Today PLAN released earnings early and they did NOT disappoint. They are up 17% this morning! Try to read the release and pick one of them to listen to the earnings call. I am not adding to my position at this time.
PLAN Update: Despite the great earnings announcement today and the upward guidance, I sold My PLAN position today to reallocate the funds to a few other stocks I like better…OKTA and ESTC. I now have just 10 positions. Don’t get me wrong, I still like PLAN and suspect they will do fine, however, over the weekend I had done a detailed analysis of PLAN and while they are doing great, I feel there are other horses that are growing faster, better managed, more disruptive and have better moats in their respective industry focus. I could be wrong (and often am), so don’t take my word for it. Analyze each stock yourself, make your decision… then track it. That’s how we learn, build a solid portfolio, and understand the stocks we own. I established my 3% position in PLAN between 12/17/18 and 2/5/19 to explore the stock. I am very happy to have gotten a 27% return in less than 3 months. I will continue to track this company and may invest again in the future, but will sit on the sidelines for now. Cheers!
CRSP up 25% today! Pascal…hope you still have that one! ;). No idea why…
This week will be the busiest week for my portfolio stocks:
TWLO, TTD & PLAN have already reported stellar results. If you want to read the earnings call transcripts they can be accessed here:
This week we still have the following five companies reporting:
1) SQ and AYX: Wednesday 2/27 after market close at 1pm.
2) NTNX, ZS, and NKTR reporting results Thursday 2/28 after market close
3) Friday at 3pm: NKTR investor conference call to go over clinical data/results:
https://ir.nektar.com/events-and-presentations/events
The above stocks represent roughly half of the value of my portfolio, so it’s an important week of updates to gauge whether the % allocations should be adjusted or not based on the earnings release and performance of these companies.
User comment: Wow, TTD and PLAN don’t look like a good buy at the moment… If I had known last week! Do you expect NKTR and ZS to do well? I don’t have much of those.
Victor: 😂
NKTR: No revenues, no earnings, no approved drug yet. Different animal and my smallest holding…really, its my bet on black at roulette, though they do have a great pipeline of drug candidates they will probably talk about in the call. NKTR recently (on 2/15/2019) had an update on the progress of the the urothelial cancer trials. The event was archived and can be found here:
https://ir.nektar.com/events-and-presentations/events
The same link will take you to the page for hearing the earnings call on Thursday.
In addition, the company announced today that on Friday the company will provide a call from ASCO-SITC to update investors on the clinical trial progress. It will be very interesting to see the results of the combo NKTR-214 + NKTR-262. The above link will also provide details on how to listen in on the call from ASCO.
All three are worth listening to if you are an investor or prospective investor. NKTR’s performance as a business and its performance as a stock will demand on the outcome of clinical trials much more than the performance of financial measures. In fact, near term financial measures usually don’t matter as much as they do for other companies.
I still own shares of NKTR, but it remains the smallest holding of my 9 positions. My allocation to NKTR is 1.9%. It seems that my portfolio value fluctuates more than 1.9% on many days so NKTR is really small. I keep it small because I consider it speculative. I do think NKTR-214 has a high chance of becoming a blockbuster but it all depends on how well NKTR-214 does in the many trials that are underway; in addition, the company’s success will also depend on the relative safety and efficacy of NKTR-214 compared to alternative treatments.
ZS: Much higher confidence level and 7% of my portfolio. If their incredible growth continues to accelerate they could do very well…again. They have consistently beat expectations, so of course I am hoping and expecting that trend to continue. Keep in mind, though, I’m up significantly on ZS and have held it a long time. I’m not making a bet or trade on the earnings…just holding a long time favorite that keeps reminding me why I “hired” this star performer! If you don’t own any, it might be a decent time to start a position, track it and see how it does in the earnings call this week….
Here’s what ZS last earnings looked like…I’d like to own a company like that any day!!
Revenue up 59% to $63 million. This was an acceleration from 49% growth a year ago, and from 54% sequentially.
Calculated billings up 56% to $65 million.
Deferred revenue up 68% to $165 million.
Adj net income of $2.0 million, up from a loss of $7.5 million. (They hit a profit before they expected!)
Adj EPS was 1 cent, improved from a loss of 7 cents
Op Cash Flow was 17% of revenue or $11.0 million, up from a loss of 11% of revenue or $4.4 million
