Hot Supermarket Companies To Own In Right Now

LONDON --�The shares of�Moneysupermarket.com� (LSE: MONY  ) �fell 6 pence to 202 pence during early London trade this morning after the FTSE 250 mid-cap said it would pay a 12.92 pence per share special dividend during July.

Moneysupermarket, which operates one of the country's leading financial comparison websites, said the payment reflected the company's confidence in its "ability to generate cash on an on-going basis."

The special dividend will cost the company 拢70 million and will be funded through existing cash balances and extra loans.

Published in March, Moneysupermarket's 2012 results showed the business enjoying cash of 拢19 million and no debt. The figures also showed adjusted earnings up 28% and the ordinary dividend up 27%.

Alongside the special dividend announcement, Moneysupermarket also revealed this morning that its group revenues for the year to date had advanced more than 10% on the same period last year.

Top 5 Electric Utility Stocks To Watch Right Now: Portland General Electric Company (POR)

Portland General Electric Company operates as an integrated electric utility in Oregon. The company engages in the generation, purchase, transmission, distribution, and retail sale of electricity. Its generating portfolio consists of thermal, hydro, and wind resources. The company also sells electricity and natural gas in the wholesale market to utilities, brokers, and power marketers in the western United States and Canada. As of March 31, 2011, it served approximately 821,193 residential, commercial, and industrial customers. The company was founded in 1930 and is headquartered in Portland, Oregon.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Rich Duprey]

  Utility operator�Portland General Electric� (NYSE: POR  ) �announced yesterday�its second-quarter dividend of $0.275 per share, a near-2% increase over last quarter's payout of $0.27 per share.

Hot Supermarket Companies To Own In Right Now: Gildan Activewear Inc.(GIL)

Gildan Activewear Inc. engages in the manufacture and sale of apparel products primarily in the United States, Canada, and Europe. It sells T-shirts, fleece, and sport shirts to wholesale distributors under the Gildan brand name. The company also provides its activewear products for work and school uniforms and athletic team wear, and other purposes to convey individual, group, and team identity. In addition, it offers undecorated products to branded apparel companies and retailers; and underwear products. Further, the company markets its sock products under the various brands, including Gold Toe, PowerSox, SilverToe, Auro, All Pro, GT, and the Gildan brand. The company was formerly known as Textiles Gildan Inc. and changed its name to Gildan Activewear Inc. in March 1995. Gildan Activewear Inc. was founded in 1984 and is headquartered in Montreal, Canada.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Eric Volkman]

  Gildan Activewear (NYSE: GIL  ) just bought itself a new wardrobe. The company announced it has acquired "substantially all of the assets" of privately held screen printing and apparel decoration specialist New Buffalo Shirt Factory for around $7 million.

• [By Tom Stoukas]

  Deutsche Lufthansa AG (LHA) and Allianz SE (ALV) led airlines and insurers lower, retreating at least 1.5 percent. Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW) slid 1.6 percent. Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) rose after JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted its recommendation on the shares. Gildemeister AG (GIL) added 3.4 percent after Deutsche Bank upgraded the maker of cutting tools.

Hot Supermarket Companies To Own In Right Now: Copart Inc. (CPRT)

Copart, Inc. provides online auctions and vehicle remarketing services in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The company offers a range of services for processing and selling vehicles over the Internet through its Virtual Bidding Second Generation Internet auction-style sales technology, to vehicle sellers, primarily insurance companies, banks and financial institutions, charities, car dealerships, fleet operators, and vehicle rental companies. Its services include online seller access, salvage estimation services, estimating services, end-of-life vehicle processing, virtual insured exchange, transportation services, vehicle inspection stations, on-demand reporting, DMV processing, flexible vehicle processing programs, member network, sales process, dealer services, direct services, and u-pull-it services, as well as CoPartfinder, an Internet-based used vehicle parts locator that provides vehicle dismantlers with resale opportunities for their purchases. Th e company sells its products to licensed vehicle dismantlers, rebuilders, repair licensees, used vehicle dealers, and exporters, as well as the general public. Copart, Inc. was founded in 1982 and is headquartered in Fairfield, California.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Geoff Gannon] s thousands of acres of land around the U.S. Some of it is quite valuable. It�� carried on the balance sheet at $343 million. That number excludes buildings and improvements (which had an original cost of another $384 million).

  Some of that land ��for example, some of the earliest properties they still own in California ��are worth much, much more than they are carried for.

  But that fact actually isn�� that important. Why not?

  Because Copart earns very high returns on its net tangible assets. We��e talking about probably 20% to 30% returns on tangible investment. You don�� normally earn 20% on land. So, the value of land is not very high outside of Copart�� operations relative to what it is worth inside Copart�� operations.

  And, yes, the land is critical to Copart�� operations. They don�� necessarily have to own it ��a major competitor leases almost all of its land ��but they do have to control it.

  Now, if something were ever to happen to Copart�� business where you had a long-term deterioration in the car salvage business that land might become very important to an analysis of Copart.

  Let�� assume that tomorrow there is some high tech crash avoidance system. For example, cars are navigated remotely rather than being driven by someone inside the car.

  Under those circumstances, Copart�� business would be forever changed. The volume of wrecks would decline. And Copart�� invested assets ��like its big salvage yards ��would become much less valuable inside Copart�� business.

  That means the market value of the land would now be a lot higher relative to the value Copart could get from using the land to store cars. This would change the analysis entirely. And suddenly Copart�� balance sheet would be worth careful analysis.

  While this sounds farfetched, it�� actually the kind of thing that happens at net-nets and other stocks that are valuable on a liquidation basis. They start

• [By Lauren Pollock]

  Car auctioneer Copart Inc.'s(CPRT) reported a weaker-than-expected fiscal fourth-quarter profit because of higher expenses. While revenue growth topped analysts’ expectations, the bottom line surprisingly fell 8% from a year ago as Copart’s expenses–including yard operation and vehicle sale costs–jumped from the prior year.

• [By Geoff Gannon] wo companies in its industry that are public. The other company is part of a kind of conglomerate car sales company. That other company, KAR Auction Services (KAR), was much more explicit in detailing the competitive position of Copart and Insurance Auto Auctions. It even gave market share data.

  This is common. Often one company will choose not to give names or put percentages on certain competitive facts. The other company will do so. And even when that is not the case, the two companies will often make statements that ��when taking together ��can give you rough indications of certain realities that neither company entirely intended to provide.

  The same is true for certain suppliers and customers. Although this is complicated by size. Very large customers of small companies are not good sources of information. But smaller companies often provide better insights into the larger suppliers, customers, etc., they deal with. That's because ��due to their small size ��more information is material and is explained in detail.

  I have found situations where one company simply says who the customer is that they are supplying. While the other company explains what product that supply goes into, the purchase amount, whether it is an exclusive arrangement, etc.

  So it is always important to ��at a minimum ��read the 10-Ks, 14As, and (where available) S-1s of every public company in the industry. This will give you a lot of insight into the competitive situation. Sometimes it is helpful to also look at customers and suppliers. However, this is not true of very large customers and suppliers because they will not discuss the specific area you are interested in.

  For example, Honeywell is a large customer of George Risk. It would do me no good to study Honeywell to learn about George Risk. Honeywell is a huge company. What they buy from George Risk is irrelevant to their shareholders. So they do not discuss it.

  An exception to this is

• [By Geoff Gannon] t business. If you haven�� read about it, you should look into it. It�� a good name to know in the event stocks fall at some point in the future and offer you a chance to buy at a good P/E.

  Anyway, Copart sells cars. That�� all it does. It has a tiny bit of the business in the UK that involves buying and selling cars. But normally it�� not a principal. It�� just an agent. A broker. It doesn�� ship cars. It doesn�� buy cars. It just stores and sells cars. Copart is a great business. This is especially true because they achieve very high returns on their net tangible investment even though they choose to own rather than leases most of their locations. They own acres and acres and acres of land on which they store cars. You can find the addresses for their locations on their website (each car has a location associated with it that will pop up if you click on the car). Copy and paste that location into Google Earth. You��l be amazed at what you see. Anyway, they carry all this land which they then cover in cars and still they earn good returns on their tangible investment in the business without relying on the use of a lot of leases. So, it�� a very good and very interesting business.

  Now, if I said Copart sold cars, you�� probably think that their revenues and earnings and free cash flow should rise and fall with U.S. car sales.

  If you look at the past 10 years for Copart and for U.S. auto sales you��l see this is not true. Not even a little bit.

  Why is this?

  Well, there�� this one tiny little detail I hid from you about Copart. Copart doesn�� sell new cars. Copart doesn�� sell used cars. Copart sells wrecked cars. They sell salvage.

  So, if you think of Copart as being in the auto retail business ��which they obviously are ��you��l have an entirely incorrect understanding of the company. That�� true even if you understand the wider industry of car dealers pretty well. Copart sells cars. But they

Hot Supermarket Companies To Own In Right Now: Ryanair (RYAAY)

Ryanair Holdings plc (Ryanair Holdings), incorporated in 1996, is a holding company for Ryanair Limited (Ryanair). Ryanair operates a low-cost, scheduled-passenger airline serving short-haul, point-to-point routes between Ireland, the United Kingdom, Continental Europe, and Morocco. As of June 30, 2012, the Company offered approximately over 1,500 scheduled short-haul flights per day serving approximately 160 airports largely throughout Europe with an operating fleet of 294 aircraft flying approximately 1,500 routes. Ryanair sells seats on a one-way basis. The Company also holds a 29.8% interest in Aer Lingus Group plc. As of June 30, 2012, Ryanair�� operating fleet was composed of 294 Boeing 737-800 aircraft, each having 189 seats. Ryanair�� fleet totaled 294 Boeing 737-800s at March 31, 2012. As of June 30, 2012, Ryanair owned and operated four Boeing 737-800 full flight simulators for pilot training. Ryanair provides ancillary services and engages in other activities connected with its core air passenger service, including non-flight scheduled services, Internet-related services, and the in-flight sale of beverages, food, and merchandise. As part of its non-flight scheduled and Internet-related services Ryanair incentivizes ground service providers at airports it serves to levy correct excess baggage charges for any baggage, which exceeds Ryanair�� published baggage allowances. Excess baggage charges are recorded as non-flight scheduled revenue. Ryanair distributes accommodation services and travel insurance through its Website. For hotel services, Ryanair has a contract with Hotelscombined PTY Ltd. (Hotelscombined), which operates a price comparison Website, pursuant to which Hotelscombined handles all aspects of such services marketed through Ryanair�� Website and pays a fee to Ryanair. Ryanair also has contracts with other accommodation providers that enable Ryanair to offer hostel, bed-and-breakfast, guesthouse, villa and apartment accommodation to its customers. In addition Ryanair has a contract with Hertz, pursuant to which Hertz handles all car rental services marketed through Ryanair�� Website or telephone reservation system. Ryanair also sells bus and rail tickets onboard its aircraft and through its Website. Ryanair also sells attractions and activities on its Website. Ryanair sells gift vouchers on its Website, which are also redeemable online. The Company has an contract with Webloyalty International Ltd, which offers Ryanair�� customers who have a United Kingdom, German or French billing address a retail discount and cash-back program. Ryanair has agreements, pursuant to which the Company promotes Ryanair-branded credit cards issued by MBNA, GE Money, Access Prepaid and Banco Santander on its Internet site. The MBNA agreement relates to Irish residents only, the GE Money agreement relates to Swedish and Polish residents only and the Banco Santander agreement relates to United Kingdom residents only. During the fiscal year ended March 31, 2012, Ryanair rolled out handheld Electronic Point of Sale (EPOS) devices across its route network. These EPOS devices replaced manual and paper based systems on board the aircraft. The EPOS device enables cabin crew to sell and record their on-board sales transactions. The EPOS device also issues bus and rail tickets and tickets for tourist attractions. The Company also offers reserved seating in twenty-one extra legroom seats on each aircraft for a fee on certain routes. Ryanair provides its own aircraft and passenger handling and ticketing services at Dublin Airport. Third parties provide these services to Ryanair at other airports it serves. Servisair plc provides Ryanair�� ticketing, passenger and aircraft handling, and ground handling services at airports in Ireland and the United Kingdom(excluding London (Stansted) Airport where these services are provided by Swissport Ltd.), while similar services in continental Europe are provided by the local airport authorities, either directly or through sub-contractors. Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Luke Jacobi]

  Ryanair Holdings plc (NASDAQ: RYAAY) shares were up nearly 6.97 percent into the close to $54.53 after the company reported full-year results. Ryanair's net profit for the year ended March 31 slipped to 522.8 million euros ($716 million), versus a year-ago profit of 569.3 million euros.