Bombardier is updated and rated Speculative (lower) Buy at $3.60. This stock is down 25% this year and in general the stock has done poorly for many years. The most recent decline was due to delays and higher costs on its new C-Series airplane. The question now is whether the low stock price provides a speculative opportunity for a good gain in the next couple of years. The company has already issued its 178 page annual report for 2013. I spent quite a few hours going through that but really I am unable to get a clear sense of future profits. Since the company is highly leveraged, there is certainly some risk of major share price declines if the C-Series has further problems and if they run into cash issues and have to issue shares at a low price. On the other hand it’s hard to imagine that the government would “allow” the company to go broke in any scenario. And it’s possible that a couple of years down the road there could be large profits on the C-series. Listening to the conference call the analysts seem rather frustrated with management. The analysts share my concern that the margins on planes seem very low.
I am planning to buy some shares as a more speculative position.
On Friday the S&P 500 was up 0.5% and Toronto was up 0.4%.
Most of our Stock Picks were up on Friday, Toll Brothers was up 2.2%
I made a modest purchase of American Express shares on Friday.