Here's a The Motley Fool article on the quality of Lowe's (LOW) free cash flow (FCF). Lowe's has produced much more FCF over the past 12 months than net income.
Looking at cash flow can help to gauge the earnings quality of a company but also has its limits. From the article:
All Cash Is Not Equal
Unfortunately, the cash flow statement isn't immune from nonsense, either. That's why it pays to take a close look at the components of cash flow from operations, to make sure that the cash comes from high-quality sources. They need to be real and replicable in the upcoming quarters, rather than being offset by continual cash outflows that don't appear on the income statement...
Some of Lowe's current FCF comes down to pulling back on CapEx during the recession. It will be interesting to see what happens as the housing market and economy as a whole improves.
You can see from the chart in the article that FCF was much less than net income from 2006-2009 when they were investing more heavily in store growth. Does that mean they had lower quality FCF in the past? Probably not, but difficult to know as it depends on the long-term return they get from those investments in new stores. Some CapEx maintains and refreshes stores, distribution, and related capabilities while the rest is to expand. They've simply pulled back on the expansion portion for now. Lowe's plans to open ~40-45 new stores this year compared to 115 new stores back in 2008.
I also addressed the FCF (and valuation) of Amazon (AMZN) and eBay (EBAY) in this post from earlier this year.
Check out the full article.
Adam
Long position in LOW and EBAY
---
This site does not provide investing recommendations as that comes down to individual circumstances. Instead, it is for generalized informational, educational, and entertainment purposes. Visitors should always do their own research and consult, as needed, with a financial adviser that's familiar with the individual circumstances before making any investment decisions. Bottom line: The opinions found here should never be considered specific individualized investment advice and never a recommendation to buy or sell anything.
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Applying Newton's Fourth Law
Origin of Newton's 4th Law?
"Long ago, Sir Isaac Newton gave us three laws of motion, which were the work of genius. But Sir Isaac's talents didn't extend to investing: He lost a bundle in the South Sea Bubble, explaining later, 'I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men.' If he had not been traumatized by this loss, Sir Isaac might well have gone on to discover the Fourth Law of Motion: For investors as a whole, returns decrease as motion increases." - Warren Buffett
---
Find good businesses; buy at nice discounts to value; stay within limits & stick to what's understandable (necessarily unique for each investor); minimize trading, frictional costs, & errors of all kinds.
Blog Archive
-
▼
2010
(235)
-
▼
July
(23)
- Equities to Double in Five Years?
- Grantham on "The Greatest-Ever Failure of Economic...
- Lowe's Free Cash Flow
- Art of the Extreme Forecast
- More on Forecasters
- American Express 2Q 2010 Earnings
- Yacktman 2Q 2010 Letter
- The Herd Instinct: Correlation Soars
- Earnings Reports: Coca-Cola, Wells Fargo, & U.S. B...
- Concentrated Positions in Outstanding Businesses: ...
- Buffett: Outer Scorecard vs Inner Scorecard
- Stocks to Watch
- Dr. Doom's Deputy
- Liquid Assets
- Grantham: Gold is "Last Refuge of the Desperate"
- Buffett on Buying Stocks vs Making Acquisitions: B...
- Fortune Tellers
- On Forecasting
- Doug Kass: Fear & Forecasts
- Soccer's Scoring Problem
- O'Rourke: Make Soccer Less Boring
- Altria vs Coca-Cola
- Grantham on Quality Stocks Revisited
-
▼
July
(23)
About The Site
This site is for generalized informational purposes only and the views found here should never be considered specific investment advice.
Visitors should always do their own homework and consult, as needed, with a personal financial adviser who understands their specific individual circumstances before taking action on any particular investing idea. What makes sense as an investment in one set of individual circumstances may not in another.
Opinions found on the blog are just that, opinions, could easily be wrong in all kinds of ways, and should never be considered advice that is specific in nature. Stocks and other investment vehicles are inherently filled with risks including the possibility, or even likelihood, of permanent loss of capital. Past performance, of course, should not be considered indicative of future results. Due diligence is necessary.
The content found here shall not be taken as a recommendation to buy or sell any security or to participate in any particular investment strategy. Again, that necessarily comes down to individual circumstances. So, in other words, there is no personal financial adviser here, just some opinions and views. These opinion and views are subject to change at any time and, since they are not individualized in any way, consultation with an investment professional and doing one's own rigorous research/analysis before making any investment decisions is essential.
All posts are simply presented as one view on investing and some related topics though never specific recommendations. An investor should always get help from an investment professional if they feel they need it and, most importantly, before mistakes are made. Ultimately, the actions of individual investors, whether they happen to be a visitor to this site or not, are their own responsibility (and, if applicable, so are the associated losses). While there will always be a very real risk of permanent capital loss in investing, those who know their own limits and ask for professional advice when they require it can improve their chances substantially. Investors should never buy or sell a security based upon what they've read on any blog.
Information on this site is believed to be accurate yet may include errors or omissions and is not guaranteed. The site is also never a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any securities.
Posts on this blog do not offer opinions on the future price action of specific stocks or the capital markets as a whole. Instead, the focus is sound investing principles but never predictions or recommendations. It's understanding productive assets and their likely intrinsic value; how they may or may not compound in intrinsic worth over a long time horizon. It's about investing with a comfortable margin of safety. It's NOT about speculating on price action. In the near-term, or even longer, the market price of an asset can do just about anything.
A temperamental market pretty much assures it.
Those with a long investing horizon, it's worth noting, actually benefit from lower stock prices in the near-term (though not many market participants seem willing to put this truism to effective use). Those who attempt to profit primarily via speculating on short-term price action likely won't find this way of thinking to be of much interest.
The bottom line: This site does not provide individual investment advice of any kind and the blog posts found here are never a recommendation to buy or sell anything. Visitors should start with the assumption that the ideas found here are not good ones and do their own homework (or get individualized help from an investment professional) before taking ANY action.
Otherwise, hopefully some occasionally find the site worthwhile.
Labels
- Banks (90)
- Berkshire Shareholder Letter Highlights: 1977-86 (32)
- Berkshire Shareholder Letter Highlights: 1987-96 (35)
- Berkshire Shareholder Letter Highlights: 1997-06 (33)
- Berkshire Shareholder Letter Highlights: 2007-Present (49)
- Bogle (72)
- Buffett (514)
- Commodities (14)
- Consumer Goods (48)
- Economics (77)
- Graham (16)
- Grantham (47)
- Humor (3)
- Investing (244)
- Munger (224)
- Mutual Funds and ETFs (69)
- Quotes (81)
- Six Stock Portfolio (12)
- Sports (6)
- Stocks (396)
- Stocks to Watch (12)
- Technology (108)
- Yacktman (26)
Links
This site's emphasis? Put simply, it's on finding and buying -- with the long-term in mind -- good businesses at a plain discount to conservatively estimated value; it's on selling shares of those well-bought high quality business reluctantly. The view here is that selling makes sense only when core economics become permanently impaired, prospects have been misjudged, market price not just somewhat but, instead, meaningfully exceed per share intrinsic value, or opportunity costs are high. Buy/sell decisions aren't just an opportunity to increase returns; they're also an opportunity to make mistakes. It's easy to overemphasize the former and forget the latter. The focus here is on minimizing trading, frictional costs, and errors of all kinds; it's on staying comfortably within realistically assessed limits. First and foremost is the view that an investor should never make a specific investment based upon what someone else thinks. In other words, what makes sense to own is necessarily unique for each investor and it'd be unwise to not act accordingly. So, more generally, this site simply attempts to better understand some useful principles and ideas in context of investment. It's about, in a practical sense, what tends to work over the long haul as well as what, at times, gets the investor into trouble. It's not about grand theories in finance and economics. These too often distract from what matters or, worse yet, lead to costly misjudgments. As a result, they are mostly viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism here. Otherwise, the best thinking across disciplines should be learned well then put to good use in a way that's uniquely suitable.
About
Notable Quote
"Warren and I have not made our way in life by making successful macroeconomic predictions and betting on our conclusions.
Our system is to swim as competently as we can and sometimes the tide will be with us and sometimes it will be against us. But by and large we don't much bother with trying to predict the tides because we plan to play the game for a long time.
I recommend to all of you exactly the same attitude.
It's kind of a snare and a delusion to outguess macroeconomic cycles... ...very few people do it successfully and some of them do it by accident. When the game is that tough, why not adopt the other system of swimming as competently as you can and figuring that over a long life you'll have your share of good tides and bad tides?" - Charlie Munger
Our system is to swim as competently as we can and sometimes the tide will be with us and sometimes it will be against us. But by and large we don't much bother with trying to predict the tides because we plan to play the game for a long time.
I recommend to all of you exactly the same attitude.
It's kind of a snare and a delusion to outguess macroeconomic cycles... ...very few people do it successfully and some of them do it by accident. When the game is that tough, why not adopt the other system of swimming as competently as you can and figuring that over a long life you'll have your share of good tides and bad tides?" - Charlie Munger