I’m actually surprised (and maybe a little disappointed since I’m still building my position in these shares) that Johnson Controls (JCI) fell only 2.4% after issuing disappointing guidance on October 13.
The company told Wall Street analysts that it will earn 40 to 42 cents for the fiscal fourth quarter that ended on September 30. Sales will come to $7.9 billion. The earnings number was a scant one to three cents above analyst expectations.
But it was the guidance for fiscal 2010 that was most disappointing. The company said sales will climb just 9% to $31 billion and earnings to $1.45 a share. Analysts had been expecting numbers only slightly below those figures at $30.2 billion and $1.44 a share.
Those numbers aren’t what analysts who are expecting an economic turnaround in 2010 wanted to hear.
The problem seems to be in the company’s automotive interiors business. (Johnson Controls is the world’s largest maker of automotive interiors.)The company said revenue there will climb 13% in fiscal 2010 but margins will be just 1.3% to 1.6% instead of the 3% to 4% expected.
My perspective?
First, the company is being very conservative on auto numbers in an effort not to over-promise. With the company’s 40% share of the auto interiors market in China I think growth will be healthier than these estimates indicate.
Second, all the businesses that represent future growth for Johnson Controls are making good progress. Revenues for the power solutions unit–that’s batteries–are projected to climb 17% in 2010. Sales in the building efficiency business–that’s heating and cooling systems, controls, and management services–will be up just 3% but margins are climbing and the company expects to see customers gradually start to commit to new orders as the economy improves in 2010.
As of October 14, 2009 I’m tweaking my target price just a bit to $$32 a share by July 2010 from the prior $31 a share.
(Full disclosure: I own shares of Johnson Controls in my personal portfolio.)
Re: portfolio tracker…
I looked at my MSN portfolio tracker and couldn’t find any information on this ?
please post a link….
Comment on Monika:
I’m glad you brought this up, I’m in the same predicament. Although I purchased MS Money rather than just using the on-line tracking software and they are also discontinuing MS Money access for stock prices. Real bummer! I spent some time doing some research into some other portfolio tracking websites/software and sad to say I didn’t find any I liked as well as MS Money. In the end, I purchased Quicken Premier to track my Portfolio. I don’t like the interface as well as MS Money, but I am slowly getting used to it and it basically does the same thing as Money, just not as smoothly IMO. So if you don’t find anything else out there, you might try Quicken, but you probably will be frustrated at first, like I was. Good luck finding a tracking software that worked as well as MS Money.
Jim,
Flowserve(Fls) stood out in your book. I like infrastructure. Curious why it has never been a buy in Jubak Picks.
What is your assessment of it; should I take some profits now?
I’d love to find a nice iPhone app that does that kind of tracking, with minimal additional cruft. I’m not a professional trader, I just want a user-friendly app to track my portfolio, for crying out loud!
I use the marketwatch portfolio. It’s been a little buggy since they re-designed their site, but for a free program it’s pretty nice.
Hello to Jim and everyone: I have a question about Portfolio tracking! MSN Money will no longer have many of the existing functions in their Portfolio Manager as of November.
Anyone has any suggestions as to WHERE else to track one’s own stocks and funds as far as detailed performance goes? Like one’s own returns since purchase, including solds, or for the last 3 months, 6 months, 1 year etc. etc.??? Any other site?
I also use Morningstar, but it only gives total return for one’s performance, you can not get your own detailed returns for YTD for the stocks/funds you make a list of. It tracks YTD for the stocks or funds performance, but not for the time you held it, like if you bought in August of last year, it will only show the performance for the stock YTD, or the total return since you owned it, but not broken down for this year, or last year etc.
Any suggestions which site lets you do that – and I would not even mind paying for a programm that ties into the daily market AND lets you detail your own performance of funds and stocks you buy and/or sell???
Thank you so much for any feedback and suggestions!! I bet a lot of investors will want to know – once they realize their tracking is severly limited as of next month….
Hi Jim, Do you think its a good time to buy more BRF?
thanks,