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.
STOCK YARDS BANCORP INC (SYBT) is a small-cap value stock in the Regional Banks 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: Stock Yards Bancorp, Inc. is the holding company for Stock Yards Bank & Trust Company (the Bank). The Bank is a state chartered bank. The Company operates through two segments: commercial banking, and wealth management and trust. The commercial banking segment provides a full range of loan and deposit products to individual consumers and businesses, plus origination of consumer mortgages and securities brokerage activity. The wealth management and trust segment provides investment management, trust and estate administration, and retirement plan services. The Bank provides commercial and personal banking services in the Louisville, Kentucky, Indianapolis, Indiana and Cincinnati, Ohio metropolitan markets through 37 full service banking offices, as of December 31, 2016. The Bank also originates and sells single-family residential mortgages. Additionally, the Bank offers securities brokerage services via its branch network through an arrangement with a third party broker-dealer.
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: | FAIL |
| EPS GROWTH: | PASS |
| FUTURE EPS GROWTH: | PASS |
| SALES GROWTH: | PASS |
| TOTAL RETURN/PE: | PASS |
| FREE CASH FLOW: | PASS |
| EPS PERSISTENCE: | PASS |
For a full detailed analysis using NASDAQ’s Guru Analysis tool, click here
QUANTA SERVICES INC (PWR) is a mid-cap growth stock in the Construction 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: Quanta Services, Inc. is a provider of specialty contracting services, offering infrastructure solutions primarily to the electric power and oil and gas industries in the United States, Canada and Australia and selected other international markets. The Company operates through two segments: Electric Power Infrastructure Services, which provides network solutions to customers in the electric power industry, and Oil and Gas Infrastructure Services, which provides network solutions to customers involved in the development and transportation of natural gas, oil and other pipeline products. The services it provides include the design, installation, upgrade, repair and maintenance of infrastructure within each of the industries it serves, such as electric power transmission and distribution networks, substation facilities, renewable energy facilities, pipeline transmission and distribution systems and facilities, and infrastructure services for the offshore and inland water energy markets.
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: | FAIL |
| EPS GROWTH: | PASS |
| FUTURE EPS GROWTH: | PASS |
| SALES GROWTH: | PASS |
| TOTAL RETURN/PE: | PASS |
| FREE CASH FLOW: | PASS |
| EPS PERSISTENCE: | PASS |
For a full detailed analysis using NASDAQ’s Guru Analysis tool, click here
Since its inception, Validea’s strategy based on John Neff has returned 330.53% vs. 196.74% for the S&P 500. For more details on this strategy, click here
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 an investment research service 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.
