chance to buy low in the future? Given that Trinity Industries’s share is fairly volatile (i.e. its price movements are magnified relative to the rest of the market) this could mean the price can sink lower, giving us an opportunity to buy later on. This is based on its high beta, which is a good indicator for share price volatility. Investors looking for growth in their portfolio may want to consider the prospects of a company before buying its shares. Although value investors would argue that it’s the intrinsic value relative to the price that matter the most, a more compelling investment thesis would be high growth potential at a cheap price. With profit expected to grow by 47% over the next year, the near-term future seems bright for Trinity Industries. It looks like higher cash flow is on the cards for the stock, which should feed into a higher share valuation. Are you a shareholder?TRN’s optimistic future growth appears to have been factored into the current share price, with shares trading around its fair value. However, there are also other important factors which we haven’t considered today, such as the track record of its management team. Have these factors changed since the last time you looked at TRN? Will you have enough conviction to buy should the price fluctuate below the true value? Are you a potential investor?If you’ve been keeping tabs on TRN, now may not be the most optimal time to buy, given it is trading around its fair value. However, the optimistic forecast is encouraging for TRN, which means it’s worth further examining other factors such as the strength of its balance sheet, in order to take advantage of the next price drop. Price is just the tip of the iceberg. Dig deeper into what truly matters – the fundamentals – before you make a decision on Trinity Industries. You can find everything you need to know about Trinity Industries inthe latest infographic research report. If you are no longer interested in Trinity Industries, you can use our free platform to see my list of over50 other stocks with a high growth potential. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
Why the Fed shouldn’t be afraid to make a rate cut ‘mistake’ right now With the market consensus in recent weeksshifting definitively towards a July rate cut, one top economist says the Fed has little to lose by pulling the trigger. “If you cut rates and the economy ends up being OK and it looks like maybe the rate cut wasn't necessary, the cost of that mistake seems relatively low,” NatWest Markets Chief U.S. Economist Michelle Girard told Yahoo Finance’sThe Final Round. Girard pointed to an inflation rate that’s been sitting well below the Fed’s mandated 2% level. A rate cut would be far more risky if inflation were running hot. In fact, another argument for the Fed to consider cutting rates sooner rather than later is to help fixwhat some are calling a ‘credibility issue’thanks to the surprisingly low inflation rate. Girard points out that the July rate cut could somewhat fix this problem. “If inflation were to rise as a result of this unnecessary rate cut, I feel like the Fed would cheer for that outcome at this point,” said Girard, who expects the core PCE inflation rate to hold at 1.5% or 1.6% until August. Girard and her team at NatWest expects a 25 basis point rate cut at the July FOMC meeting, followed by another 25 basis point reduction in September. “Quite honestly the discussion is not IF they'll cut, but by how much will they cut?” Girard said. “Will they move by just 25 basis points, which is our expectation, or could they make a larger move and actually cut by half of a percentage point?” As of now, the market is pricing in a 100% chance of a quarter-point cut in July. But fewer are betting on a more aggressive move by the Fed, with the Fed Funds futures showing a 29% chance of a 50 basis point reduction. The next policy decision the FOMC makes will be a critical point for the central bank that will likely send a strong message to the markets about the remainder of the year. Analysts at UBS, for example,believe that if a cut doesn’t happen in July, it might not actually happen at all because the economic sentiment could likely improve in the 2nd half of the year. “To some extent it does feel like the point of maximum risk is right now, with uncertainty around the outcome of the trade negotiations and concerns about global growth,” said Girard. “If we get good news on trade and if some of the uncertainty wanes, the economy arguably could do better in the second half of the year. But that's a big if.” Girard points out that some of the expectations for the improving economy are based on the action that the Fed will be taking to provide more accommodation to give the economy some insurance. “If the Fed were not to cut now and we saw financial conditions tighten and the markets sold off in disappointment, then I think your outlook for the second half of the year would be called into question,” Girard said, adding that the Fed would then ultimately have to take action later in the year. Assuming the Fed moves on rates in July and September, the NatWest Markets team isn’t expecting another policy move from the Central Bank for the remainder of the year. “At this time, we continue to characterize these actions as ‘insurance’ against mounting downside growth risks rather than the start of an extended easing cycle,” Girard writes in a note to clients. “Thus, for now, we are not adding additional rate cuts to 2019 Q4 or 2020.” Theuncertainty around tradehas dampened the economic outlook which largely plays into the Fed’s decision on rates. Many market participants point out that should there be any progress on the trade front, the FOMC easing could potentially be off the table. However, Girard thinks the odds of a near-term U.S.-China trade agreement are low. “Instead, the ‘best case’ scenario may be a delay in new tariffs being instituted while extended negotiations continue,” Girard writes. “Of course, in that event, uncertainty will linger, weighing on business sentiment and activity.” - Iryna Kirby is a Producer for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter at@IrynaNesko. Read more: • The Fed may be suffering from a 'credibility' issue with its inflation target • The Fed is wrong about inflation and productivity • This top strategist thinks super free money from the Federal Reserve is here to stay • Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance Follow Yahoo Finance onTwitter,Facebook,Instagram,Flipboard,LinkedIn, andreddit.
Does Heritage Cannabis Holdings Corp. (CNSX:CANN) Have A Volatile Share Price? Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! If you're interested in Heritage Cannabis Holdings Corp. (CNSX:CANN), then you might want to consider its beta (a measure of share price volatility) in order to understand how the stock could impact your portfolio. Modern finance theory considers volatility to be a measure of risk, and there are two main types of price volatility. The first category is company specific volatility. This can be dealt with by limiting your exposure to any particular stock. The second sort is caused by the natural volatility of markets, overall. For example, certain macroeconomic events will impact (virtually) all stocks on the market. Some stocks see their prices move in concert with the market. Others tend towards stronger, gentler or unrelated price movements. Beta is a widely used metric to measure a stock's exposure to market risk (volatility). Before we go on, it's worth noting that Warren Buffett pointed out in his 2014 letter to shareholders that 'volatility is far from synonymous with risk.' Having said that, beta can still be rather useful. The first thing to understand about beta is that the beta of the overall market is one. Any stock with a beta of greater than one is considered more volatile than the market, while those with a beta below one are either less volatile or poorly correlated with the market. View our latest analysis for Heritage Cannabis Holdings With a beta of 1.06, (which is quite close to 1) the share price of Heritage Cannabis Holdings has historically been about as voltile as the broader market. If the future looks like the past, we could therefore consider it likely that the stock price will experience share price volatility that is roughly similar to the overall market. Beta is worth considering, but it's also important to consider whether Heritage Cannabis Holdings is growing earnings and revenue. You can take a look for yourself, below. Heritage Cannabis Holdings is a noticeably small company, with a market capitalisation of CA$219m. Most companies this size are not always actively traded. It doesn't take much money to really move the share price of a company as small as this one. That makes it somewhat unusual that it has a beta value so close to the overall market. Heritage Cannabis Holdings has a beta value quite close to that of the overall market. That doesn't tell us much on its own, so it is probably worth considering whether the company is growing, if you're looking for stocks that will go up more than the overall market. In order to fully understand whether CANN is a good investment for you, we also need to consider important company-specific fundamentals such as Heritage Cannabis Holdings’s financial health and performance track record. I highly recommend you dive deeper by considering the following: 1. Financial Health: Are CANN’s operations financially sustainable? Balance sheets can be hard to analyze, which is why we’ve done it for you. Check out ourfinancial health checks here. 2. Past Track Record: Has CANN been consistently performing well irrespective of the ups and downs in the market? Go into more detail in the past performance analysis and take a look atthe free visual representations of CANN's historicalsfor more clarity. 3. Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore ourfree list of these great stocks here. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
JPMJamie Dimon backs US-Mexico-Canada trade deal JPMorgan Chase ( JPM ) CEO Jamie Dimon strongly backed the trade deal between the U.S., Mexico and Canada, telling Yahoo Finance in an interview that he and other businessmen were prepared to “get every congressman” to vote for the stalled agreement. The renegotiated NAFTA pact is currently stalled in Congress — and was thrown into jeopardy earlier this month when President Donald Trump threatened to slap tariffs on Mexico to stem the flow of migrants across the border. While both Mexico and Canada plan to approve the deal, Democrats have held up the legislation on labor and environmental concerns. Dimon told Yahoo Finance that he and other business leaders plan to “work really hard to get it passed.” The CEO of the largest U.S. bank added that U.S. and major American companies — represented by the Business Roundtable (BRT), which Dimon chairs — should help support both countries. WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 10: Jamie Dimon, Chair and CEO of JP Morgan Chase, testifies before the House Financial Services Commitee in Washington Wednesday April 10, 2019. (Photo by J. Lawler Duggan/For The Washington Post via Getty Images) “You know, the membership of the BRT wants that deal done. Mexico is a good neighbor of ours. Canada is a good neighbor of ours,” Dimon said. “And we're going to be fully involved in trying to get every congressman to vote for USMCA ,” he added, referring to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the rengotiated North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Thus far, Mexico has been the only country to ratify the agreement. Canada is looking to get the deal through the Parliament, potentially pressing for a vote this summer if President Trump can establish a deal with Democrats . However, the USMCA is mired in politics ahead of what is expected to be a hotly contested presidential election in 2020. Democrats have also questioned whether the deal is really enough from NAFTA , which they blame for outsourced jobs. “We've got to lift labor standards in all three countries – and if we don't do that, NAFTA will continue to mean bleeding jobs,” said Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH). However, business leaders like Dimon insist the U.S . and Mexico are facing the same issues, and should collaborate more closely on key issues. Story continues “And a lot of their problems are also ours,” Dimon said to Yahoo Finance, speaking about Mexico. “We buy their drugs and sell them the guns. So... we should work together to fix some of these problems and stuff like that.” Donovan Russo is a writer for Yahoo Finance. Follow him @Donovanxrusso . Read more: Why Trump-Xi meeting won't produce a trade war 'breakthrough' at G20: Goldman Sachs Trump blasts Federal Reserve as 'stubborn child' on rate policy UBS: World economy ‘one step away from global recession' GrubHub stock soars as Citi cites delivery tests as a reason to buy Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter , Facebook , Instagram , Flipboard , LinkedIn , and reddit .
The Latest: State gets extension to provide details to feds OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The Latest on the federal government's demand for a portion of Oklahoma's $270 million settlement with Purdue Pharma (all times local): 2:13 p.m. The state of Oklahoma has been granted more time to provide details about the state's $270 million settlement with Purdue Pharma to the federal government, which is seeking a portion of the proceeds. Documents provided to The Associated Press on Thursday by Oklahoma's Medicaid agency show the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services agreed this week to the 90-day extension. The CMS in June notified the Oklahoma Health Care Authority that the federal agency is entitled to a portion of the proceeds and sought detailed information from the state about the settlement. A spokesman for Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter says his office is reviewing the CMS request. Spokesman Alex Gerszewski (ger-SHES'-kee) also said the federal government's request won't affect state revenue. ___ 11 a.m. The federal government is seeking a portion of Oklahoma's $270 million settlement with Purdue Pharma that stemmed from the state's ongoing lawsuit against opioid drug makers. The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services says in a letter to the head of Oklahoma's Medicaid agency it has determined the federal government is entitled to a portion of Oklahoma's proceeds. The June 12 letter from CMS' regional director Bill Brooks also seeks detailed information from the Oklahoma Health Care Authority and warns that failure to return a portion of the settlement money could result in the withholding of federal funds. Details of the letter were first reported by The Washington Post. Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ivana Trump announces that she's single and rich in epic breakup statement Ivana Trump has broken up with her boyfriend and ex-husband, Rossano Rubicondi. But, more importantly, she is rich . That was the gist of a press release sent out on behalf of the author, businesswoman and socialite on Thursday. It said that the pair — who divorced in 2009 and reconciled soon after — “split.” it was “amicable” and Trump and her fourth husband “remain friendly,” but they are “no longer romantically involved.” Ivana Trump wants you to know that her relationship with Rossano Rubicondi is over. She also wants you to know she's rich. (Photo: Alain BENAINOUS/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images) While most breakup statements would end there, this one went on to tout her marriage to President Trump, which, of course, blew up spectacularly with a cheating scandal and her allegation in a sealed divorce deposition that he sexually assaulted her. She named each of their headline-drawing children: Ivanka, Don Jr. and Eric. And she mentioned being “selected to the 1972 Olympic Ski team” (in Czechoslovakia) — despite the validity of this claim being disputed . Trump’s statement about the split was the true kicker though: “I am once again a single woman, and I have the freedom to do what I want, with whomever I want to, and I can afford my lifestyle.” (Screenshot: Yahoo Celebrity) Of course the woman who famously uttered “Don’t get mad, get everything” in the First Wives Club and beyond would remind people that she is hella rich and “can afford my lifestyle.” (A spokesperson for Trump confirmed that was her official statement.) Ivana Trump in 1996's First Wives Club . (GiF: First Wives Club ) Page Six was first to report on the breakup. Trump told the gossip column that the “relationship just ran its course,. Rossano spends a lot of time in Italy and I spend a lot of time in New York, Miami and St-Tropez, and he has to work. The long-distance relationship really doesn’t work.” She added that she’s “done” with marriage. “You get married because you want a family. I have three kids and grandkids,” she said. “I just want to be free and go where I want to go with whoever I want. I want to be a free woman.” And she doesn’t even want to date. “I like to have companions, and I have plenty of men who take me for lunches and dinners and balls or charity events,” she said, “but I don’t want to be attached.” She was looking forward to “a fabulous summer” as a single woman in St-Tropez. Rubicondi told Page Six, “Think whatever you want to think.” Though he added she is “always family” to him. Trump, 70, and Rubicondi, 47, dated for six years before marrying in a $3 million wedding at Mar-a-Lago in 2008. (In her divorce from The Donald, she got the estate for one month a year .) Ivanka was a bridesmaid . Don Jr. and Eric wore white tuxes . The pair divorced just a year later and had other relationships, but got back together soon after. Last year, they were guest competitors on the Italian edition of Dancing With the Stars in Rome. Story continues Ivana Trump and Rossano Rubicondi were guest competitors on the Italian version of Dancing With the Stars ( Ballando Con Le Stelle ) in Rome in 2018. (Photo: Getty Images) While Trump had a very bitter divorce from the president, it’s mostly water under the bridge . The exes banded together to fight an effort to unseal records of their 1990 divorce — which included her sexual assault allegation. After he became president, Ivana capitalized by writing 2017’s Raising Trump , about her marriage and life. In it, she said that she and Donald speak once a week, despite their “insane” divorce, and she bragged that she encourages him to keep using Twitter. Read more on Yahoo Entertainment: Pamela Anderson details alleged abuse by 'monster' Adil Rami: 'I needed to go to hospital because I was in so much pain' Beth Chapman, of 'Dog the Bounty Hunter' fame, dies at 51 ‘Jeopardy!’ fans and Alex Trebek shocked by super rare tiebreaker game Want daily pop culture news delivered to your inbox? Sign up here for Yahoo Entertainment & Lifestyle’s newsletter. View comments
Our Lawless President Had a Lawless Response to the Supreme Court's Census Ruling Our Lawless President Had a Lawless Response to the Supreme Court's Census Ruling From Esquire One of the core governing principles of Donald Trump's life is that the rules do not apply to him. Now that the American people have seen fit to make him the world's most powerful man, this philosophy extends to our constitutional government. The signs are everywhere. Last week, the president said he ordered a military strike against Iran but pulled the plug with 10 minutes to go , when he finally asked and learned there would be 150 casualties. (This autobiographical account was supposed to make him look Presidential.) What legal authority did he cite to order this act of war? The 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force does not apply to Iran, even if Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was making the case to Congress in the lead-up. Even Republicans have raised doubts. And yet the president could easily have launched an act of war against a random country, in direct contravention of the war powers allotted to Congress in the Constitution, and nobody could have stopped him. What we've learned, painfully, is that the law is a dead letter if you don't enforce it. And because he stopped himself, nobody's even really asked why this whole deal wasn't illegal. Photo credit: Chip Somodevilla - Getty Images All this is to say that his response to a Supreme Court decision handed down today that torpedoed his administration's blatantly shady attempt to manipulate the Census with a citizenship question was fairly predictable. The president sought to defy the Constitution, because the rules do not apply to Donald Trump. Seems totally ridiculous that our government, and indeed Country, cannot ask a basic question of Citizenship in a very expensive, detailed and important Census, in this case for 2020. I have asked the lawyers if they can delay the Census, no matter how long, until the..... - Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 27, 2019 .....United States Supreme Court is given additional information from which it can make a final and decisive decision on this very critical matter. Can anyone really believe that as a great Country, we are not able the ask whether or not someone is a Citizen. Only in America! - Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 27, 2019 He'll talk to his lawyers? What is this, a dispute with the zoning board? Is one of the dozens of contractors he stiffed asking to be paid what was promised? Story continues Here's Article I, Section II of the United States Constitution: Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Census is taken every 10 years. That's it. As Ari Berman from Mother Jones pointed out on Twitter , the Census is constitutionally mandated to begin in April 2020. You cannot defy the Constitution because a Supreme Court decision did not go your way. But you'd best believe Trump will try. After all, the president is continually defying another clause of the Constitution: ...[the president] shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States... Trump is blatantly abusing the "acting" designation to avoid seeking Senate approval of his Cabinet members, including the Secretary of Defense at a time when he's saber-rattling at Iran-a country of 81 million people with a sophisticated military apparatus. He may also be in violation of the Constitution's Emoluments Clause: No Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State. The guy is raking in money from foreign powers through his hotels and a sprawling network of overseas business interests . That's the subject of more than one lawsuit at the moment, including one from congressional Democrats that scored a key victory this week . And yet it doesn't seem to matter. It doesn't matter that he quite clearly committed obstruction of justice multiple times. The rules do not apply, in this case because the Democrats in Congress refuse to enforce the law by beginning impeachment proceedings. This lawless president will not just wreak havoc in the present. If he is not held accountable, his legacy will be a long and storied nightmare for this constitutional republic. ('You Might Also Like',) HOW TO FIND THE PERFECT SUNGLASSES FOR YOUR FACE SHAPE If You Don’t Have a Denim Shirt Yet, What’s Stopping You? Why You'll Never Understand Mezcal Like You Understand Scotch
Should You Think About Buying TrueCar, Inc. (NASDAQ:TRUE) Now? Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! TrueCar, Inc. (NASDAQ:TRUE), which is in the interactive media and services business, and is based in United States, saw significant share price movement during recent months on the NASDAQGS, rising to highs of $7.21 and falling to the lows of $5.25. Some share price movements can give investors a better opportunity to enter into the stock, and potentially buy at a lower price. A question to answer is whether TrueCar's current trading price of $5.25 reflective of the actual value of the small-cap? Or is it currently undervalued, providing us with the opportunity to buy? Let’s take a look at TrueCar’s outlook and value based on the most recent financial data to see if there are any catalysts for a price change. View our latest analysis for TrueCar Great news for investors – TrueCar is still trading at a fairly cheap price. According to my valuation, the intrinsic value for the stock is $9.05, but it is currently trading at US$5.25 on the share market, meaning that there is still an opportunity to buy now. However, given that TrueCar’s share is fairly volatile (i.e. its price movements are magnified relative to the rest of the market) this could mean the price can sink lower, giving us another chance to buy in the future. This is based on its high beta, which is a good indicator for share price volatility. Investors looking for growth in their portfolio may want to consider the prospects of a company before buying its shares. Buying a great company with a robust outlook at a cheap price is always a good investment, so let’s also take a look at the company's future expectations. With profit expected to grow by 45% over the next couple of years, the future seems bright for TrueCar. It looks like higher cash flow is on the cards for the stock, which should feed into a higher share valuation. Are you a shareholder?Since TRUE is currently undervalued, it may be a great time to increase your holdings in the stock. With an optimistic outlook on the horizon, it seems like this growth has not yet been fully factored into the share price. However, there are also other factors such as financial health to consider, which could explain the current undervaluation. Are you a potential investor?If you’ve been keeping an eye on TRUE for a while, now might be the time to enter the stock. Its buoyant future outlook isn’t fully reflected in the current share price yet, which means it’s not too late to buy TRUE. But before you make any investment decisions, consider other factors such as the track record of its management team, in order to make a well-informed investment decision. Price is just the tip of the iceberg. Dig deeper into what truly matters – the fundamentals – before you make a decision on TrueCar. You can find everything you need to know about TrueCar inthe latest infographic research report. If you are no longer interested in TrueCar, you can use our free platform to see my list of over50 other stocks with a high growth potential. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
HGTV "Kitchen Cousins" Anthony Carrino reveals his top tips for shopping for a grill There's nothing as synonymous with summer as grilling -- but there's so much more to grilling than hamburgers and hotdogs. And the key to a perfect burger or dog might be as simple as finding the perfect grill. We caught up with Anthony Carrino from HGTV's Kitchen Cousins to learn his top tips on shopping for a grill, his suggestions for grill maintenance and what all first-time grill owners need to know. AOL: Let's start at Grilling 101: What should customers keep in mind while shopping for a grill? Anthony: While shopping for a grill, it’s important to first narrow down what type of grill you’re looking for based on the type of entertaining and cooking you plan to do this season. If you’re only hosting a few people or have a smaller outdoor area, look for a compact grill that saves on space. ThisChar-Broil Classic 2-Burner Gas Grillis perfect for a smaller cook out, but holds up to 15 burgers! If you’re in the market for something a little bigger, thisWeber Genesis II E-355 3-Burner Gas Grillis equipped with a sear station, side burner and side table with integrated hooks for platter and tool storage. Does a higher price tag necessarily mean the better the grill? Definitely not! There are quality grills to fit within any budget, and it all depends on what you’re looking for. Home to top grill brands Weber and Char-Broil, Lowe’s is the number one grill retailer – so you can guarantee there’s a grill for you, no matter how much you’re planning to spend. And don’t forget, if you’re looking to build an outdoor kitchen setup, you can do it a piece at a time over a few seasons to lessen the impact of the cost – just make sure you do your planning up front so you wind up with a cohesive space! What are some tips on grill cleaning and grill maintenance? You want to make sure you’re getting the most out of your grill with every use throughout the season, and keeping it clean is the key. ThisChar-Broil Cool Clean Nylon Grill Brushis equipped with angled bristles that help deep clean between grates, and is equipped with Cool-Clean Technology to help clean surfaces without heat. My favorite thing about this brush is the detachable head, which you can throw in the dishwasher so it’s sanitary and ready for the next BBQ. What is your favorite grill for customers on every budget? Lowe’s has plenty of options available at every budget, but here are my top picks to try at various price-points: theAussie 21.25-in Kettle Charcoal Grill($54.98), theWeber Genesis II E-210 2-Burner Gas Grill($499.00) and theChar-Broil Classic 2-Burner Gas Grill($1599). Related: These HGTV stars reveal their biggest tips
How to keep your dog calm and safe during the Fourth of July fireworks The Fourth of July means a day off from work, lounging by the pool and barbecues with friends -- but unfortunately, the holiday may not be so relaxing for manypet owners. A2013 study cited by Roverfound that fireworks were "the most common trigger for fearful behavior" in canines. Because of the loud noises and spontaneity of the sounds, even dogs who don't normally display such anxious behavior may act out in ways such as trembling, hiding, urinating and destruction. The study from Rover found a number of breeds, including "gun-dog breeds" such as Labradors and Cocker Spaniels, may be less fearful of fireworks, though "early life experience" with these sounds may make a difference in how the animals react. And while breeds suchShiba Inus and Wheaten Terrierswere found to be more fearful, researchers have also investigated if there is a genetic predisposition to this noise sensitivity. And, according to research from PetSmart, all of these frightening noises and stimulations can pressure your dog or cat into running away. "There's a 30-60 percent increase in lost pets in the U.S. on July 4th, and July 5th is one of the busiest days at animal shelters," explained its website. Veterinarians have suggested a number of ways in which owners can calm their pets during the loud holiday celebrations. If you're unable to distract your dog with music, treats or toys or bring them to an area where the sounds are more muffled, a heavy blanket or pressure wrap may help. "The vests work under the theory that pressure applied to the dog’s torso causes a calming effect similar to swaddling a crying infant or hugging a distressed person,"explained Veterinarian Lynn Buzhardt for VCA Hospitals. "Scientifically, gentle pressure releases chemicals called endorphins that promote a sense of well-being. That’s why stroking a dog firmly and slowly calms him down while a quick pat on the head gets him revs him up," she said. RELATED: Best breeds for kids
Accenture PLC (ACN) Q3 2019 Earnings Call Transcript Image source: The Motley Fool. Accenture PLC(NYSE: ACN)Q3 2019 Earnings CallJun 27, 2019,8:00 a.m. ET • Prepared Remarks • Questions and Answers • Call Participants Operator Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Accenture's Third Quarter Fiscal 2019 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Instructions will be given at that time. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Managing Director, Head of Investor Relations, Angie Park. Please go ahead. Angie Park--Head of Investor Relations Thank you, Greg, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today on our third quarter of fiscal 2019 earnings announcement. As the operator just mentioned, I'm Angie Park, Managing Director, Head of Investor Relations. On today's call, you will hear from David Rowland, our Interim Chief Executive Officer, and KC McClure, our Chief Financial Officer. We hope you've had an opportunity to review the news release we issued a short time ago. Let me quickly outline the agenda for today's call. David will begin with an overview of our results. KC will take you through the financial details, including the income statement and balance sheet, along with some key operational metrics for the third quarter. David will then provide a brief update on our market positioning before KC provides our business outlook for the fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2019. We will then take your questions before David provides a wrap-up at the end of the call. Some of the matters we'll discuss on this call, including our business outlook, are forward-looking and as such are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties including but not limited to those factors set forth in today's news release and discussed in our Annual Report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and other SEC filings. These risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in this call. During our call today, we will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe provide useful information for our investors. We include reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures where appropriate to GAAP in our news release or in the Investor Relations section of our website at accenture.com. As always, Accenture assumes no obligation to update the information presented on this conference call. Now let me turn the call over to David. David P. Rowland--Interim Chief Executive Officer Thank you, Angie, and thanks so much to all of you for joining us on today's call. Accenture delivered another strong quarter, and I couldn't be more pleased with our overall performance as we continue to execute our growth strategy and create significant value for all of our stakeholders, our clients, employees and shareholders. We again delivered revenue growth well ahead of the market as well as strong profitability and free cash flow, while continuing to make substantial investments for long-term market leadership. Here are a few of the highlights for the quarter. We delivered new bookings of $10.6 billion, which was in the range we expected. We generated record revenues of $11.1 billion, at the top of our guided range, with 8.4% growth in local currency. We delivered earnings per share of $1.93, an 8% increase compared to adjusted earnings per share last year. Operating margin was 15.5%, an expansion of 20 basis points. Our free cash flow was very strong at $2 billion, and we returned $1.4 billion in cash to shareholders through our share repurchases and the payment of our semi-annual dividend. So all in all, it was another strong quarter by any measure. Looking forward, I feel very good about our business and our ability to deliver a strong fourth quarter, and in doing so, to complete what will be another truly outstanding year for Accenture. Now let me hand it over to KC, who will review the numbers in greater detail. KC? KC McClure--Chief Financial Officer Thank you, David, and thanks to all of you for joining us on today's call. Let me start by saying we were very pleased with our third quarter results, which were aligned to our expectations and were strong across many dimensions of our business. Once again, our results demonstrate the power of our highly differentiated growth strategy. As we have often stated, a key intent of our growth strategy is to create durability and our revenue growth at a level that is consistently above the market, taking share and strengthening our position as a leader. Against this objective, we have created a unique footprint that includes scale and leadership in the world's largest and most critical geographic markets in the industry. This footprint, along with our highly relevant offerings, delivered within our end-to-end service model, is key to being a market leader and helping our clients rotate to The New. Our third quarter and year-to-date results are an illustration of our growth model in action. And based on the strength of our results and the confidence and the visibility we have in our fourth quarter, we are increasing key elements of our full year outlook, which I will cover in more detail later in the call. Importantly, our results and updated guidance reflect very strong execution against our three financial imperatives for driving superior shareholder value. Revenue growth of 8.4% in local currency in the third quarter continued to be driven by strong double-digit growth in all three areas of The New, including digital, cloud and security-related services. This strong top line growth was broad-based with several areas growing double digits or high single digits. Revenues landed in the range we expected, and importantly, we did see the anticipated improvement in financial services and the US federal business. Operating margin of 15.5% expanded 20 basis points for the quarter and reflects strong underlying profitability, allowing us to invest at scale in our people and in our business. And we delivered very strong EPS of $1.93, which represents 8% growth compared to adjusted EPS last year, even with an FX headwind of over 4%. And we had record free cash flow for both the quarter of $2 billion and year-to-date of $4.2 billion, which reflect both our strong profitability and our excellent DSO management. We are well positioned to deliver free cash flow in excess of net income for the full year. We continue to execute against our strategic capital allocation objectives with year-to-date investments and acquisitions of approximately $1.1 billion and over $4.1 billion returned to shareholders via dividends and share repurchases. Now let me turn to some of the details, starting with new bookings. New bookings were $10.6 billion for the quarter. Consulting bookings were $6 billion, with a book-to-bill of 1. Outsourcing bookings were $4.6 billion, with a book-to-bill of 0.9. This quarter, our bookings continued to be well balanced across the dimensions of our business and the dominant driver of our bookings in the quarter continued to be high demand for digital, cloud and security-related services, which we estimated approximated 65% of our new bookings. Overall, Q3 bookings landed in the range we expected. As you know, quarterly bookings can be lumpy, which you've seen in our year-to-date results, and that is consistent with our historical pattern. Looking forward, we have a very strong pipeline, and we expect strong bookings in Q4. Turning now to revenues. Revenues for the quarter were $11.1 billion, a 4% increase in US dollars and 8.4% in local currency, and we're at the top of our previously guided range. Consulting revenues for the quarter were $6.2 billion, up 3% in US dollars and 7% in local currency. Outsourcing revenues were $4.9 billion, up 5% in US dollars and 10% in local currency. Looking at the trends in estimated revenue growth across our business dimensions, technology services posted strong high-single digit growth, strategy and consulting services grew mid single digit and operations continued its trend of double-digit growth. Taking a closer look at our operating groups, resources grew 19% in local currency, delivering its seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit revenue growth. Continued momentum was driven by double-digit growth across all three industries and all three geographies. Products grew 8%, reflecting continued strength in our largest operating group. Demand continued to be broad-based across all three industries and all three geographies. Communications, media and technology grew 7%, reflecting continued strong double-digit growth in software and platforms, and we have strong, balanced growth across all three geographies. H&PS delivered 6% growth, in line with our expectations. Europe led with double-digit growth, and we were very pleased with the strong growth in North America, which reflected strong growth in our US federal business. Finally, as expected, we saw an uptick in financial services this quarter, with 4% growth. Insurance again grew double digits across all geographies, and we saw some improvement in banking and capital markets globally, including in Europe. Overall, financial services delivered double-digit growth in growth markets, strong growth in North America, partially offset by contraction in Europe. Turning to the geographic dimensions of our business, I'm very pleased with the continued demand across all three of our geographic regions. In North America, we delivered 9% revenue growth in local currency, driven by continued strong growth in the United States. In Europe, revenues grew 5% in local currency, with double-digit growth in Italy and Ireland as well as mid-single-digit growth in the UK. And we delivered another very strong quarter in growth markets, with 13% growth in local currency, led by Japan which again had very strong double-digit growth. We had double-digit growth in -- excuse me, in China and Brazil as well. Moving down the income statement. Gross margin for the quarter was 3.1 -- 31.8% compared with 31.2% for the same period last year. Sales and marketing expense for the quarter was 10.7% compared with 10.3% for the third quarter last year. General and administrative expenses was 5.6% compared to 5.5% for Q3 of last year. Operating income was $1.7 billion in the third quarter, reflecting a 15.5% operating margin, up 20 basis points compared with Q3 last year. As a reminder, in Q3 of last year, we recognized a charge related to tax law changes. The following comparisons exclude the impact and reflect adjusted results. Our effective tax rate for the quarter was 25.6% compared with an adjusted effective tax rate of 26.8% for the third quarter last year. Diluted earnings per share were $1.93 compared with adjusted EPS of $1.79 in Q3 of last year. DSO was 39 days compared to 40 days last quarter and 39 days in the third quarter of last year. Free cash flow for the quarter was $2 billion, resulting from cash generated by operating activities of $2.1 billion net of property and equipment additions of $140 million. Our cash balance at May 31 was $4.8 billion compared with $5.1 billion at August 31. And with regards to our ongoing objective to return cash to shareholders, in the third quarter, we repurchased or redeemed 2.8 million shares for $488 million at an average price of $173.95 per share. At May 31, we had approximately $4.1 billion of share repurchase authority remaining. Finally, as David mentioned, on May 15, 2019, we made our second semi-annual dividend payment for fiscal '19 in the amount of $1.46 per share, bringing total dividend payments for the fiscal year to approximately $1.9 billion. So, in summary, we are very pleased with our third quarter results and are now focused on Q4 and closing out another strong year. With that, let me turn it back to David. David P. Rowland--Interim Chief Executive Officer Thank you, KC. Our strong results for the third quarter and year-to-date demonstrate that we continue to execute our growth strategy extremely well. In particular, we continue to benefit from our leadership position in The New, where revenues again grew at a double-digit rate with broad-based growth across all components of The New, including Accenture Interactive, Applied Intelligence, Industry X.0, Cloud and Security. And as KC mentioned, our third quarter and year-to-date performance is powered by our unique leadership footprint in the marketplace, with breadth and scale across the most strategic geographies, industries and capabilities, and this provides for durability and consistency in our performance and uniquely positions us to deliver seamless outstanding service to our global clients. While there are many positive aspects of our third quarter results, today I want to focus on Accenture Technology, which is the largest part of our business overall and also accounts for the majority of our revenues in The New. So in many ways, Accenture Technology is really the engine of our strong leadership position in The New. We believe Accenture has the strongest and most innovative technology capability in our industry, with scale and leadership in all the areas that are most relevant to our clients. Today, all companies are digital businesses, and certainly Accenture is a digital technology company at our core, with advanced capabilities such as data and analytics, automation, artificial intelligence and machine learning. Last quarter, I highlighted three key focus areas in Accenture Technology that power growth in our business. And today, I'd like to dig a little deeper. First, in intelligent platform services, we apply our digital capabilities, innovation and industry expertise on top of the leading core platforms, SAP, Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce and Workday to help clients drive large-scale enterprise wide transformation. We are proud to be a leading partner of all the key players, and we see continued strong demand for intelligent platform services which again grew at a double-digit rate in quarter three and accounts for about 40% of our total revenues. As one example, we're helping a leading fashion retailer with a global implementation of SAP S4 HANA that leverages myConcerto, our proprietary AI powered development platform. myConcerto brings together our deep industry knowledge and differentiated tools and methodologies to help clients innovate and accelerate platform implementation. Our work is driving greater synergies across the retailers' global brands and building a strong foundation for future growth. The second area, intelligent software engineering services, is focused on developing and delivering the custom systems that our clients are increasingly demanding. With more than 30,000 people, we have one of the largest teams of specialized software engineers and architects solving the most challenging problems in agile and creative ways using data, the cloud, artificial intelligence and other new technologies. As an example, we're helping Swisscom, Switzerland's leading telecom company, transform into a digital service provider. By leveraging our proprietary digital omnichannel platform with AI machine learning and analytics, we are increasing the precision and personalization of the customer experience across all their channels. And third, in intelligent cloud and infrastructure services, we provide clients with powerful differentiated solutions from cloud strategy and migration to managed services and cloud security. We are the leading partner of Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud platform, which are often at the heart of our clients' agendas to adopt new and leading technologies and rotate their own businesses to The New. To-date, Accenture has worked on more than 25,000 cloud computing projects for clients, including 80% of the Fortune Global 100, and we have more than 77,000 people trained in cloud technology. A good example is our work with Del Monte Foods to unlock innovation and streamline their operations by migrating hundreds of servers and critical SAP enterprisewide applications to the cloud in less than four months. They are benefiting from a more agile operating environment, real-time customer insights and a 35% reduction in IT cost, freeing up resources to grow the core business. There are three common threads that run through all of these areas in technology. One is innovation, and in fact technology is at the heart of our innovation agenda. A great illustration is our AI powered Microsoft myWizard platform, which you've heard us mention many times previously, which differentiates our service delivery by improving clients' business performance with superior productivity and predictability. And we continue to leverage our unique innovation architecture which integrates our capabilities from research, ventures, labs, innovation centers and delivery centers. Second is our powerful ecosystem relationships as the largest independent provider of technology services. While scale is certainly a factor, it's also our ability to co-innovate with our partners, delivering outcomes and value at speed in The New and looking to the Next New that differentiates us in the marketplace. And the final piece that underpins our technology leadership and is pervasive across everything we do is our unmatched industrialized global delivery capability which uniquely positions Accenture to deliver large-scale complex programs. Let me now switch gears and comment on our continued commitment to invest for long-term market leadership, including operating investments related to assets and solutions, talent and innovation as well as capital investments to acquire critical skills and capabilities in strategic high growth markets. So far this year, we have deployed approximately $1.1 billion in capital on acquisitions, with the majority focused in The New and especially Accenture Interactive, where we've completed nine deals so far this year. I'm particularly pleased with the acquisition of Droga5, by far our biggest of the year, which has a large New York-based creative agency that significantly strengthens our capabilities to design, build and run customer experiences that grow brands and businesses. But before I hand it back to KC, I want to take a moment to acknowledge some of the external recognition we've received. Accenture rose to number 28 on BrandZ's list of Top 100 Most Valuable Brands and we also achieved our highest ranking ever on Forbes' list of the top global brands, and we had our highest ever double-digit increases in brand value on both list. I'm also very pleased that we were named for the first time in two fast company rankings for innovation: first, in the category of world's most innovative companies, and second, for world changing ideas. And finally, Accenture was ranked number one on Barron's new list of the Most Sustainable International Companies. Before I close, I want to briefly mention that our CEO succession process is going very well, and as I said last quarter, we expect to complete the process by the end of this fiscal year. With that, I'll turn it over to KC to provide our updated business outlook. KC? KC McClure--Chief Financial Officer Thanks, David. Let me now turn to our business outlook. For the fourth quarter of fiscal 2019, we expect revenues to be in the range of $10.85 billion to $11.15 billion. This assumes the impact of FX will be about negative 2% compared to the fourth quarter of fiscal '18 and reflects an estimated 5% to 8% growth in local currency. For the full fiscal year '19, based on how the rates have been trending over the last few weeks, we continue to assume the impact of FX on our results in US dollars will be approximately negative 3% compared to fiscal '18. For the full fiscal '19, we now expect our revenues to be in the range of 8% to 9% growth in local currency over fiscal '18. For operating margin, we now expect fiscal '19 to be 14.6%, a 20 basis point expansion over fiscal '18 results. We continue to expect our annual effective tax rate to be in the range of 22.5% to 23.5%. This compares to an adjusted effective tax rate of 23% in fiscal '18. For earnings per share, we now expect full year diluted EPS for fiscal '19 to be in the range of $7.28 to $7.35 or 8% to 9% growth over adjusted fiscal '18 results. For the full fiscal '19, we continue to expect operating cash flow to be in the range of $5.85 billion to $6.25 billion, property and equipment additions to be approximately $650 million and free cash flow to be in the range of $5.2 billion to $5.6 billion. Our free cash flow guidance reflects a very strong free cash flow to net income ratio of 1.1 to 1.2. And we continue to expect to return at least $4.5 billion through dividends and share repurchases as we remain committed to returning a substantial portion of our cash to our shareholders. With that, let's open it up so that we can take your questions. Angie? Angie Park--Head of Investor Relations Thanks, KC. I would ask that you each keep to one question and a follow-up to allow as many participants as possible to ask a question. Greg, would you provide instructions for those on the call. Operator Thank you. (Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from the line of Ashwin Shirvaikar from Citi. Please go ahead. Ashwin Shirvaikar--Citi -- Analyst Thank you. Good morning, David. Good morning, KC. David P. Rowland--Interim Chief Executive Officer Good morning, Ashwin. Thank you. Ashwin Shirvaikar--Citi -- Analyst I wanted to start with a question on bookings, which seem to, with the book-to-bill lower than 1 seem to have decelerated a bit, particularly when I looked at the comment that says 65% of bookings are in The New implies a third is from legacy services. Is this what sort of where you have a need to provide clients with higher productivity requirements? Is this a trend we should be looking at more carefully in the future because that's what affects bookings growth? And in The New, as that grows, is there a visibility question we should be asking with regards to a higher cloud component or a higher agile development component? Does that also bring with it lower visibility? KC McClure--Chief Financial Officer Okay. Thanks, Ashwin. Let me just cover a lot of the questions there you had on bookings. So maybe I'll first start with -- as I mentioned, bookings really were in the range that we expected, and they were quite well balanced and we like that they are about 65% in The New. And so just as a reminder, you know this well for covering our so long, bookings can be lumpy by quarter. So you see that in our results this year where we have really strong bookings -- record bookings in Q2. But there are historical patterns. We've always had some lumpiness and variability quarter-to-quarter in bookings. So, as it relates to what we're seeing, the second half is really playing out largely as expected. We like our position where we are year-to-date. It really is where we anticipated that we would be this time of the year. And so then looking forward and talking about your visibility question, based on the strength of our pipeline and the visibility that we do have, we do see stronger bookings in Q4. There is not really an element of The New that impacts that visibility. We like that we have the majority of our bookings in The New, and we feel that we're really well positioned based on where we are to-date with what we can see for Q4 bookings to be well positioned for next year. And I think that really just points to, as you were talking about, our offerings, the relevance of our offerings and our capabilities in the marketplace. Ashwin Shirvaikar--Citi -- Analyst Got it. And then with the anticipated improvement in financial services, that's good to see that come through. Looking forward, is it -- should we assume that that continues to step up? KC McClure--Chief Financial Officer Yeah. So, as you said, we were also pleased with the uptick in financial services that we saw this quarter. And that did come in as expected, and I did note, and I will say again that we are particularly pleased with our strong growth in North America and the continued double-digit growth that we have in the growth markets. And -- while Europe did contract, it is -- we did see improvement in banking, capital markets. And as it relates to what we think for the rest of the year, we still see the second half of the year and financial services being stronger than the first half of the year, which is what we had anticipated. And you see the first part of that happening in Q3. Ashwin Shirvaikar--Citi -- Analyst Got it. Thank you. Operator Your next question comes from the line of Tien-tsin Huang from JP Morgan. Please go ahead. Tien-tsin Huang--JPMorgan -- Analyst Hi. Good morning, guys. How are you? David P. Rowland--Interim Chief Executive Officer Good morning, Tien-tsin. How are you? Tien-tsin Huang--JPMorgan -- Analyst I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'll -- let me ask on the margin side. It looks like gross margin drove the raise in margin guidance. Is that correct? And what would you attribute that to? Is it favorable mix, pricing, contracts execution? It looks like you did bump it up overall. KC McClure--Chief Financial Officer So -- hi, Tien-tsin. As you know, we really do run our business first of all to operating margins. So that's really how we manage the business. And the first thing that we do look at though within gross margin is how our contract profitability is performing. And overall, for both the quarter and for the year, we're happy with our improvement in contract profitability. And that really does also (ph) with pricing, right? So, as we have more and more of our work in The New and in the -- and in the areas where we see strong demand and where we have highly differentiated skills, we do see that we're able to price at a better rate than in other areas. So you'll see that that is part of what's driving our gross margin, which is in fact a part -- a big part of driving operating margin. It's also important to note, though, even within gross margin, we do have our investments, and that's really key for what we're doing. So, again, that's why we run our business in operating margin, but from quarter to quarter, you also -- we are also absorbing investments in our people, in our business, in our gross margin as well. Tien-tsin Huang--JPMorgan -- Analyst Got it. That's healthy. Then on -- just to follow up on Ashwin's question on bookings, just the lumpiness there. Is it -- not to simplify it, but is it a -- can we attribute that to just normalization given the outperformance you saw in the prior quarter and the time required to refill the pipeline, but then obviously bookings came by quite strong last quarter? David P. Rowland--Interim Chief Executive Officer Yeah, it's -- Tien-tsin, let me just jump in because this -- you will remember -- some may remember. This became a little bit of an -- maybe even an unnecessary distraction in quarter one. And just to make sure that maybe we're even more clear on our messaging, so let me just say that we are very, very pleased with the demand environment. So let's be clear on that. That's reflected in our revenue growth year-to-date. It's reflected in the revenue growth that we see in The New. It's reflected in what we feel is a very strong pipeline position as we closed out the third quarter. And it's reflected in our statement and our confidence that we will have strong bookings in the fourth quarter. So, to be clear, we're not concerned about bookings. Bookings do vary by quarter. Very often, it can be influenced by the timing of when large deals close, and in the scheme of our big business, if we have deals that close in the month of June, let's say, as opposed to a few weeks early in the month of May, obviously, that don't make any difference in the health of our business and what we see from a demand standpoint. So we're very encouraged by the demand environment. And as KC said, the bookings are lumpy as they have always been in our business, and I would focus more on the confidence that we have in the fourth quarter than I would the fact that quarter three, it was at $10.6 billion. Tien-tsin Huang--JPMorgan -- Analyst Got it. Message delivered. Thank you. David P. Rowland--Interim Chief Executive Officer Thank you. Operator Your next question comes from the line of Bryan Keane from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Bryan Keane--Deutsche Bank -- Analyst Hi guys. Good morning. David P. Rowland--Interim Chief Executive Officer Hi Bryan. KC McClure--Chief Financial Officer Hi Bryan. Bryan Keane--Deutsche Bank -- Analyst And congrats on the solid results. I just wanted to ask about strategy and consulting. I know in the past it hovered around mid single digits. Then it bumped up a little bit, went as high as double digits, and then now, I think it decelerated a tad in mid single digit. So could you just talk a little bit about maybe the ups and downs of that business and the slight deceleration we saw in the quarter? KC McClure--Chief Financial Officer Yeah. Thanks, Bryan. So, overall, as you mentioned, we do feel good about our business in strategy and consulting and we do feel good about mid-single-digit growth. And we did have very solid bookings this quarter as well. And as you mentioned, growth will ebb and flow from quarter to quarter. And really, as we look at our strategy and consulting business, just a reminder that there is really kind of a dual-purpose of what we're trying to accomplish there. First of all is just the main objective of the role of delivering strategy and consulting work to our clients. But then, also it's really to bring, as you know, the full scope of our end-to-end services. A lot of the overall transformation work and any of the larger-scale deals in the pipeline that we may have are also led by and brought by our strategy and consulting business. So, in that context, as we stated before, we see strategy and combined, if it's in the mid to high single digits and that will ebb and flow by quarter, we think that's in the right zone for us. Bryan Keane--Deutsche Bank -- Analyst Okay. Helpful. And as a follow-up, wanted to ask about the acquisition. It sounds like it's been about $1.1 billion capital deployed in acquisitions. Can you just talk about how much you plan to spend in acquisitions? And as we go into next year, are we still thinking 1 point or 2 of acquisitions kind of as a revenue contribution -- is kind of the right metric to think about? KC McClure--Chief Financial Officer Yeah. So maybe I'll just give some of the financial data and David can talk a little bit more on that. So overall for this fiscal year, we think that we will probably spend based on where we are to-date, probably closer to $1.3 billion in acquisitions -- for acquisitions. And overall for this year, then, we believe based on what we've seen in the pipeline that we have in front of us and the deals we've already closed, we think the revenue -- the inorganic revenue contribution this year will be closer to 2% from the closer to 1.5% that we had previously mentioned. David P. Rowland--Interim Chief Executive Officer Yeah. And I would say just in terms of how to think about this going forward, our inorganic strategy, or our acquisition strategy, as we've said through the year, is really using inorganic as an engine for organic growth. That continues to be a focus area for us and that will -- that is a strategic objective will -- is really unchanged as we look forward. And really, if you look at what we've done year-to-date, it's -- I'm really pleased with how we've executed that. Over -- I think over about 80% of what we've done is focused on The New. We've done of course several deals in Interactive, as I called out, but we've also done deals in both Industry X.0 and applied intelligence. We've also done several deals in Accenture Technology, in both our intelligent platform services where we were strengthening our skills and differentiation in a few of the platforms. And then we've also done deals to acquire high-end software engineering capabilities, again, in our intelligent software engineering services. And then to round it out, as will always be the case, we have a handful of deals in the mix that are vertical specific. And it's interesting, then, just as an illustration of the importance of banking and capital markets to us over the long haul as an important industry, we've made several investments in banking during this period of time. So this will be an important part of our strategy, and you should really expect more of the same as we look forward. Bryan Keane--Deutsche Bank -- Analyst Okay, helpful. Thanks for taking the questions. David P. Rowland--Interim Chief Executive Officer Thank you. Operator Your next question comes from the line of Lisa Ellis from MoffettNathanson. Please go ahead. Lisa Ellis--MoffettNathanson -- Analyst Hi. Good morning, guys. David P. Rowland--Interim Chief Executive Officer Good morning, Lisa. Lisa Ellis--MoffettNathanson -- Analyst Good morning. So I think a question actually on the non-New. I guess I'd say looking at performance of some of your peers over the last few months, one of the notable, sort of striking observations is that some of the traditional services appear to be deteriorating. And so I'm just hoping you could unpack for us a little bit in the Accenture's non-New, so meaning the other 35% or so. Just remind us a little bit what exactly is in there and sort of what trends are you seeing in that -- in those traditional services. Thank you. David P. Rowland--Interim Chief Executive Officer Yeah. First of all, from a business trend standpoint, we haven't -- we really haven't seen a change in the pattern at all. If you were to -- even -- if you just took the information that we provide, you could extrapolate that -- the 35% is declining, let's say in the single-digit range, and that's a pattern that we've seen now for some time. And so to be clear, all of our growth -- and this is by design -- comes from our rotation to The New and the success that we've had in driving those services. In many ways, we are -- in some instances, we are actually accelerating that because we are, in the interest of our clients, for example, we're taking some legacy services, think legacy application maintenance type services, and we are introducing new technology to do that work in a more innovative way. And in doing so, you see those legacy services and application maintenance, as an example, decline, but that is by design. You might say we're cannibalizing ourselves, which is in support of our strategy, but we also do it in delivering value to our clients. The other thing that you have in The New, and that -- and this is not to say that this is -- this is not to comment on market demand, but you do have a lot of, let's say, more traditional classic consulting services would be in The New. And while there is still demand for some of those classic consulting services, where our real opportunity is and where we're really focusing on our skills, capabilities and serving our clients is the strategy and consulting services tied to work that we do in The New. And so the classic services are less -- have less focus, therefore less growth because we're doing everything rotated to The New. So hopefully that -- but we really -- the bottom line is we really haven't seen any change in the dynamic of the growth rate in the non-New versus the growth in The New, and it's really happening exactly as we intend per our strategy. Lisa Ellis--MoffettNathanson -- Analyst Got it. Okay, terrific. Thank you. That's helpful. And maybe a quick one for KC. It looks like attrition ticks back up a little bit this quarter. Can you just comment on what you're seeing on the labor front? Thank you. Thanks, guys. KC McClure--Chief Financial Officer Yeah. So, it is at 80%. It is -- it's in a range, though, that we have been before, Lisa. So overall, 80% is not something that we're concerned about. But I would like to say that within that, if I peel back a little bit, I do feel really good -- and we feel really good about the strong retention rates that we have in the areas that David just talked, a lot of the strategic and high growth areas of our business, including strategy and consulting as well as many other components of The New. And just to -- maybe just to close out, as a reminder, we really have no issues in getting the talent that we need. We are really quite a magnet for talent. We -- based on the strategy that we have, our financial performance is attractive, and overall, our talent strategy and the experience that we provide to our people, the right workplace and our culture of culture strategy, it's really an environment where innovation is at the heart of everything that we do, and that's very attractive to many people in the workplace. Lisa Ellis--MoffettNathanson -- Analyst Terrific. Thanks. Thanks, guys. Good to talk to you. David P. Rowland--Interim Chief Executive Officer Thanks, Lisa. Operator Your next question comes from the line of Dave Koning from Baird. Please go ahead. David Koning--Baird -- Analyst Oh, yeah. Hey guys. Thank you. And I guess my first question -- I know in the details you sent out, The New has been over 60% now for four quarters. The prior seven quarters, it's stepped up every single quarter. And I think you did call out on this call, it's more like 60% now. But is there any reason that that pace of like change into The New seems to maybe be slowing? I know the growth is really good, but is there anything changing at all there? David P. Rowland--Interim Chief Executive Officer I don't think there's anything changing. I mean, I think you're going to see as we -- as we continue to talk about The New in the quarters ahead, I think you're going to see the same type of trend line in terms of what -- how it increases as a percentage of our revenue. So, I think as we get to the fourth quarter, we're -- we typically round the number that we quote externally. And so I think you'll see the typical pattern continue to evolve. David Koning--Baird -- Analyst Okay. That's great. And the other thing, just -- I know it sounds like the environment remains strong. It hasn't changed a lot. But the last seven, eight quarters or so have been kind of in the 8% to 11% constant currency. And I think you're kind of guiding 5% to 8% or so in Q4. Is that kind of the typical, set the bar to somewhere that's pretty easy to hit and if you execute well you kind of beat that? Or is there something a little different maybe related to the bookings this quarter that you're just trying to be a little more conservative? KC McClure--Chief Financial Officer Yeah. Hey Dave. I don't -- I would say that I wouldn't characterize our guidance range is any different in terms of our practice. I mean, as you know, so the 5% to 8% for Q4 we always tend to aim. We aim toward the upper end of that range. That's no different than what we have historically done and what we always try to do. And there is not really any difference within -- because of the bookings in Q3 or what we see in Q4, I mean, I think it's pretty much our standard way of looking at the quarter and giving the right balance that we believe, the revenue expectation we would want to set with all of you. David Koning--Baird -- Analyst Got you. All right. Well, thank you. Good job. David P. Rowland--Interim Chief Executive Officer Thank you. KC McClure--Chief Financial Officer Thank you. Operator Your next question comes from the line of Edward Caso from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead. David P. Rowland--Interim Chief Executive Officer Good morning, Ed. Edward Caso--Wells Fargo -- Analyst Hi. Thanks for taking my call here. I wanted to ask about non-linear growth with your headcount now at 481,000. And it seems like a lot more of the digital world is sort of platforms and non-people-based solutions. And could you talk about your investments in that area and where you see it maybe going as a percent of revenue? Thank you. David P. Rowland--Interim Chief Executive Officer We have talked about that before and, Ed, at the level that I guess is appropriate for us to talk about in this forum, I'll say again that certainly, we believe that non-linear growth over time will be more in the mix. You are right that platform-based solutions, bringing IP to the table, solution aids, et cetera, of which I referenced several in my script are increasingly a bigger part of the services industry and increasingly a bigger part of our differentiation. And so -- over time, we will be focused even more, and I'm sure will become even better at capturing the value of the IP and the solution aids, et cetera, that we bring to our clients to deliver services and deliver value to our clients. The pace at which it happens is harder to predict. We are quite comfortable as we look forward in terms of our ability to manage the SaaS talent organization we have. And as we look out, as you would expect we do, over a multiyear horizon, there is not anything about the progression of our headcount that concerns us in terms of executing our business strategy. So non-linear growth I think will be more in the mix in the industry, and I would expect Accenture would lead the way. But the timing and the slope of the curve I think is still yet to be defined and we'll see how that plays out. Edward Caso--Wells Fargo -- Analyst Right. The other question, I think in the past you might have given us a view on the FX for the coming fiscal year, F '20. I wonder if you could help us out in that department (inaudible) your initial views on the FX headwind or benefit in F '20. KC McClure--Chief Financial Officer Yeah. Hi Ed. We won't provide any FY '20 guidance including FX until we get the full FY '20 guidance that we typically do at the end of our fourth quarter. Edward Caso--Wells Fargo -- Analyst Great. Thank you and congrats. KC McClure--Chief Financial Officer Thanks. David P. Rowland--Interim Chief Executive Officer Thanks, Ed. Operator Your next question comes from the line of Rod Bourgeois from DeepDive Equity. Please go ahead. KC McClure--Chief Financial Officer Hi Rod. Rod Bourgeois--DeepDive Equity Research -- Analyst Hey there. David P. Rowland--Interim Chief Executive Officer Hi Rod. Rod Bourgeois--DeepDive Equity Research -- Analyst Hey there. Good to talk to you guys. I wanted to ask how you're feeling about the trends in valuations that you're paying for acquisitions. Maybe you can talk about how you're performing against your ROI targets for your average acquisition that you've completed in recent history. David P. Rowland--Interim Chief Executive Officer As we've said before, we are very rigorous in tracking our return on our investment for our acquisitions. We -- as a management team, we do it very rigorously, and we actually review that with the finance committee of the Board every quarter, and so it is a big focus. And as I've said before, we are really pleased with the performance of our portfolio and really have been for the last several years as we really started to ramp up our game in this area. As it relates to valuations, in certain areas of the market which you know well, valuations have gotten pretty frothy, and we consider that as we do the analysis of buy versus build. We're not going to be -- we will never be irrational and overpaying for an asset in the market. But on the other hand, if -- we also look at things through a strategic lens and we understand that if something has significant strategic value and there is a scarcity of the skill in the marketplace, then we make the judgment about paying a little bit more in those instances, and there's been instances where we've done that. So, as you would expect of us, Rod, we are extremely thoughtful. There are areas like applied intelligence -- in the analytics space, for example, where --and you know this -- where the valuations are super-high. Industry X and in some areas there, the valuations are super high. And so we -- we navigate that within our financial objectives. Again, we have a willingness where it's -- where it is the right strategic play. But by and large -- we focus on valuation because we're very return focused in the way we execute our strategy. Rod Bourgeois--DeepDive Equity Research -- Analyst Got it. That makes sense. Hey, just to follow up on the outlook in consulting growth versus outsourcing growth. I was impressed last quarter with the strength in outsourcing growth, and it upticked again this quarter, while consulting slowed a little bit. So is your outlook for growth in consulting versus outsourcing at a similar clip? Or do you expect one to look stronger than the other in the next few quarters as you look at what's happening in the pipeline? KC McClure--Chief Financial Officer Yeah. So, Rod, I'll -- let me give you a little bit of color on how we see that playing out in FY '19. So, for the fourth quarter, we think consulting and outsourcing are both going to be about mid to high single digits growth. And that would put for the full year, both consulting and outsourcing, at a high-single-digit growth range. Rod Bourgeois--DeepDive Equity Research -- Analyst All right. Great. Thank you, guys. David P. Rowland--Interim Chief Executive Officer Okay. Thanks, Rod. Operator Your next question comes from the line of James Friedman from Susquehanna. Please go ahead. James Friedman--Susquehanna Financial Group -- Analyst Hi. Thank you, guys. David P. Rowland--Interim Chief Executive Officer Jamie. James Friedman--Susquehanna Financial Group -- Analyst Hi. It's Jamie, Susquehanna. David, thanks for the deep dive on Accenture Technology. You articulated dimensions of intelligent platform, intelligence software, engineering and cloud and infrastructure. I was wondering can you help us -- I know you said that intelligent platforms is 40% of revenue, big number. I was wondering -- can you give us some sense of the sizes of the other two? David P. Rowland--Interim Chief Executive Officer I don't think -- we've not communicated that externally. And I don't think I want to do that on this particular call. But we will -- we take that point. And we have anticipated that we will start to introduce some quantitative numbers behind those parts of our business. But right now, it's a little bit premature to do that. But expect that we'll do that as we move forward. James Friedman--Susquehanna Financial Group -- Analyst So, maybe a different direction then. KC, you commented in your observations about the operating groups that the platforms which David had described in his prepared remarks is populated very well in CMT. Or you said it was like a driver of growth -- software and platform is still the driver growth in CMT. Is -- could you give us an idea of how we would -- the presence of, say, platforms in the other operating groups, do they over-index in any other operating groups? KC McClure--Chief Financial Officer Jamie, thanks for that question because that provides a good opportunity to make sure that we're clear with the use of the word platform maybe. So, platforms as David was talking about -- that we talk about quite a bit, they are pervasive in all parts of our business, all operating groups, all geographies, in all parts of our business dimension. So that's what we talk about when we discuss platforms. David P. Rowland--Interim Chief Executive Officer And by the way, again, in that case, when we talk about the platforms, that's the work that we do around SAP, Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce and Workday, as this -- and we refer to that as our intelligent platform services business. It's the work we do around those platforms, platform in that context. KC McClure--Chief Financial Officer Right. So that's all five of those, and that is pervasive everywhere. What I commented specifically, Jamie, on CMT, CMT has three industry groups that make up the operating group of CMT, one of which is called software and platforms. So I know that -- it's a use of the platform's name twice, but that's why I specifically called that out within CMT. But most importantly, the IPS that David talked about, the five platforms that we quantify in IPS, intelligent platform services, are pervasive everywhere. David P. Rowland--Interim Chief Executive Officer Yeah. So in CMT, it was the industry segment reference she was making as a driver of growth. James Friedman--Susquehanna Financial Group -- Analyst I got you. I got what I was (inaudible). Okay. Thanks for the clarification, guys. Appreciate the context. David P. Rowland--Interim Chief Executive Officer Thank you. Operator Your next question comes from the line of Jason Kupferberg from Bank of America. Please go ahead. KC McClure--Chief Financial Officer Hey Jason. Jason Kupferberg--Bank of America -- Analyst Hey. Good morning, guys. So just to clarify on the comment about bookings improving in Q4. Do you mean in absolute terms? Do you mean the book-to-bill? Do you mean acceleration in year-over-year growth? Would it be all of the above? KC McClure--Chief Financial Officer Yeah. It's pretty much all of the above. I mean, mainly I'm focusing on -- in absolute terms, but it would generally be all the above. Jason Kupferberg--Bank of America -- Analyst Okay, OK. Got it. And just on Accenture Interactive, obviously you mentioned all the deal activity there, which is quite interesting. Wanted to see if we can just get an update on how fast that business is growing organically or the annualized revenue run rate of it. I know you've talked about it in some Investor Days in the past. I know you've been getting a little bit bigger on the agency record side there. So I was just hoping to get a general update qualitatively and quantitatively on that part of The New. David P. Rowland--Interim Chief Executive Officer Yeah. So, we -- the last time we sized it, it was for FY '18 and it was $8.5 billion. And when you look at this business this year, it has continued to grow strong double-digit growth. And if I pare it the way Pierre would have said it, I mean, very strong double-digit growth. So you can think of it as -- as not in the teens but higher than that. And that growth continues. And of course, within that, as important as the acquisitions are and how we've executed our growth strategy and the context of a $8.5-plus billion business, the vast, vast, vast majority of that growth of course is organic. And so it is fundamentally an organic driven business, where we have used these strategic acquisitions as really an igniter, if you will, of the organic growth, and what -- which ultimately led to the scale of $8.5 plus billion. Jason Kupferberg--Bank of America -- Analyst Okay. I appreciate the comments. David P. Rowland--Interim Chief Executive Officer Sure. KC McClure--Chief Financial Officer Greg, we have time for one more question, and then David will wrap up the call. Operator Okay. That question comes from the line of Bryan Bergin from Cowen. Please go ahead. Bryan Bergin--Cowen & Co. -- Analyst Hi, good morning. Thank you. I wanted to follow up on the margin question from earlier (ph). So, you've had solid performance this year. Can you comment on what's being done differently this year to yield that margin expansion really getting back on track with your model versus last year? KC, I think you called out contract profitability earlier, but any other particular factors that are standing out? KC McClure--Chief Financial Officer I think -- thanks for the question, Bryan. We're really focused, as I mentioned before, on pricing, right. So we're always focused on pricing. And I talked about this a little bit last quarter. We -- that's nothing new. But we continue to really be taking a look at our business in terms of getting the right value for the offerings that we're bringing and pricing as the right way in the marketplace to benefit both us but also as well as to make sure that we're doing the right arrangements for our clients. So I think that's really what I would say is, the difference that is yielding probably most of the power within our margins is what we're able to do in pricing. Bryan Bergin--Cowen & Co. -- Analyst Okay. That's helpful. And then just to close out here on Industry X.0. It seems like peers are also emphasizing connected products and IoT here with a pickup in recent deals. Can you give us an update just on that business? How you see the space, how you feel about the outlook and then any metrics you can share yet on that business? David P. Rowland--Interim Chief Executive Officer I mean, it is a -- it is central to our strategy. We are super-excited about the potential in Industry X. We've said that many times before. It is -- relative to Accenture Interactive, which still has a big growth proposition in front of it, X is lower on the maturity curve, if you will, and so there is a lot of runway front of Industry X.0. It's a -- in many ways, it's still relatively immature. But we are working hard to be positioned right at the heart of that wave, and we've -- and we're well positioned now to be a leader in that wave. So we are very focused on it. It is a top shortlist strategic objective, and we're excited about the market potential. Bryan Bergin--Cowen & Co. -- Analyst Thank you. David P. Rowland--Interim Chief Executive Officer All right. Thank you. Okay. So, thanks again for joining us on today's call. And as you can tell, we feel very good about where we are and confident in our ability to finish the year strong. With our highly differentiated capabilities, continued investments across Accenture and disciplined execution of our growth strategy, we're very well positioned to continue delivering profitable growth and significant value to all of our stakeholders. We look forward to talking with you again next quarter, and in the meantime, if you have any questions, as always, please feel free to call Angie and her team, and hope all of you have a great day. Thanks. Operator Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude your conference for today. Thank you for your participation and for using AT&T Executive Teleconference. You may now disconnect. Duration: 59 minutes Angie Park--Head of Investor Relations David P. Rowland--Interim Chief Executive Officer KC McClure--Chief Financial Officer Ashwin Shirvaikar--Citi -- Analyst Tien-tsin Huang--JPMorgan -- Analyst Bryan Keane--Deutsche Bank -- Analyst Lisa Ellis--MoffettNathanson -- Analyst David Koning--Baird -- Analyst Edward Caso--Wells Fargo -- Analyst Rod Bourgeois--DeepDive Equity Research -- Analyst James Friedman--Susquehanna Financial Group -- Analyst Jason Kupferberg--Bank of America -- Analyst Bryan Bergin--Cowen & Co. -- Analyst More ACN analysis All earnings call transcripts More From The Motley Fool • 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today • The $16,728 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss • 20 of the Top Stocks to Buy (Including the Two Every Investor Should Own) • What Is an ETF? • 5 Recession-Proof Stocks • How to Beat the Market This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see ourTerms and Conditionsfor additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability. Motley Fool Transcribershas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Accenture. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy.
Apogee Enterprises Inc (APOG) Q1 2020 Earnings Call Transcript Image source: The Motley Fool. Apogee Enterprises Inc(NASDAQ: APOG)Q1 2020 Earnings CallJun 27, 2019,9:00 a.m. ET • Prepared Remarks • Questions and Answers • Call Participants Operator Good day ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the First Quarter 2020 Apogee Enterprises Inc, Earnings Conference Call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will be given at that time. (Operator Instructions). It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Jeff Huebschen. Please go ahead sir. Jeff Huebschen--Vice President, Investor Relations & Communications Thank you Andrew. Good morning and welcome to Apogee Enterprises fiscal 2020 first quarter earnings call. With me today are Joe Puishys, Apogee's Chief Executive Officer and Jim Porter, Chief Financial Officer. I'd like to remind everyone that there are slides to accompany today's remarks which are available in the Investor Relations section of Apogee's website. During this call we will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures, definitions of these non-GAAP measures and a reconciliation to the nearest GAAP measures is provided in the earnings release we issued this morning and that's also available on our website. Also I'd like to remind everyone that our call will contain forward-looking statements reflecting management's expectations which are based on currently available information. Actual results may differ materially, more information about factors that could affect Apogee's business and financial results can be found in our SEC filings. And with that I'll turn the call over to you Joe. Joseph F. Puishys--Chief Executive Officer All right thanks Jeff. Good morning everyone. Thanks for joining our call today. The first quarter was a solid start for our fiscal year. We hit on our commitments, and our backlog is up. We're holding guidance and we're progressing on strategic initiatives while launching new ones which we'll touch on today. And finally we're pursuing cost recovery on the charges from the prior quarter. We saw a lot of work ahead of us but our progress is excellent. This morning I'd like to share some perspective on what we are seeing in the end markets and discussed the highlights from the quarter and progress on some of our key strategic initiatives. And then of course I'll turn it over to Jim for more specific details on the quarter and our full year guidance. First the economy and market conditions. Let me just start with some observations about the economy in the end markets we play in. I continue to describe the overall market conditions in our sector as bumping along the top. A healthy environment in which Apogee can continue to grow. Underlying economic conditions remains stable, while economic growth has slowed a bit the U.S. is still averaged over 150,000 new jobs per month over the past quarter. And we continue to see employment gains in the office occupying sectors, education and healthcare. The most important market segments for Apogee. Looking specifically at commercial office market, office vacancy rates are at decade low levels and rents are moving higher. Both of which point to continued demand for new office construction. Demand for multifamily housing also remains strong with new unit construction forecasted to remain at historically high levels in 2019. Additionally, the recent downward trend in interest rates should be supportive for new building products -- projects, I'm sorry. Of course there is some macro uncertainty in the market often overreacts to bad news but overall the economic situation is positive. We monitor the industry indicators like the Architectural Billing Index, the ABI as we call it. The Dodge Momentum Index and new construction starts. While these indicators have fluctuated a bit in recent months the long term trends have been favourable. The AVI has been positive 19 of the last 20 months, 40 of the last 48 without the peaks and valleys and this is key to sustainable growth in end markets and stability. It's been flattish in recent months but we're OK with flattish. It's at stable healthy levels today. New construction starts also remain at a healthy level. I'd like to revisit a point I made last quarter while new construction has improved over a relatively long period of time the pace of activity has fallen short of previous up cycles and on a square foot basis construction activity and the non-resi sector still has a long way to go to reach prior peaks, and although the U.S. economic recovery is now approximately 10 years in the making commercial construction recovery is about half of that. Also we're not seeing overbuilding or speculative building that might indicate top of market cycle. We continue to see a nice balance of new construction starts tied to tenant demand. The favorable economic and market environment is translating into solid demand for Apogee's products and services. We continue to build backlog especially in our Architectural Services segment. We booked several significant new projects during this past quarter. We're winning business across our geographic footprint and we're winning business in all of our key markets sub sectors based on customer commitments and our sales pipeline we could see further backlog growth for services in the second quarter, certainly depending on the timing of contracts. In our shorter lead time businesses customer activity remains healthy. We have good sales pipeline and we're seeing solid quoting and bidding activity. So overall we believe the market backdrop supports top line growth for Apogee this year and in the fiscal '21. Okay, let's turn to our highlights and strategic initiatives. Looking at the first quarter I'll touch on a few key highlights. First, we made significant progress toward completing the legacy EFCO projects that we've been talking about in prior releases. The last remaining project proceeded as planned in the quarter and we're now several steps closer to the finish line. On this last project we are now more than 95% complete with manufacturing for the project which is being led by EFCO. We are more than 70% complete with installation which is being managed by our architectural services team. We expect to be largely finished with this project by the time we report our second quarter results and with some limited activity continuing into the fourth quarter typical of all commercial projects. We also continue to work on potential cost recoveries that could offset some portion of the charge we recorded last quarter. I'm also pleased with the operational progress we've made at EFCO in the quarter. We're making headway on operational improvements and lead initiatives which are driving steady increases in key quality and productivity metrics. Frankly, EFCO had an excellent quarter. In the second quarter, we expect to complete a facility upgrade project at EFCO which will improve material flow out of our factory and allow further productivity inside the factory itself. This will positively impact results in the second half of the year. In addition, we continue to take steps to drive synergies in the Framing Systems segment. Over the past several years one of our strategic priorities has been diversifying Apogee's revenue base to unlock new growth and to make the company less dependent on the more cyclical large projects segment of the non-resi construction market. Over five years ago I said our growth strategy in motion around driving better than market growth and our Framing Systems businesses by way of new product introductions, new markets and geographic expansion. And I focusing at -- Apogee acquisition efforts in that segment. Our legacy businesses achieved amazing growth and bottom line results and we executed four acquisitions in this segment including a very successful product line tuck-in. We focused on expanding Framing Systems segment not at the expense of our other segments but because Framing Systems had the biggest opportunity for long term revenue growth and margin expansion. Framing operates in a more fragmented market with numerous opportunities for growth through sheer, geographic expansion and new product innovation. The segment also offers substantial opportunity for margin expansion. We've executed our strategy through both organic growth and by making these key acquisitions to increase scale and add capabilities and framing. As we've discussed on previous calls, we inherited some unexpected problems with the EFCO acquisition which slowed our progress over the past two years but we are putting these issues behind us now and we're turning our full attention to realizing the margin and growth opportunities in Framing Systems with synergy efforts in both the revenue and cost parts of the P&L. We will be taking concrete steps to drive synergies and reduce costs over the next several quarters. This will include increased supply chain integration among several of the framing businesses in sourcing some materials we currently purchase outside in other purchasing synergies. These actions will drive long term benefits or carry some upfront costs which will be likely incurred in the second quarter and Jim will talk more about that in his guidance comments. In the Architectural Glass we had a very strong year-over-year sales growth and margin expansion over the past three quarters, the Glass segment has averaged $100 million in revenue which reflects steady demand and improved throughput. The new architectural glass growth initiative that I highlighted last quarter is also progressing as expected, and we plan to begin operations in our fiscal third quarter. I mentioned the strong order flow we saw in architectural services adding another $39 million to the segments record backlog. That has been the case in the past several years our services segment is focused on project selection, disciplined pricing and execution excellence at the job site, and this business continues to demonstrate amazing discipline and results. We're concentrating on those projects that best fit our capabilities and offer the best opportunity for solid profitability. And the entire services team is focused on execution excellence through all phases of a project's lifecycle. Based on the schedules for projects and backlog we continue to believe the Services segment is well-positioned for revenue growth and even higher margins in fiscal 2021. And finally, our large scale optical segment is a well-run gem of a business that continues to deliver strong performance led by an amazing leadership team, with a strong leadership potential position. This segment always has quarter-to-quarter variability but on an annualized basis it generates consistent profitability and cash flow. Through the first quarter the LSO segment is on track to meet our full year growth plan and margin targets. So Rob a good start to the fiscal year, we feel confident about how we're positioned for the remainder of the year. And with that I'll pass the call over to Jim, who will provide more details on the quarter and our outlook and then I'll take questions from you and wrap up with some final comments. Jim, you have the conn. James S. Porter--Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Thanks Joe. Good morning everyone. I'll begin with our consolidated results which you can see on page five of our earnings presentation. Total revenue grew 6% to $355 million compared to $337 million in last year's first quarter. Primarily driven by the significant growth in architectural glass. Operating margin of 6.5% was in line with last year but down from adjusted operating margin of 7.4% in last year's first quarter. As a reminder, adjusted results in the first quarter of fiscal 2019 primarily exclude at the amortization of short lived acquired intangible, these intangible assets have now been fully amortized so there is no similar adjustment in the current fiscal year. EBITDA came in at $34.1 million compared to $35.5 million of adjusted EBITDA in last year's first quarter. Interest expense increased to $2.6 million from $1.8 million in last year's quarter on higher debt levels. And the tax rate of 24.4% was in line with our fiscal 2020 guidance of approximately 24.5%. Putting it all together earnings per share were $0.58 compared to $0.54 in last year's first quarter or $0.60 last year on an adjusted basis. Now, we'll cover this segment results which are on slide six. Framing Systems revenue was $181 million up slightly from last year's $179 million. Operating income was $12.3 million with an operating margin of 6.8% compared to 6.9% last year and adjusted operating margin of 8.5% in last year's first quarter. The lower margin was primarily due to a less favorable project mix as we expected coming into the year as well as in lower volume leverage in a couple of locations. Framing Systems backlog of $407 million held near a historically high levels. Our Architectural Glass segment had strong year-over-year improvement as the segment continued to progressed past the Workforce and Productivity issues that impacted fiscal 2019 performance. Gross revenue grew 30% through $100 million driven by strong demand and improved throughput in our factories as well as our weak prior year comparison. Operating margin improved to 6.4% compared to 2.1% in the first quarter of fiscal 2019, primarily driven by operating leverage on the increased volumes. Glass segment margins in the first quarter were negatively impacted by approximately 60 basis points from the early start-up costs related to the new growth initiative. As we begin to hire staff and incur facility expenses for the new operation as we had expected Architectural Services revenue decreased to $65 million from $71 million in last year's first quarter due to the timing of projects. Operating income was $4.6 million with operating margin of 7% compared to $5.2 million and 7.3% in last year's first quarter. As Joe mentioned services backlog increased to $483 million. The slide on page seven illustrates the strong backlog growth the segment has achieved over the past few years. Given current projects schedules established by our customers we expect almost 40% of services backlog will be converted to revenue in the remainder of fiscal '20 with the balance in fiscal 2021 or '22. As Joe mentioned, at this point it looks like services is set up for another strong year in fiscal '21 and we continue to have a good pipeline of opportunities that could further increase backlog in the coming quarters. Large scale optical segment results were in line with our expectations with revenue increasing 2% to $21 million at the segment operating margin of roughly 20% first quarter margin in the Large-Scale Optical was below last year's level primarily driven by the timing of production schedules. In this small segment it is typical to see operating margin bounce around quarter-to-quarter. We continue to expect full-year operating margins in the 25% range that the large scale optical segment has achieved over the past several years. I'd also like to mention that as anticipated corporate expenses were higher in the quarter due primarily to increased legal and advisory expenses compared to fiscal 2019. Now looking at our cash flow and the balance sheet. Turning to slide eight, operating activities in the first quarter used $9.7 million of cash. Cash flow was negatively impacted by our normal seasonal working capital uses timing of incentive based compensation and insurance basis payments primarily. Also as we mentioned last quarter progress on the legacy EFCO project continued to drive increased working capital which caused the roughly $15 million drag on operating cash flow this quarter. Capital expenditures were $11 million primarily driven by the investments for productivity in Framing Systems at EFCO and new capabilities in our Architectural Glass segment. Also during the quarter we repurchased 532,000 shares of stock for $20 million and we paid out $4.6 million of dividends. Total debt increased to $293 million or 1.8 times trailing 12 month adjusted EBITDA. Subsequent to the end of the first quarter, we successfully amended and extended our revolving credit facility. Extending the maturity out to 2024, increasing our credit limit to $385 million from $335 million and securing some favorable terms and conditions. The changes to our revolver give us increased financial flexibility and will also lower our borrowing costs. We expect cash flow to improve in the remainder of the fiscal year but it will likely stay below last year's level primarily due to the increased working capital requirement until completion of the legacy EFCO projects. As a reminder we have continued efforts to recover some of the cost recorded in last quarter's charge. And any cost recovery is that we're able to secure we'll be favorable to the outlook for both cash and earnings. We continue to expect full year capital expenditures of $60 million to $65 million and will look to deploy excess free cash flow to pay down debt. We will also continue to evaluate opportunistic share buybacks. Now, I'll turn to our outlook which is on page nine. We are maintaining the full year guidance that we provided last quarter. Let me offer some additional details on the outlook. First, in Framing Systems we expect revenue growth rates to improve in the second half of the year driven by project timing as well as easier prior year comparisons. We continue to expect margin improvements will be weighted to the back half of the fiscal year as we transition through a less favorable mix and the initiatives we have under way across framing systems begin to drive positive contributions. The third quarter is traditionally the strongest quarter for Framing Systems which we expect to be the case this year. As we implement some new supply chain and purchasing synergy actions that Joe mentioned, we are expected to see some upfront costs which will have a roughly 100 basis point headwind to Framing System segment margins in the second quarter. This is expected to be offset by benefits in the second half of the fiscal year starting in the third quarter. In Architectural Glass, we continue to expect full year revenue growth of approximately 10%. The first and second quarters will have the largest year-over-year growth rates due to the easier prior year comparisons. Also, we continue to expect approximately $4 million to $5 million a start-up costs for the full year for the new Architectural Glass growth initiative which will reduce full year glass margins by a 100 basis points to 150 basis points. I noted that we saw some initial impact in the first quarter. These start-up costs will have the greatest impact in the second and third quarters and we'll begin to generate limited revenue in the fourth quarter. We expect this new start up initiative will ramp quickly in fiscal 2021. In Architectural Services we continue to expect a 15% decline in the full year revenue compared to fiscal 2019 due to the timing of projects in the backlog. And as we discussed last quarter this will have a significant impact on the operating leverage and margins compared to last year as we cannot aggressively cut overhead costs that are needed to execute the segments robust backlog and project pipeline in the future. Based on the current project schedules we have we expect that second quarter will be the lowest revenue quarter and lowest revenue and margin quarter of the year for Architectural Services with performance gradually improving in the second half of the fiscal year. And finally in Large-Scale Optical we continue expect mid single digit full year growth in operating margins of approximately 25%. With that I'll turn the call back to Joe. Joseph F. Puishys--Chief Executive Officer All right, thank you Jim. To wrap up this was a nice start to our fiscal year. We're making good progress in a number of areas that should position us for further top line growth, improved margins and stronger earnings and cash flow for the remainder of the year. Looking longer term healthy market conditions our backlog in our pipeline of operational improvement initiatives set us up for continued revenue growth and margin expansion in fiscal '21. I'd like to end where I started that being the end markets. There's a lot going on in the world and there are many geopolitical worries today but there are many things going very well in our economy unprecedented low unemployment, strong business confidence, still very low inflation and very favorable interest rates through a lot of things going right in our end markets, we feel good about it but as you've heard today we're putting a substantial laser focus on cost and cost actions at Apogee. So with that I thank you for listening to me today and I'd like to ask Andrew our operator to open the call up for questions. Andrew? Operator (Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from the line of Chris Moore with CJS securities. Your line is now open. Chris Moore--CJS Securities -- Analyst Thank you. Hey, good morning guys. Joseph F. Puishys--Chief Executive Officer Hey Chris. Chris Moore--CJS Securities -- Analyst Good morning. Maybe we just start with Framing, obviously most of the conversations is around EFCO. Can we just maybe talk a little bit about the core framing business. How the margins are looking there? Joseph F. Puishys--Chief Executive Officer Sure, Chris. This is Joe. I'll talk about it. I mean, we continue to see good performance across our framing systems businesses and we have some timing quarter-to-quarter but overall our core businesses are continuing to perform well. Chris Moore--CJS Securities -- Analyst And the -- maybe could you just repeat we had literally the 100 basis point impact in Q2 Framing is related to EFCO or just go again quickly? Joseph F. Puishys--Chief Executive Officer Yeah, I know. So really -- what we're really trying to step up -- sorry in the second quarter is a real increase in some of our supply chain and purchasing opportunities across a number of our Framing Systems businesses which is really looking at how we got optimize our supply chain from extrusion and finishing as well as do some insourcing we've been frankly through some of our productivity initiatives, we increased some capacity that's enabling us to do some insourcing where we've been purchasing some extrusion in fantasy and services on the outside, we'll be able to bring some of that in-house. As well as we're launching on an expanded effort to drive procurement savings really across the company which is concentrated within our Framing System Segment. So, a lot of activity we've been working on a number of these initiatives but we're really putting our foot on the gas in the second quarter to get these going, and there's just some initial cost to get them in place. Chris Moore--CJS Securities -- Analyst Got it, that's helpful. And just in terms of the Glass market can you talk maybe a little bit further about what you're seeing kind of large buildings versus midsize and where the growth is coming from? What are you seeing these days? Joseph F. Puishys--Chief Executive Officer This is Joe. Chris I'll take this one now. We're seeing consistent in markets, the term I continue to use and has been take -- it stole from somebody many years ago. Somebody stole from me recently is that we're bumping along with that, and we're seeing good bidding, and projects advancing in office, healthcare, education. I would say no one sector in multifamily housing. No one sub-sectors really a standout or a laggard. It's healthy, the construction sites are full. So, we tend to have these ebbs and flows that are often driven by the -- perhaps over subscription of work at the construction site. So you have a couple of quarters where maybe projects, don't enter the contract or the backlog, the stats as you thought but right now I would say there's probably more work trying to manage the schedules than there is concern about the end markets. So it's consistent across the sub segments frankly and across the U.S. Chris Moore--CJS Securities -- Analyst Got it, Helpful. Last question from me, just in terms of the new Glass initiatives, anything else that you can say on that at this point? Joseph F. Puishys--Chief Executive Officer Not really. And I'm sorry for that, we just stuck to the financial impact for now the project is progressing. I expect revenues to begin -- we'll be certainly begin in the second half of the year. I think by the time we report on our second quarter earnings we will actually be in production and we'll probably be able to talk about a little bit more in 90 days, but nothing is -- everything has progressed as according to our plan when we announced it to you all 90 days or whatever it was 65 days ago. Chris Moore--CJS Securities -- Analyst All right, appreciate it. Let me jump back in line guys. Joseph F. Puishys--Chief Executive Officer Thanks Chris. Operator Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Eric Stine with Craig-Hallum. Your line is now open. Eric Stine--Craig-Hallum -- Analyst Good morning everyone. Joseph F. Puishys--Chief Executive Officer Hey Eric. Eric Stine--Craig-Hallum -- Analyst I just want to start with Glass, obviously a very good quarter. I mean is this something where we should view a lot of the hiring challenges and some of the operational things as being in the past that you've turned the corner there or are there still some things in progress and if there are maybe an update on where all that stands? Joseph F. Puishys--Chief Executive Officer Yeah, thanks. Eric it's an ongoing process. We have definitely made good progress. We have enough people in place to run the business effectively. We'd like to add more, we could remove some overtime and improve our margins a little bit. The issue we had a year ago was, we just couldn't keep up with production demand. Now, we're able to keep up with demand still a little bit of cost opportunity. The labor markets remain tight. It's a challenge to hire new people and particularly in the region where they're -- our largest factory is, but we have the people who get the production out. We have a little more opportunity and they continue to make progress every quarter. And the first quarter was a bit of a transition, we don't hear us complaining about weather again but it was a challenging weather environment. Even in our fiscal first quarter here remember our year started in March, March and April were brutal out here. So throughout the quarter we improved productivity at our Glass business. May was the best month of the quarter and we've come out strong in June operationally. So again I will end where I started, it's an ongoing process. We've got enough people. We'd like to have a few more and we continue to do some creative things to find talent. Eric Stine--Craig-Hallum -- Analyst Got it. Okay, that is helpful. And maybe just a follow-up on the previous question. I mean, I'm not going to ask details necessarily about the new Glass initiative but I mean, anyway you can maybe frame -- in fiscal '21 you expect that -- I believe Jim said a contributor and potentially a significant contributor. So, anyway you can kind of frame the magnitude of that from a high level and then is there anything different about that initiative that would change kind of your long term operating margin outlets to that segment which I know you shoot for 10% plus? Joseph F. Puishys--Chief Executive Officer Yeah. Eric, I'm sorry. I'll have to be a little bit careful. I don't want to start providing guidance for fiscal '21. Gentlemen, I will be doing that obviously at some point in later in this fiscal year. This project certainly bodes well for helping us with revenue at -- I think margins directionally similar to the potential of that business today. It gives us good leveraging on our fixed. It helps us someday when perhaps there are headwinds in the end markets. We'll be happy that we've made this investment. It will contribute to upside in fiscal '21 and we'll just have to hold off until we provide segment guidance later this year. Eric Stine--Craig-Hallum -- Analyst Okay. Got it, thanks a lot. Joseph F. Puishys--Chief Executive Officer (inaudible). Thanks. Operator Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Brent Thielman with D.A. Davidson. Your line is now open. Brent Thielman--D.A. Davidson -- Analyst Thanks, good Morning. Joseph F. Puishys--Chief Executive Officer Good morning, Brent. Brent Thielman--D.A. Davidson -- Analyst Hey, Jim. Do you have what the impact of the start-up costs were for this first quarter? James S. Porter--Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Yeah, it was -- yeah, so in our capital Glass its about 60 basis points of the impact. Brent Thielman--D.A. Davidson -- Analyst Okay. And, I am trying to think of the puts and takes through the year, I know you're going to have kind of more amplified impact here in the 2Q, 3Q? Should that be offset by better productivity just given all the other things you guys have talked about such that maybe we see sort of stable margins here over the next couple quarters and that picks up and fourth you, is that the way to think about it? James S. Porter--Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer I mean, they will still be a bit dilutive in Q2 and Q3. Those are going to be much heavier in terms of the impact of the over 100 basis points impact in each of those quarters for this segment, but the core business itself we're in as I mentioned in the prior question that Eric asked the Glass business, the momentum on its productivity in its traditional business we, expect continued productivity improvements. That's in our guidance for the year but the project you're asking about will be cost headwinds for a couple more quarters. Brent Thielman--D.A. Davidson -- Analyst Got it. Okay, and then on the services business obviously you know very robust environment maybe can talk a little bit just about that the terms, may be evolution in terms you're seeing on some of these new contracts, you're signing as it relatively tight market out there? Joseph F. Puishys--Chief Executive Officer No changes in -- terms and conditions on the projects we're working on. I mention I'm most proud of that business for their disciplined approach to project selection and then project execution. It's all about getting your estimates right. I think, we're the best in the industry frankly and yet that and then of course we have to execute at the job site where we're doing the fab assembly glaze in our factories and at the construction site itself. Nothing changing I would say on the contract we're all been bidding this healthy competition out there we've got great competitors but we're a great competitor as well and I think we're winning our share more than our fair share of projects. It's a very, very fragmented market. This is a great business for us. We're one of the bigger players and we have a fraction of the end market. So there's a lot of work to select and compete against and I think we're seeing consistent bids on margins and terms. So, sorry nothing exciting changing on that. Brent Thielman--D.A. Davidson -- Analyst That's OK. Maybe last question you talked a little bit about it, Joe I know you don't like to blame weather but obviously it's been some pretty tremendous things happening out in the Midwest is that continues -- is that having a material impact on the business or the customer base that you serve out there. May be if you just talk about that? Joseph F. Puishys--Chief Executive Officer Nothing to call out Brent, we feel terrible for people that are impacted. Our facilities have not been impacted, and when you picture that kind of work we're doing we're not -- there's not buildings going up where we're seeing some of the devastation due to this really bizarre weather pattern hitting parts of the U.S. So it's unfortunate as we've been fortunate as not really impacted our company. Jeff Huebschen--Vice President, Investor Relations & Communications In our smaller projects Framing System segment as I think everyone's aware rain is just been a really significant issue and it's not enough for us to call off but it's probably affected the timeline of certain project, where our constructions activity gets delayed and moved down a little bit particularly in our smaller projects business but -- Joseph F. Puishys--Chief Executive Officer What I call that was -- kind of a severe winter weather, kind of continue to provide challenges for our productivity recovery at our Glass business, Viracon, a little bit again not calling it out but it is certainly glad that winter is behind us on to our Glass momentum just kicking up again. Brent Thielman--D.A. Davidson -- Analyst Okay, great. Thank you. Joseph F. Puishys--Chief Executive Officer Yeah. Thanks Brent. Operator Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Jon Braatz with Kansas City Capital. Your line is now open. Jon Braatz--Kansas City Capital -- Analyst Good Morning Joe, Jim. Joseph F. Puishys--Chief Executive Officer Hey, Jon. Jon Braatz--Kansas City Capital -- Analyst Joe, has the problems of at EFCO become more of an item of the past. How would you view the opportunity the potential at EFCO relative today -- relative to your expectations originally when you acquired it. And, what about the timeline of realizing that potential. Can you talk a little bit about that? Joseph F. Puishys--Chief Executive Officer Yeah, we -- yeah, sure John, thanks. Yeah I -- the potential for that business is amazing. It's very -- it looks very much like what we have often called our legacy. The three businesses in this segment that existed when I arrived here. They do the same finishing extrusion window and wall production and sales similar end markets a little more diverse customer base which we like. We stated this would be a double digit operating margin business. Our starting point was lower than we thought when we did the acquisition. As we said we're getting the problem projects out from under. Apogee has been a tremendous help. Jeff, go for that they'd be the first to admit it. We put some new people in place both at the top in operations, in sales, we've got a great core team that had great experience in engineering and estimating. So, that business is now on its way to that double digit hike. I would say over the next three years, I certainly expect to break that barrier and I'm looking for a few hundred basis points of margin expansion every year from that business. Q1 was -- as I mentioned they had an excellent quarter. Frankly, I was very happy with the business performance. I told the team that as they got out from under, a couple of these really problem product were a book just about the time of prior acquisition that they would see amazing momentum and they're seeing it. And as I mentioned we're that business which has been -- we took the project management and installation away from them on these particular projects we've called out. Turn that over to our experts and the services, they focused on manufacturing quality units which they've done they're almost done and now their full attention is working on productivity. I mentioned a nice project we approved a year ago. This, tomorrow we actually start to put into a live operation this improvement in our the back end of manufacturing for primary -- our chipping automation so that business will continue to drive momentum. My goal is to get that above 10% over a three year horizon. My starting point just got pushed back a year or two from my original expectation. It's a gem of a business, and it fits nicely with the rest of our Framing System segment. James S. Porter--Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer And Jon, it's Jim. I just want to emphasize on Joe's point because I think your question was spot on. We've been talking about the benefits that we see getting this legacy project behind us. And I think a little bit in the fourth quarter and as we talked about in the first quarter I think getting that largely behind us has really allowed us to have the visibility of the -- momentum of that productivity improvements that we've been working on. Jon Braatz--Kansas City Capital -- Analyst Okay, Joe -- Jim I think I know you mentioned that I think you're putting another $10 million. I think it was $10 million into EFCO. To get to that double digit, will it require additional investment capital investment, do you think? James S. Porter--Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer No, I think -- no -- this was a big investment we identified that went before we even bought the company. Frankly, the business that identified it, this was important the prior owners were not going to make that investment. We've made it, going forward the traditional tooling, perhaps some CNC investment everything that would normally fall into our operate, maintain and productivity projects. Nothing that I would call out as a substantial investment like this one. Joseph F. Puishys--Chief Executive Officer Yeah. Any large investments that we would see, I would anticipate them to be driven by productivity that would pay for themselves. Jon Braatz--Kansas City Capital -- Analyst Okay. All right thank you very much. Joseph F. Puishys--Chief Executive Officer Yeah, Jon thanks. Appreciate the questions. Operator Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Julio Romero with Sidoti Company. Your line is now open. Julio Romero--Sidoti Company -- Analyst Hi, good morning. Joseph F. Puishys--Chief Executive Officer Good morning. Hi Julio, how you are doing? Julio Romero--Sidoti Company -- Analyst Very good. Can I ask about the increased focus you're putting on procurement in the Framing business. Maybe if you can just talk about what kind of margin opportunity you see there and if -- there are any similar opportunities across any of your other businesses? James S. Porter--Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer No, this is Jim. I'll address that. So first of all when -- when we acquired EFCO, yeah one of their low hanging fruit opportunities we saw which specific to the EFCO business and leveraging similar vendors and purchases in those types of things with that business which we went after upfront. What we're doing now is redirecting and taking a broader look at the entire Framing System segment as well as across Apogee and frankly we've engaged some outside resources to really accelerate and drive focus on this effort. That we think is going to really help us. And we're looking at everything we're looking at direct materials, indirect materials and kind of all categories of spend. Really, just launching this more focused initiative and, it's too early now to really call out what we think the margin impact is but we think there's a lot of opportunity for us as we really take a more holistic focus on driving materials, energy benefits across our supply chain. Julio Romero--Sidoti Company -- Analyst Okay. That's helpful. And, since you mentioned, you do expect improved revenue in margins in the services business in fiscal '21. Can you give us any color on maybe what the margin profile for the work there looks like for 2021? And if the projects schedules can point to maybe cadence offerings in that segment? Joseph F. Puishys--Chief Executive Officer Well, yeah. Well, let me take it first and Jim can pile on. Again I'll repeat we're not providing guidance for fiscal '21 today. The backlog for this business kind of speaks for itself. We know, we certainly call out the backlog in our queue which goes out I think next week. It is $39 million higher than it was at the last earnings release. That was a record I mentioned on the call today. I choose my words carefully because I can't guarantee a backlog increase in Q2, but if orders go into contract as I expect we will have increase in backlog in the second quarter. But, I always hedge my bet on that, but it's -- the work in that business is strong. So, it's mostly at -- I don't think there's a significant movement in margins. It's good business, it's business that we believe we can execute well and it'll be primarily driven by volume leveraging next year, but as far as year-over-year revenue growth guidance we're not prepared to do that today. James S. Porter--Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Yeah, really well -- what we've commented on is again based on that visibility of the work that we have -- with all the caveats over, it all depends on what the time you have the actual flow is in the actual project execution, but what we see today -- we have visibility with that fiscal '21 has the potential to perform similar to fiscal '19 for the Architectural Services segment. Because it's such a big business for us that provides lumpiness. I wish I -- as a public company I wish I could report that business on a two year basis. If we had an amazing fiscal '19, a record year across every metric, and we get our backlog today is stronger than it was -- at this time preceding that record year. Okay, so you get frustrated well, why can't FY '20 be another record instead. It is just the timing of the way projects book, we're in the construction world and I ask -- you to have a two year look at it as well. It is performing well and we'll have a very, very sound fiscal '21 based on our current backlog in view of the work we're continuing to put in backlog. Julio Romero--Sidoti Company -- Analyst Okay, that's helpful and I certainly appreciate the color there. Just last one for me is, you amended a credit facility gives you some better flexibility and you also repurchase some shares which is certainly encouraging. Can you just kind of outline what you see your capital allocation priorities are going forward? Thank you. Joseph F. Puishys--Chief Executive Officer Sure. I mean our first priority is continuing to look at attractive investments back in the business from a capital perspective. Our dividend remains important. I think we're looking at using excess free cash flow to pay down debt so we will continue to evaluate share repurchases. M&A is still really back burner for us as we are really focused on driving the margin improvement in our business. Julio Romero--Sidoti Company -- Analyst Helpful. Thanks very much and good luck in the rest of the fiscal year. Joseph F. Puishys--Chief Executive Officer Thanks Julio. Operator Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Bill Dezellem with Tieton Capital. Your line is now open. Bill Dezellem--Tieton Capital -- Analyst Thank you. I actually would like to follow up on that last question. To start with, the increased credit facility. This is solely for flexibility of running the business from a working capital perspective where you have additional initiatives on M&A, but whether it be something like what you're doing with Frame or something like Glass initiative that you are giving yourself extra flexibility forward that you already have some visibility that you're going to be putting these initiatives in place. Can you talk to that please? Joseph F. Puishys--Chief Executive Officer Let me give a macro and then Jim will give you the detail. Clearly, it is not to support M&A as Jim said that obviously I'll repeat it. It's certainly a back burner for us. It was a good time to lock in more favorable terms and reset the clock for five years. Who knows what will happen in the end markets. We're in a strong position to get these terms, but it wasn't for any specific need. Jim? James S. Porter--Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Yes, so I'll just expand it. I mean, it really is all driven by increased flexibility given by working capital and CapEx, but then in addition in terms of -- it's got some differences in that structure Bill, that actually allow us over the term of this revolver to adjust the sizing of it to and, yeah with the expectation of our good cash flow generation over the next two years. You even have increased flexibility relative to managing their commitment level. Bill Dezellem--Tieton Capital -- Analyst Great. Thank you. And then I would like to shift to the training initiative on the supply chain front that you have. So I understand that it's in what you're doing is to improve margins longer term. I don't understand why you're having the impact -- the negative impact on margins here in the second quarter which you talked about kind of the business activity that's leading to speaking to those headwinds in Q2? James S. Porter--Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Sure. Bill, this is Jim and I'm not going to go into too many details here but it's really two things. One is, I mentioned that we're going to need some outside resources to help accelerate our focus on some purchasing initiatives. And so there's going to be a little bit of upfront costs associated with that. And then as we look at rebalancing some of the operational activities there's just really normal expenses associated with some of those activities within our businesses that's been prepared for us. Bill Dezellem--Tieton Capital -- Analyst Okay. That sounds like one, I'll take off offline to understand better. And then my final question as we look out to next year, and I recognize you don't want to provide guidance. However, I would like to think about the fiscal '21 conceptually you've talked about the service business having higher revenues and profitability next year. The Framing business will no longer have to add EFCO projects, the stage will be complete which will then give them with an opportunity to shine and that show a returns right. Some upfront revenue growth and the new Glass initiative will also be above trend revenue growth. To put all that together that implies -- that next year we should be setting ourselves up for something that is an above average level of earnings growth beyond what one would normally expect. Is there something that I'm missing with this thought process? Joseph F. Puishys--Chief Executive Officer I do not believe you're missing anything with your thought process. We are larger project business is where we kind of have better visibility for revenue meaning working on a large project today that will revenue next year services obviously will be a strong year. Glass, what we see -- feel, what we feel that'll be a solid improvement, especially with the initiative we have, Framing Systems a mix of shorter lead time. Our focus there is cost productivity in our Large-Scale Optical business. I think we'll continue to perform at small. It'll continue to give us the cash and working capital help that it does. So, I don't think you said anything that I would take a take issue with. Bill Dezellem--Tieton Capital -- Analyst Great. Thank you Joe. Joseph F. Puishys--Chief Executive Officer Thank you, Bill. Operator Thank you. Joseph F. Puishys--Chief Executive Officer Look forward to follow up. Operator And I'm showing no further questions at this time. So with that I'll turn the call back over to Joe Puishys for closing remarks. Joseph F. Puishys--Chief Executive Officer All right, Andrew. Thank you guys. Thanks again everybody for joining us today. Certainly, I appreciate your interest in my company and I look forward to updating you on our second quarter performance and results in September and have a great day everybody. Take care. Thank you. Operator Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This does conclude the program and you may all disconnect. Everyone have a wonderful day. Duration: 53 minutes Jeff Huebschen--Vice President, Investor Relations & Communications Joseph F. Puishys--Chief Executive Officer James S. Porter--Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Chris Moore--CJS Securities -- Analyst Eric Stine--Craig-Hallum -- Analyst Brent Thielman--D.A. Davidson -- Analyst Jon Braatz--Kansas City Capital -- Analyst Julio Romero--Sidoti Company -- Analyst Bill Dezellem--Tieton Capital -- Analyst More APOG analysis All earnings call transcripts More From The Motley Fool • 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today • The $16,728 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss • 20 of the Top Stocks to Buy (Including the Two Every Investor Should Own) • What Is an ETF? • 5 Recession-Proof Stocks • How to Beat the Market This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. 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Is TTEC Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTEC) A Financially Sound Company? Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Small-caps and large-caps are wildly popular among investors; however, mid-cap stocks, such as TTEC Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTEC) with a market-capitalization of US$2.1b, rarely draw their attention. While they are less talked about as an investment category, mid-cap risk-adjusted returns have generally been better than more commonly focused stocks that fall into the small- or large-cap categories. Today we will look at TTEC’s financial liquidity and debt levels, which are strong indicators for whether the company can weather economic downturns or fund strategic acquisitions for future growth. Note that this information is centred entirely on financial health and is a top-level understanding, so I encourage you to look furtherinto TTEC here. See our latest analysis for TTEC Holdings Over the past year, TTEC has ramped up its debt from US$303m to US$412m , which accounts for long term debt. With this growth in debt, TTEC currently has US$89m remaining in cash and short-term investments to keep the business going. Moreover, TTEC has generated cash from operations of US$181m in the last twelve months, resulting in an operating cash to total debt ratio of 44%, indicating that TTEC’s debt is appropriately covered by operating cash. Looking at TTEC’s US$305m in current liabilities, the company has been able to meet these commitments with a current assets level of US$523m, leading to a 1.71x current account ratio. The current ratio is the number you get when you divide current assets by current liabilities. Generally, for IT companies, this is a reasonable ratio since there's a sufficient cash cushion without leaving too much capital idle or in low-earning investments. With debt reaching 71% of equity, TTEC may be thought of as relatively highly levered. This is not uncommon for a mid-cap company given that debt tends to be lower-cost and at times, more accessible. We can test if TTEC’s debt levels are sustainable by measuring interest payments against earnings of a company. Ideally, earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) should cover net interest by at least three times. For TTEC, the ratio of 4.51x suggests that interest is appropriately covered, which means that lenders may be inclined to lend more money to the company, as it is seen as safe in terms of payback. Although TTEC’s debt level is towards the higher end of the spectrum, its cash flow coverage seems adequate to meet obligations which means its debt is being efficiently utilised. Since there is also no concerns around TTEC's liquidity needs, this may be its optimal capital structure for the time being. This is only a rough assessment of financial health, and I'm sure TTEC has company-specific issues impacting its capital structure decisions. I suggest you continue to research TTEC Holdings to get a more holistic view of the mid-cap by looking at: 1. Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for TTEC’s future growth? Take a look at ourfree research report of analyst consensusfor TTEC’s outlook. 2. Valuation: What is TTEC worth today? Is the stock undervalued, even when its growth outlook is factored into its intrinsic value? Theintrinsic value infographic in our free research reporthelps visualize whether TTEC is currently mispriced by the market. 3. Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore ourfree list of these great stocks here. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
Pier 1 Imports to close dozens more stores this year Pier 1 Imports is shuttering even more stores in 2019. An official spokesperson for the popular home furnishing retailerannounced this weekthat the company will close 57 more stores this year -- 12 more than it initially planned for -- as part of its strategy to turnaround the brand's revenue. The additional closures and turnaround plan come as a result of multiple dismal quarterly earnings reports and the ongoing U.S.-China trade war. "We’ve been taking actions to reduce our exposure to China since last summer by leveraging the strength of our global sourcing team,” interim CEO Cheryl Bachelderexplainedin an earnings call this week. “With the advance of tariffs, we’ve carefully reviewed our assortment and implemented price increases to mitigate a portion of the tariff increases.” RELATED: Take a look at every retailer that filed for bankruptcy in 2018: If the chain's revised approach is unsuccessful, Bachelder noted they may take additional action. "If we are unable to achieve our performance goals, sales targets and reductions in occupancies and other costs, we could close up to 15% of our portfolio," she said. Pier 1 has 967 stores remaining.
Girl, 12, contracts deadly 'flesh-eating' disease after swimming at Florida beach A 12-year-old girl who recently vacationed with her family in Destin, Fla., found herself fighting for her life shortly after returning home to Indiana. Kylei Brown began complaining to her parents of leg pain towards the end of their June visit to the popular tourist destination,WXINreports. When her family arrived back home, Kylei's symptoms intensified, beginning with swelling and redness in her right calf and progressing to a fever, her mother, Michelle Brown, told the station. The concerned parent brought her daughter to a doctor, who urged them to go to an emergency room for treatment instead. "When they told me we needed to go home and pack bags and get to (Riley Hospital for Children), my anxiety went from 0 to 110," Brown said. "I knew something was wrong.” Doctors initially thought Kylei might be suffering from a blood clot, but as her condition worsened, they reevaluated the diagnosis. "Her blood pressure was just continuously dropping," Brown said. "It was rough." Kylei was eventually diagnosed with necrotizing fasciitis — a rare, life-threatening bacterial infection which is often referred to as a "flesh-eating" disease, as it quickly and aggressively kills the body's soft tissue. The disease has an extremely high mortality rate, and accurate diagnosis, rapid antibiotic administration and prompt surgery are extremely important in successful treatment, according to theU.S. Centers for Disease Control. The bacteria can enter the body through even a tiny break in the skin, including cuts, scrapes, burns and insect bites. Brown said her daughter merely scratched her toe on a skateboard days before visiting the beach, where she may have likely contracted the bacteria through seawater. "It started from a scuff on her toe, a scrape on her toe, and it almost cost her her life," Brown said. Kylei was rushed into emergency surgery, where doctors removed the affected tissue, and has since been discharged from the hospital. She is still being treated at home with an I.V. bag of antibiotics and will soon begin therapy so she can walk again. Her mother toldWXINshe hopes her story will encourage others to quickly recognize the signs of the disease so they can seek prompt treatment. "It's hard for me to think about if I had waited one more day, or even a couple more hours," Brown said. "We're just very fortunate." Kylei's ordeal comes just one week after analarming report published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicinesuggested a "flesh-eating" bacteria calledvibrio vulnificusmay be spreading to regions previously non-endemic to the microorganism due to unusually warm waters.
Does Conagra Brands, Inc.'s (NYSE:CAG) Debt Level Pose A Problem? Want to participate in ashort research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! The size of Conagra Brands, Inc. (NYSE:CAG), a US$14b large-cap, often attracts investors seeking a reliable investment in the stock market. Risk-averse investors who are attracted to diversified streams of revenue and strong capital returns tend to seek out these large companies. But, the health of the financials determines whether the company continues to succeed. This article will examine Conagra Brands’s financial liquidity and debt levels to get an idea of whether the company can deal with cyclical downturns and maintain funds to accommodate strategic spending for future growth. Note that this commentary is very high-level and solely focused on financial health, so I suggest you dig deeper yourselfinto CAG here. Check out our latest analysis for Conagra Brands Over the past year, CAG has ramped up its debt from US$3.7b to US$11b , which accounts for long term debt. With this increase in debt, the current cash and short-term investment levels stands at US$282m , ready to be used for running the business. Moreover, CAG has produced cash from operations of US$868m over the same time period, resulting in an operating cash to total debt ratio of 7.8%, indicating that CAG’s debt is not covered by operating cash. At the current liabilities level of US$2.2b, it appears that the company has been able to meet these obligations given the level of current assets of US$2.9b, with a current ratio of 1.31x. The current ratio is the number you get when you divide current assets by current liabilities. For Food companies, this ratio is within a sensible range as there's enough of a cash buffer without holding too much capital in low return investments. With total debt exceeding equities, Conagra Brands is considered a highly levered company. This isn’t uncommon for large companies because interest payments on debt are tax deductible, meaning debt can be a cheaper source of capital than equity. Consequently, larger-cap organisations tend to enjoy lower cost of capital as a result of easily attained financing, providing an advantage over smaller companies. We can check to see whether CAG is able to meet its debt obligations by looking at the net interest coverage ratio. Ideally, earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) should cover net interest by at least three times. In CAG's case, the ratio of 5x suggests that interest is well-covered. Large-cap investments like CAG are often believed to be a safe investment due to their ability to pump out ample earnings multiple times its interest payments. CAG’s debt and cash flow levels indicate room for improvement. Its cash flow coverage of less than a quarter of debt means that operating efficiency could be an issue. Though, the company exhibits proper management of current assets and upcoming liabilities. This is only a rough assessment of financial health, and I'm sure CAG has company-specific issues impacting its capital structure decisions. You should continue to research Conagra Brands to get a more holistic view of the stock by looking at: 1. Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for CAG’s future growth? Take a look at ourfree research report of analyst consensusfor CAG’s outlook. 2. Valuation: What is CAG worth today? Is the stock undervalued, even when its growth outlook is factored into its intrinsic value? Theintrinsic value infographic in our free research reporthelps visualize whether CAG is currently mispriced by the market. 3. Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore ourfree list of these great stocks here. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor ateditorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
YouTube to include ‘Don’t recommend’ feature for specific channels The feature is a part of several changes designed to make YouTube recommendations more accurate. Users will be able to utilize the feature when removing unwanted channels from their "Next Up" column.Read morehere.Read more... More aboutTech,Youtube,Mashable Video,Social Media, andTech
Why oil is going higher: Strategist Energy companies have largely been left out of the stock market party this year, despite a rally in oil prices. Energy stocks in the S&P 500 have shed 15% over the past 12 months amid fears of oversupply and worries about slowing demand in a weakening global economy. “Energy companies have underperformed for a while. I tend to like that because I think we can see a little bit of a catch-up,” Peter Tchir, head of macro strategy at Academy Securities, tells Yahoo Finance’s “The First Trade.” Declines in shares of oil giants Exxon Mobil(XOM)and Chevron(CVX)weighed on the energy sector this week, despite a 3% rally in oil prices. WTI crude(CL=F)came within a whisper of $60 a barrel Wednesday after a massive drop in crude supplies. The Energy Information Administration said Wednesday thatU.S. crude inventories fell by 12.8 million barrels last week.That’s the largest drawdown in nearly three years, when inventories fell 14.5 million barrels. “If you look at the technical aspect of crude oil, if it breaks above [$60 a barrel] it’s going to break out of what’s called a symmetrical triangle pattern, and that’s very bullish for the commodity,” says Matt Maley, chief market strategist at Miller Tabak. Oil also got a boost after President Trump signed an executive order Monday imposing new sanctions on Iran in response to the downing of a U.S. drone last week. “The market has underestimated the risk of escalation – either purposeful or accidental – with Iran,” says Tchir. “The U.S. has to consolidate around Iran and get the rest of the world backing us to stop their nuclear proliferation risk,” he says. “This is all tying together nicely for us to get allies out of G20.” Tchir is positive on energy stocks and believes oil prices will go higher. “Brent’s(BZ=F)going to lead the way, WTI will follow,” says Tchir, who believes WTI crude has the potential to reach $70 a barrel, in the near term. Shares of ConocoPhillips(COP)shot up 5.2% Wednesday after a bullish call from Mizuho, though it gave back some of those gains Thursday. Analyst Paul Sankey raised his rating on the oil and natural gas exploration company from a “neutral” to “buy” and has an $80 price target on the stock. “Conoco is bumping up against the top end of a descending triangle pattern,” says Maley, “and if it breaks above that, that’s very positive.” The oil services company Schlumberger(SLB)has dramatically underperformed the market. In the last five years, the stock has plunged 68%, while the S&P 500 has rallied 50%. “Schlumberger made a nice little double bottom recently on a technical basis,” says Maley. “It’s been a dog for a long time. If it can finally rally, that’s going to give the group momentum and investors a lot more confidence in the group, as well.” Alexis Christoforous is co-anchor of Yahoo Finance’s “The First Trade.” Follow her on Twitter@AlexisTVNews. Read more: Is an earnings recession on the horizon? Gold at $1,400 per ounce is 'overbought': Strategist Google is worth 50% more broken up: Analyst Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance Follow Yahoo Finance onTwitter,Facebook,Instagram,Flipboard,LinkedIn,YouTube, andreddit.
Second Samsung foldable phone reportedly on the way despite Fold delay The phone, according toThe Korea Herald, will have a design similar to Huawei's Mate X. Samsung Fold delays were announced after issues with the phone breaking down.Read morehere.Read more... More aboutTech,Samsung,Smartphones,Mashable Video, andGalaxy Fold