Floating Your Way Into A River Of Cash

The float of a stock is another important factor that can help you make a proper decision when it comes to picking a winning stock. The float is simply how many shares there are available for trade on the open market. Most finance sites will give you this information if you dig just a little. The float is a crucial thing to consider, because it is part of the equation that gets you to the earnings per share. (Net Income/Number Of Shares Or Float = Earnings Per Share)

Remember how important the EPS or Earnings Per Share is too, as it drives the most basic stock equation (EPS * Stock's Multiple = Price). Generally, I believe that the smaller the float the better. It breaks down to simple supply and demand. If a stock has a small float and gets a piece of great news they will go up a lot faster then one with a large float, simply because there isn't very many shares out there to buy. Watch out though because this can also work the opposite way. Check out what happen to VDSI which has only 37 million shares of float after it missed earnings estimates, just painful!

This is also were buybacks and stock splits come into play. A company that has passed it's growth phase needs to increase it's EPS somehow, so it simply starts reducing it's float by buying back it's own shares. The less shares on the market the easier it is to raise your Earnings Per Share and keep the shareholders happy! Take a look at Boeing (BA), they just announced a big buyback and the stock was rewarded.

Now when a stock split occurs you are normally just increasing or rarely decreasing the float. Lets say you have a 2 for 1 split. If the float was 50 million before the split it is now 100 million or if it was 10 million before now it is 20 million... just that simple!

Here are a few basic companies to look at that have a small float...

Cogent (COGT) 94 million shares, Vasco Data Securities (VDSI) with 37 million shares, Ormat (ORA) with 38 million shares, Zoltec (ZOLT) with only 29 million shares of float!

Compare that to some of the bigger companies out there, Microsoft (MSFT) with 9.3 billion, Motorola (MOT) with 2.2 billion and General Electric (GE) with a whopping 10.2 billion!

Basically, it is a lot easier to move a stock that has a small float, not only that, but a stock with a small float has a lot of room to grow, which is always a good thing when you are looking for great long term investments...

Picture Taken By Paul Clos

The Big Overreaction To Vasco Data Securities Earnings!

Anyone who held Vasco Data Securities (vdsi) yesterday is down a whopping 33.95% today! Talk about pain, that was one of the worst days I have ever seen for any stock. So, you might think that this stock is done, over, and just going to keep going down, but I am here to tell you that this is not going to happen.

This was the biggest overreaction to an earnings report that I can remember in recent times. The drooling analysts were looking for 17 cents per share and Vasco came in at 15 cents. That was an amazing 79% over last years earnings. Their revenues came in at 30 million which was below anayists' expectations, but was still a 60% increase over last years revenues. Vasco Data Securities won 608 new customers in the third quarter, including 106 banks and 502 enterprise security customers.
With the 15 cents a share in earnings Vasco's P/E ratio is only 44 based on it's current price of $26.13, which is low for a company that can grow at 79%. Vasco's backlog of orders also grew to an all time high of 33.4 million for the fourth quarter. My point is that the long term story with Vasco is still in tack. They re-affirmed their guidance of full-year revenues to rise 55 percent to 65 percent. Vasco Data (vdsi) also sees gross profit as a percentage of revenue for 2007 to be in the range of a very healthy 60 percent to 68 percent!

I have been a bull of this stock for a long, long time now and I did watch it's valuation get a little a head of itself, but this almost 35% sell off in the stock is just unjustified. This stock may be in for a rough ride the next couple of days, but this is an opportunity that I would jump on soon before the smoke clears.

To learn more about Vasco Data Securities visit their website and to see what I thought going into earnings check out this post!

If you are still looking for more information about the company listen to what the CEO T. Kendall Hunt has to say in this presentation in Chicago...

Buy Evergreen Solar Ahead Of Earnings?

Well I certainly can't say that I would put too much down on the table before earnings on Thursday, but this certainly is a good stock to consider for the long run. Evergreen Solar (eslr) is small company that is quickly expanding it's manufacturing facilities not only here in the states, but in Germany as well with it's joint venture with Everq. Germany is arguable the leader in the world when it comes to Solar technology, so ESLR has it's eggs in the right basket. They are still operating at a loss though, so this play is not for the faint of heart. They are also very small compared to the other players out there with only a 960 million dollar market cap, but with great risk comes great rewards. Here is a look at their 1 year chart courtesy of Google Finance.


I believe things can only get better for this company as governments around the world begin to offer even more incentives for green energy. Climate change is becoming more of a reality ever day and I believe we are soon going to be scrambling to provide the world with cleaner forms of energy.

One of the things that separates Evergreen Solar from the rest of the solar industry is the fact that they manufacture wafers, cells and panels all under one roof which will allow them to more efficiently control costs, and perfect the manufacturing process. They also produce panels that have the smallest carbon footprint of any panels on the market today, and with their revolutionary quad furnace I think Evergreen has a leg up on the competition.

Is Evergreen the best solar play out there right now? Maybe not, two others to consider are SunPower Corp (SPWR) and Suntech (STP) but I think that a year or two down the line Evergreen will be vastly outperforming both of these stocks... What are your thoughts?

NASDAQ ESLR is trading at $9.60 as I write this...