The following are today's upgrades for Validea's Low PE Investor model based on the published strategy of John Neff. This strategy looks for firms with persistent earnings growth that trade at a discount relative to their earnings growth and dividend yield.
FEDERAL AGRICULTURAL MORTGAGE CORP. (AGM) is a small-cap value stock in the Consumer Financial Services industry. The rating according to our strategy based on John Neff changed from 62% to 81% based on the firm’s underlying fundamentals and the stock’s valuation. A score of 80% or above typically indicates that the strategy has some interest in the stock and a score above 90% typically indicates strong interest.
Company Description: Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation is a stockholder-owned, federally chartered corporation that combines private capital and public sponsorship to serve a public purpose. The Company provides a secondary market for a range of loans made to borrowers in rural America. The Company operates through four segments: Farm & Ranch, USDA Guarantees, Rural Utilities, and Institutional Credit. The Company's secondary market activities include purchasing eligible loans directly from lenders; providing advances against eligible loans by purchasing obligations secured by those loans; securitizing assets and guaranteeing the payment of principal and interest on the resulting securities that represent interests in, or obligations secured by, pools of eligible loans; and issuing long-term standby purchase commitments (LTSPCs) for eligible loans. Under the Farm & Ranch line of business, Company provides a secondary market for mortgage loans secured by first liens on agricultural real estate.
The following table summarizes whether the stock meets each of this strategy's tests. Not all criteria in the below table receive equal weighting or are independent, but the table provides a brief overview of the strong and weak points of the security in the context of the strategy's criteria.
| P/E RATIO: | PASS |
| EPS GROWTH: | PASS |
| FUTURE EPS GROWTH: | FAIL |
| SALES GROWTH: | PASS |
| TOTAL RETURN/PE: | PASS |
| FREE CASH FLOW: | PASS |
| EPS PERSISTENCE: | PASS |
Detailed Analysis of FEDERAL AGRICULTURAL MORTGAGE CORP.
HERITAGE-CRYSTAL CLEAN, INC. (HCCI) is a small-cap value stock in the Waste Management Services industry. The rating according to our strategy based on John Neff changed from 62% to 81% based on the firm’s underlying fundamentals and the stock’s valuation. A score of 80% or above typically indicates that the strategy has some interest in the stock and a score above 90% typically indicates strong interest.
Company Description: Heritage-Crystal Clean, Inc. provides parts cleaning, hazardous and non-hazardous containerized waste, used oil collection, wastewater vacuum, antifreeze recycling and field services primarily to small and mid-sized industrial and vehicle maintenance customers. The Company operates through two segments: Environmental Services and Oil Business. The Environmental Services segment consists of parts cleaning, containerized waste management, wastewater vacuum services, antifreeze recycling activities and field services. The Oil Business segment consists of used oil collection, recycled fuel oil sales, used oil re-refining activities, and used oil filter removal and disposal services. It owns and operates a used oil re-refinery where it re-refines used oils and sells base oil for lubricants as well as other re-refinery products. It also operates wastewater treatment plants and antifreeze recycling facilities. Its locations are in the United States and Ontario, Canada.
The following table summarizes whether the stock meets each of this strategy's tests. Not all criteria in the below table receive equal weighting or are independent, but the table provides a brief overview of the strong and weak points of the security in the context of the strategy's criteria.
| P/E RATIO: | PASS |
| EPS GROWTH: | PASS |
| FUTURE EPS GROWTH: | PASS |
| SALES GROWTH: | FAIL |
| TOTAL RETURN/PE: | PASS |
| FREE CASH FLOW: | PASS |
| EPS PERSISTENCE: | PASS |
Detailed Analysis of HERITAGE-CRYSTAL CLEAN, INC.
More details on Validea's John Neff strategy
About John Neff: While known as the manager with whom many top managers entrusted their own money, Neff was far from the smooth-talking, high-profile Wall Streeter you might expect. He was mild-mannered and low-key, and the same might be said of the Windsor Fund that he managed for more than three decades. In fact, Neff himself described the fund as "relatively prosaic, dull, [and] conservative." There was nothing dull about his results, however. From 1964 to 1995, Neff guided Windsor to a 13.7 percent average annual return, easily outpacing the S&P 500's 10.6 percent return during that time. That 3.1 percentage point difference is huge over time -- a $10,000 investment in Windsor (with dividends reinvested) at the start of Neff's tenure would have ended up as more than $564,000 by the time he retired, more than twice what the same investment in the S&P would have yielded (about $233,000). Considering the length of his tenure, that track record may be the best ever for a manager of such a large fund.
About Validea: Validea is aninvestment researchservice that follows the published strategies of investment legends. Validea offers both stock analysis and model portfolios based on gurus who have outperformed the market over the long-term, including Warren Buffett, Benjamin Graham, Peter Lynch and Martin Zweig. For more information about Validea, click here
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
