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SmallCap stocks Helen of Troy (HELE), BJ's Restaurants (BJRI) and Nanometrics (NANO) all posted gains this morning in early trading as the broader markets opened mixed and with little enthusiasm even though The Mortgage Bankers Association reported U.S. mortgage applications surged last week to their highest since mid-May. Traders and investors appear to be waiting for earnings season to fully get underway and speaking of earnings...
Gaining 11.95% ($2.39) this morning on its Q2 earnings report released today is S&P SmallCap 600 company Helen of Troy Limited (HELE) http://www.hotus.com/ which is currently trading in the $22.37 range on the NASDAQ. HELE has a new market cap of $673 million. HELE has a 3-Month average daily trading volume of 186,020 and it easily tripled that volume by mid-session.
HELE reported increased net earnings and record sales for its Q2 ended August 31, 2009. Q2 sales increased 5.6% to $162,193,000 versus sales of $153,543,000 in the same period of the prior year. Q2 net earnings increased 50.1% to $15,911,000 or $0.51 per fully diluted share, compared with $10,598,000 or $0.34 per fully diluted share for the same period a year earlier. What a year.
Six Month Sales and Earnings
Sales for the six months ended August 31, 2009 increased 2.5% to $306,066,000 versus $298,546,000 for the previous year. Net earnings for the first half of this fiscal year increased 88.3% to $30,420,000 or $0.99 per fully diluted share, versus $16,156,000 or $0.52 per fully diluted share in the same period of last year.
HELE net sales for its Housewares Segment increased 7.3% to $50,566,000 in Q2 compared with $47,134,000 for the same period last year. HELE net sales for the Personal Care Segment increased 4.9% to $111,627,000 in Q2 compared with $106,409,000 for the same period last year.
Gerald J. Rubin, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President, said, "We are extremely pleased with our results for the second quarter. Although the worldwide retail environment continues to be challenging, our leadership position in our market segments allowed us to continue to perform well during the quarter."
As of August 31, 2009, HELE had cash, cash equivalents, trading securities and long term investments of $33,106,000 and shareholders' equity of $540,165,000. During Q2 HELE repaid $75,000,000 of its 5 year Senior Notes that matured in June 2009.
"We believe we are well positioned as we move into the holiday selling season," said Rubin. HELE designs, developments, imports, and distributes brand-name consumer products worldwide. It operates through two segments, Personal Care and Housewares.
At $22.37, HELE is pennies below its 52-week high of $22.77 set on 08-22-09 and is above its 52-week low of $8.55 set on 03-09-09. At $22.37, HELE is ahead of its 50-day and 200-day moving averages. HELE has trailing twelve month revenues of $621 million. HELE is widely held by institutions. Its shares out versus float ratio is near-parity.
Gaining 6.68% ($1.00) this morning is BJ's Restaurants Inc., (BJRI) http://www.bjsrestaurants.com/ currently trading on the NASDAQ in the $15.98 range. BJRI has a new market cap of $417 million. BJRI has a 3-Month average daily trading volume of 325,836 shares and it handily topped that this morning reaching 557,958 shares traded by mid-session.
BJRI had two excellent pieces of company news yesterday. The first was that BJRI would be joining the S&P SmallCap 600 after the close of trading on Tuesday, October 13 (replacing Frontier Financial -FTBK). The second piece of good news for BJRI announced yesterday was the opening of its newest restaurant in Culver City, California, a Los Angeles suburb, on October 5, 2009.
"We are very excited to open BJ's 88th restaurant in our 'home court' of Southern California at the newly renovated Fox Hills Mall in Culver City," said Jerry Deitchle, Chairman and CEO. "Sales for our first day of operations were very strong," he added.
"Our new Culver City restaurant represents our sixth new restaurant this year, and we remain on track to open four more restaurants before the end of the year," said Deitchle. BJRI owns and operates 88 casual dining restaurants located in: California (46), Texas (15), Arizona (5), Colorado (3), Oregon (2), Nevada (3), Florida (5), Ohio (2), Oklahoma (2), Kentucky (1), Indiana (1), Louisiana (1) and Washington (2).
At $15.98, BJRI is below its 52-week high of $18.14 set on 04-29-09 and is above its 52-week low of $6.63 set on 11-28-08. At $15.98, BJRI is behind its 50-day moving average of $16.28 and ahead of its 200-day moving average of $15.81. BJRI has trailing twelve month revenues of $405 million and a trailing twelve month diluted EPS of $0.46. BJRI is widely held by institutions. Its shares out versus float ratio is close enough to parity not to raise any red flags about stability.
A Momentum Play
Gaining 9.57% ($0.67) this morning is Nanometrics Inc., (NANO) http://www.nanometrics.com/ currently trading on the NASDAQ in the $7.68 range. NANO has a new market cap of $142 million. NANO has a 3-Month average daily trading volume of 231,702 shares and it surpassed 391,131 shares traded today by mid-session.
NANO released no official news today to support a near-10% gain, but I believe NANO is a 'momentum buy' and looking at a 3-Month chart, its easy to see the stock gathering steam as its heads for Q3 2009 earnings call coming after market on Oct. 29.
NANO has had a string of events in the last 60 days that have supported the notion of a string Q3 in the waiting. On September 3, research house Piper Jaffray initiated coverage with an 'Overweight' following on the heels of an August 17 upgrade by Oppenheimer from 'Perform' to 'Outperform'. Analysts like NANO at this time. NANO also said farewell to Vincent Coates, company founder and vice-chairman of the board on August 31. New leadership generally produces hope in 'fresh' revenue-producing ideas.
NANO designs, makes and sells thin film, optical critical dimension, and overlay dimension metrology systems. NANO offers metrology systems, which include standalone and fully automated systems for high-volume semiconductor manufacturing process control. NANO products are used primarily in manufacturing of semiconductors, solar PV, and high-brightness LEDs, as well as by customers in silicon wafer and data storage industries.
At $7.68, NANO is below its 52-week high of $9 set on 09-08-09 and is above its 52-week low of $0.80 set on 12-04-08. At $7.68, NANO is ahead of both its 50-day and 200-day moving averages. I believe this trend-line also plays a part in its gain today. Its shares out versus float ratio is near-parity.
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