Collector's Universe stock rating drops due to mass defection from messageboards

[truthteller]

The Scouter rating dropped from 4 to 2.(10 being highest)

 

 

http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/research/msnbc/newsnap.asp?symbol=clct

 

 

 

TRUTH

[MunkyMan95]

Stop the bamming! Save the investors!

[DC Dawg]

Stop the bamming! Save the investors!

 

I think the investors are doing just fine.

 

Collectors Universe Increases Quarterly Dividend by 50 Percent to 12 Cents

 

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. (AP) -- Collectors Universe Inc., a provider of authentication and grading services to dealers and collectors, said Tuesday its board declared a quarterly dividend of 12 cents per share, up 4 cents, or 50 percent, from the last payout.

 

The dividend is payable Jan. 17 to shareholders of record Jan. 3.

[gmarguli]

Stop the bamming! Save the investors!

 

I think the investors are doing just fine.

 

Collectors Universe Increases Quarterly Dividend by 50 Percent to 12 Cents

 

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. (AP) -- Collectors Universe Inc., a provider of authentication and grading services to dealers and collectors, said Tuesday its board declared a quarterly dividend of 12 cents per share, up 4 cents, or 50 percent, from the last payout.

 

The dividend is payable Jan. 17 to shareholders of record Jan. 3.

 

Depends on when you start looking.

 

[MAULEMALL]

Stop the bamming! Save the investors!

 

I think the investors are doing just fine.

 

Collectors Universe Increases Quarterly Dividend by 50 Percent to 12 Cents

 

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. (AP) -- Collectors Universe Inc., a provider of authentication and grading services to dealers and collectors, said Tuesday its board declared a quarterly dividend of 12 cents per share, up 4 cents, or 50 percent, from the last payout.

 

The dividend is payable Jan. 17 to shareholders of record Jan. 3.

 

Depends on when you start looking.

 

[DC Dawg]

Looking at the one-day movement of a share without looking at the conditions of the market and/or their market sector is like looking at the 2005 Red Book to determine whether buying a 1928 Peace Dollar would make a good investment (compared to other key date coins, it is not... but that's another story).

 

When looking at Collector's Universe as a company for the purposes of investing and removing the emotion of what is happening on their Boards, an investor will look at the announcement of their doubling the dividend as a good sign. When looking at their last quarterly report (10-Q), as a potential investor, I would say they appear to be doing well. I glanced at their last 10Q (quarterly report) and their unaudited numbers look pretty good. They are not experiencing cashflow issues, their debt is not excessive, and their sales are good. CLCT is using a classic "cash and carry" business model giving very little credit and it looks like the spike in rare coin prices is allowing them to make a good bit of money on the Certified Coin Exchange.

 

Unless something hits the press that says this is hurting their business, CLCT may be a pretty good buy if you are looking for a small cap stock to add some diversity to your portfolio. Maybe I should consider a block or two before the dividend!

 

Scott

[gmarguli]

Your opinion of it seems to be very different from the professionals. I follow the stock just a little. Recent things I've heard is that submissions are down. Even worse, the submissions they are receiving are the lower tier ones (lower revenue). They had missed their earnings targets more than once recently. They've been downgraded. They awarded themselves bonuses for their poor performance....

 

Overall, I'd not be buying this stock. While I think the downside is small given their cash position, it's not a company I have any faith in.

[Excaliber]

Looking at the one-day movement of a share without looking at the conditions of the market and/or their market sector is like looking at the 2005 Red Book to determine whether buying a 1928 Peace Dollar would make a good investment (compared to other key date coins, it is not... but that's another story).

 

When looking at Collector's Universe as a company for the purposes of investing and removing the emotion of what is happening on their Boards, an investor will look at the announcement of their doubling the dividend as a good sign. When looking at their last quarterly report (10-Q), as a potential investor, I would say they appear to be doing well. I glanced at their last 10Q (quarterly report) and their unaudited numbers look pretty good. They are not experiencing cashflow issues, their debt is not excessive, and their sales are good. CLCT is using a classic "cash and carry" business model giving very little credit and it looks like the spike in rare coin prices is allowing them to make a good bit of money on the Certified Coin Exchange.

 

Unless something hits the press that says this is hurting their business, CLCT may be a pretty good buy if you are looking for a small cap stock to add some diversity to your portfolio. Maybe I should consider a block or two before the dividend!

 

Scott

 

 

 

 

 

NO WAY! There stock is down $4 a share in the past 12 months from $18.36 to $13.28.

Their earnings growth rate is down over 13%. And to top all of that, they are in the beginning of a POTENTIALY devistating lawsuit. This stock has nothing but DECLINE written all over it. The shares "shorted" jumped over 25% just this last week on the news of the lawsuit. I don't think i'll be buying any CLCT stock in the near future.

 

jmo

 

FACTS

[DC Dawg]

You cannot judge a company by its stock performance alone. You have to look more at the company and its cash flows to determine if it is a good investment. Wall Street has the tendency to play with certain stocks and sectors on occasion based on perception and short-term gain. Those who subscribe the theories of Warren Buffet and Jim Cramer of buying long look for other opportunities outside of stock performance issues taking in low performance as a reason to buy low.

 

Perception for CLCT is based on their largest subsidiary PCGS. PCGS may have some issues, but if you read their last two 10-Qs, the company acknowledges a rise in submissions for their currency grading group and the business from the Certified Coin Exchange is doing very well. There are other areas that are doing better, but because PCGS constitutes a large portion of their business, there is a perception of problems.

 

Revenues did take a small hit over the last year by their offering of financing. They started Collectors Financing Corporation with some of the money they have in the bank to collectors. Any time you go into the financial areas, there is a risk. CFC has seen some of that risk based come true. So some of their overall performance is said to be hurt by CFC.

 

Overall, it is difficult to tell which part of the company is dragging their earnings lower because CLCT does not intemize this in their 10-Qs and 10-K--it's not required. I can only go by the statements made in their reports. But they have a lot of mony in the bank. If they didn't have money in the bank they would not be able to offer higher dividends. This means they do not have a lot of debt and that the money can be used to run a business and cushion it during harder times than having to worry about using earnings to pay for money to run the business.

 

With the exception of the financing company and CCE, it's a cash and carry business--you submit your items for grading/authenticating with payment. Their last 10-K did not report problems with receivables, so CCE is not a problem. In all, the fundamentals of their balance sheet looks very good. They can take a small downturn in business at PCGS while building up other areas of the business.

 

The collectors business is hot. Not just in coins but sports cards, currency, autographs, etc. With all the fraud out there, authenticating and grading companies are becomming more important, just ask the folks here at the Collectors' Society (a private company) who had to move recently to larger offices because of the expansion in their business. Based on the industry and the numbers in their financial reports, I see very little downside with investing in CLCT.

 

Let's see what they report on their 10-Q for their second quarter (ending December 31). If the trends are the same as with their first quarter 10-Q, then I will probably add them to my portfolio. I might even do so before January 2 so I can collect on the dividend! A nice, small, short-term return!

 

Scott

[just-john]

any one ever go to david g hall . com just for fun first picture say's it all

[IrishMike]

Scott with all due respect the company on no level has done well. Its always had a ton of cash and no long term debt and little debt over all, even at its low point. I look at investing in a company differently as I financed companies for 35 years. To me the business they are in and how well its managed are the two most important considerations.

 

This is a closely held company even thought public and the folks who manage it have a tremendous influence, more so than other companies. I've wondered with the reporting requirements being what they are if going private might not be a good idea.

[just-john]

with one person owning over 750,000 shares and another with 250,000 shares.Closely

is an understatement.The other shareholders are windowdressing .They would be better

going to Las Vegas and betting on 00 on roulette because then they would know where their money went and maybe they mite get lucky

[World Colonial]

Whether CU's future business prospects are good or the stock is a good buy at the present time or not I do not know, but here are a couple of observations. Loooking at their financial results (Marketwatch.com), the reason they have a lot of cash ($52MM in June 06) must be from a cash infusion in 2005 ($40MM) because they actually consumed $13MM in the last year. Their EPS was 40 cents in '06 and if their quarterly dividend is 12 cents, that is over 100% of their '06 earnings from continui9ng operations even if it is less than their cash flow. No business can sustain that over the long term.

 

Their revenues have almost doubled in the last four years from $20MM to $36MM, and presumably that is mostly from the introduction of the registry sets and the increased submission volume of modern coins.

 

That they have been successful as a marketing organization there can be no doubt. The TPG including PCGS (since this is most of CU's business) along with the US Mint (and others) have greatly expanded the hobby and coins as an "alternative investment class" in recent years.

 

The question now is whether this can be sustained and expanded. PCGS will survive (or probably will) but if they are going to grow, they will probably need to have many collectors of modern coins expand to other areas. Expanding TPG with world coin collectors would also appear to be a must. (There are plenty of modern coins from the Euro zone that can be slabbed.) Based upon my experience, these collectors for the most part do not want or have no preference for slabbed coins, registry sets and are not willing to pay substantial premiums for high grade specimes.

[DC Dawg]

I guess we are going to have to respectfully disagree.

 

I like their position in the market. I like the financials they present. I like the increase in revenues. I don't mind the lowering of the cash position when putting it into the perspective of add a financing business because that does take capital--but in a hot market, it might be a positive risk.

 

When the discussion started earlier this week, I gave the information to my broker. She will give me her opinion next week. Right now, I am inclined to buy at least one block of CLCT and see what happens. I can always purchase options and ride this out.

 

Besides, my portfolio is up for the year. I can take a little risk!!

 

Scott

[Count_Erfit]

Is ANYONE in the country looking at their investments in light of an almost CERTAIN recession fallout from the housing bust?

Discretionary purchases are falling out of bed right NOW. Give it a few more months to filter down to actual REPOS and I think a whole lot of "TODAY'S PARADIGM" will be just a silly footnote.

[JRocco]

Hi Scott,

I also have to respectfully disagree with you.

I too am hard wired into this market and I too am sitting on some nice profits. That said I am also willing to be a little risky on a few small/micro caps, but the reward/risk ratio has to look good.

What type of movement do you see in this stock over the next 12 months? I want to see a 5-10 bagger as a reward on play money risky investments. Could you say that you even see this stock doubling ONCE in the next 12 months?

There are some really strong risk plays right now and I do not see this stock as even being mentioned with them in the same paragraph. I will not give my opinions on a public forum as to where I see this stock in 12 months, but I think I can say here publicly that I do not share your opinion. I say this respectfully of course.

Good luck with all you invest in.

[zrlevin]

I don't know if you've got any, but SLV is kickin' major spoon!

[gmarguli]

I like their position in the market.

 

What is their position in the market? They're #2 in coins. They may lose their largest submitter. Several other large submitters are supposedly boycotting them. Submissions are down and even worse for them is the fact that the submissions they are getting are lower revenue tiers like modern and bulk. From a research report [CU] "Says results from PCGS unit in coin show grading below its expectations..."

 

I don't know about their position of their other businesses, but I hear a lot of complaints about their card grading business, their autograph division has had some brutal press, and supposedly their gem business is in a term of high costs.

 

 

I like the financials they present. I like the increase in revenues.

 

Revenues are great, I guess, but I like to see profits and free cash flow. While revenues are up year over year, their costs are also up more and profit is down. Their free cash flow is a negative $3.75 million.

 

 

I don't mind the lowering of the cash position when putting it into the perspective of add a financing business because that does take capital--but in a hot market, it might be a positive risk.

 

Hot market? Pretty much everyone agrees that the market is no longer hot. Would you want to finance purchases in a declining market?

 

 

When the discussion started earlier this week, I gave the information to my broker. She will give me her opinion next week. Right now, I am inclined to buy at least one block of CLCT and see what happens. I can always purchase options and ride this out.

 

CLCT does not have options on it. You can short it or go long.

 

 

A few other things to consider:

 

Analysts rarely give sell recommendations on stock. This stock has (1) Sell & (3) holds.

 

In order to invest in a company you should have faith in the management of that company. Can you honestly say you have faith in the management of CU? They're buying businesses that they have no area of expertise in. Not very long ago they were selling off the businesses they had to focus on their area of core competency. Now they're moving in the opposite direction. Do they know what the hell they're doing?

 

Is the company run like a real public company of a fiefdom?