Fundamental Short Selling Research

Eric Fernandez, CFA

TwoRiversAnalytics

Equity Bottom-Up

Cf Industries Holdings / Equity Bottom-Up

<ul>
<li>This model seeks companies that are potentially “overearning”, defined as companies with unusually high margins relative to their own history or relative to the industry. </li>
<li>The reasons for the margin increases are sometimes unsustainable or fraudulent. The  critical judgement involves to what extent unsustainable margins are embedded in a company’s forecasts and/or the stock’s valuation. </li>
<li>These shorts tend to have moderate to higher betas, higher valuations due to recent strong results and good short responses to subsequently disappointing earnings.</li>
</ul>


This model seeks companies that are potentially “overearning”, defined as companies with unusually high margins relative to their own history or relative to the industry. 
The reasons for the margin increases are sometimes unsustainable or fraudulent. The  critical judgement involves to what extent unsustainable margins are embedded in a company’s forecasts and/or the stock’s valuation. 
These shorts tend to have moderate to higher betas, higher valuations due to recent strong results and good short responses to subsequently disappointing earnings.


Overearning Short Candidates, CF Industries, Photronics, LSB Industries, Builders FirstSource

Technical Analyst, Vermilion Research

Joe Jasper

Technical Analyst

Technical and Quantitative Research

Vermilion Research

Vermilion’s objective is to deliver timely, actionable, and unique technical research to professional investors through the application of our various technical indicators.

Our research strategists seek to highlight securities which we believe are at major inflection points, based on our various technical and quantitative indicators, and offer asymmetric risk/return profiles. Our unique research methodology, centered on relative strength, enables our strategists to deliver superior investment recommendations.

Our process begins by organizing the universe of actively traded stocks into discrete sectors, then into industry groups. We then apply our technical and quantitative tools to identify developing price trends. Once attractive trends are identified within a selected sector or group, we screen for individual stocks which we believe offer the best risk/reward profile. We provide a historical perspective that often reveals, through our long-term charts, how price patterns often repeat themselves over time.

Technical Analysis

Recent market developments are encouraging and have improved the overall health of the market, which has also incrementally improved our outlook. At the same time, there is still more to be desired before we can have confidence in the prospect of a broad market rally. In today’s report we highlight attractive Groups and stocks within Technology and Transportation: Semiconductor Equip., Large/Mid-Cap and Small-Cap, Electronic Equipment Components, and Trucking Large-Cap.

Recent market developments are encouraging and have improved the overall health of the market, which has also incrementally improved our outlook. At the same time, there is still more to be desired before we can have confidence in the prospect of a broad market rally. In today’s report we highlight attractive Groups and stocks within Technology and Transportation: Semiconductor Equip., Large/Mid-Cap and Small-Cap, Electronic Equipment Components, and Trucking Large-Cap.

U.S. Equity Strategy: Markets on the Mend, Still Not at Full Health

Technology Select Sector SPDR / Technical Analysis

The S&amp;P 500 remains just short of formidable resistance at its 200-day MA. Yet, there are signs of continued breadth improvement.  Technology in particular continues to top our Sector RSR rankings, fueled by strengthening price and RS action for semiconductors, semi-suppliers, and numerous Software groups. Last week we upgraded our weighting for Technology and its strength continues to broaden out. In this week's report we highlight a number of actionable Technology stocks across our various Groups.

The S&amp;P 500 remains just short of formidable resistance at its 200-day MA. Yet, there are signs of continued breadth improvement.  Technology in particular continues to top our Sector RSR rankings, fueled by strengthening price and RS action for semiconductors, semi-suppliers, and numerous Software groups. Last week we upgraded our weighting for Technology and its strength continues to broaden out. In this week's report we highlight a number of actionable Technology stocks across our various Groups.

U.S. Tech Stocks Are Leading Market Higher.

The S&amp;P 500 has paused just below logical resistance at the downtrend, and we believe the equity market is in wait-and-see mode for incremental information on a variety of issues including trade talks, Fed action and earnings.  Meanwhile, We are upgrading equal-weighted Technology to overweight. Our equal-weighted Tech Sector has surged to the top of our RSR ranks due to broad-based strength in semiconductors last week. Solar stocks are another Group that is emerging as leadership. In today’s report we highlight attractive small-cap Technology stocks, as well as selection of key stocks (MSFT, AMZN, GOOGL, V, NFLX, and ADBE) and subsectors (semis, biotech, and homebuilders) which are all up against logical price resistance.

The S&amp;P 500 has paused just below logical resistance at the downtrend, and we believe the equity market is in wait-and-see mode for incremental information on a variety of issues including trade talks, Fed action and earnings.  Meanwhile, We are upgrading equal-weighted Technology to overweight. Our equal-weighted Tech Sector has surged to the top of our RSR ranks due to broad-based strength in semiconductors last week. Solar stocks are another Group that is emerging as leadership. In today’s report we highlight attractive small-cap Technology stocks, as well as selection of key stocks (MSFT, AMZN, GOOGL, V, NFLX, and ADBE) and subsectors (semis, biotech, and homebuilders) which are all up against logical price resistance.

U.S. Equity Strategy: Market in Wait-And-See Mode; Upgrading Tech

Key Points:<ul>
<li>Consumer Discretionary retailers and restaurants continue to demonstrate leadership characteristics. Many are breaking to new price and RS highs.</li>
<li>A number of small-cap E&amp;P’s have developed bullish bases and continue to have constructive RS trends.</li>
<li>A few semi supplier stocks are breaking price and RS downtrends.</li>
</ul>

Key Points:
Consumer Discretionary retailers and restaurants continue to demonstrate leadership characteristics. Many are breaking to new price and RS highs.
A number of small-cap E&amp;P’s have developed bullish bases and continue to have constructive RS trends.
A few semi supplier stocks are breaking price and RS downtrends.


United States

Photronics, Inc. manufactures photomasks, which are high precision quartz plates that contain microscopic images of electronic circuits.  The Company's products are used to transfer circuit patterns onto semiconductor wafers during the fabrication of integrated circuits.  Photronics operates manufacturing facilities in Asia, Europe, and North America.

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Photronics Inc (PLAB US)

Overearning Short Candidates, CF Industries, Photronics, LSB Industries, Builders FirstSource

Margin over-earners are fertile hunting ground for shorts if the reasons for the margin increase are either unsustainable or fraudulent: CF...

Eric Fernandez, CFA

U.S. Equity Strategy: Markets on the Mend, Still Not at Full Health

Recent market developments are encouraging and have improved the overall health of the market, which has also incrementally improved our outlook....

Vermilion Research

U.S. Tech Stocks Are Leading Market Higher.

The S&P 500 remains just short of formidable resistance at its 200-day MA. Yet, there are signs of continued breadth improvement. Technology...

Vermilion Research

U.S. Equity Strategy: Market in Wait-And-See Mode; Upgrading Tech

The S&P 500 has paused just below logical resistance at the downtrend, and we believe the equity market is in wait-and-see mode for incremental...

Vermilion Research

Vital Signs: Actionable U.S. Stocks

Key Points: Consumer Discretionary retailers and restaurants continue to demonstrate leadership characteristics. Many are breaking to new price and...

Vermilion Research

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