FRPT: Contracts, Partnership, and Cheetah?

FRPT is having a good run of positive press that started on Thurday with the announcement of European vehicle contracts. 184 Cougar's, Mastiff's, and Buffalo's are on their way to Britain and Italy and adds confidence that Force Protection can be a global supplier for mine resistant vehicles for years to come. Read the press release here. This morning FRPT announced a new partnership with DRS Technologies, Inc., to compete for the JLTV program. FRPT longs had worried that without a partner, FRPT would be a longshot at best contending with bigger rivals such as the Northrup Grumman-Oshkosh, and Lockheed Martin-Armor Holdings joint ventures. Read the press release here. Last but not least, the above photo posted over on the Yahoo message board. No info yet on how legit this is but surely a Cheetah in the picture. The question is, Where?
Additional MRAP news over the weekend:
Big Wheels for Iraq's Mean Streets-New York Times (featuring a great photo of Cougar productions line)
Marines: Story that said lack of MRAPs led to deaths 'mischaracterized report-Stars and Stripes (With link to reports)

Beating The Averages: No Moral Victory

A quick update on how the portfolio is doing....
Holdings Return YTD: -4.5% (-2.61 yesterday alone).
Dow Jones Return YTD: -7.54%
S&P 500 Return YTD: -8.97%
Nasdaq Return YTD: -12.92%
In play we have ETFC, CBAK, FRPT, DFNS, and IOGH. (I will not comment further on IOGH, I hold on to it so that every time I see it I am reminded of every lesson learned thus far.)
Breaking it down by holdings we get this:
ETFC: -7.33%
CBAK: -29.67%
FRPT: +12.21%
DFNS: +37.04%
IOGH: +40.0%
Our CBAK position looks ugly but is still green from our basis. The red is basically all our gains wiped out from the end of December run-up. Although ETFC seems to be getting punished for daring to cross the $5 mark, we remain confident in the company's turn around plan. FRPT has held up well possibly because of 1)rumors of a large contract soon (reported by Trade The News) and 2) an upgrade from Stephens, Inc. from "Underweight" to "Equal Weight". A strong January vehicle production number via press release would be welcome.
All told we are holding up well in a horrible start to the year and in terms of the major benchmarks, but we have a lot of work to do. We continue to evaluate our positions and understand that beating benchmarks is no moral victory.

News: FRPT and DFNS

Some positive news over the weekend for 2 of our picks, DFNS and FRPT.
FRPT: Senator John McCain visited Force Protection Inc., while campaigning through South Carolina. From the FRPT website: McCain had a fruitful visit to Force Protection Industries Inc., where he and his entourage inspected armored (vehicles) with names including Buffalo, Cheetah and Cougar. "What you're doing here saves lives," he told employees.
Hopefully management expressed to the Senator (who is the Republican ranking member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services) that they have an interest in saving lives for many years to come with the vehicle that his wife got to climb into for a photo op. That vehicle of course is the Cheetah:


DFNS: Announced that it has filed amendments to previously released financial statements. Basically, nothing has changed. That's good news.
Joseph Postbinder, CEO of Defense Industries said: "I would like to use this opportunity to note that these amendments will not impact our improved results for the nine months ended September 30, 2007. Our revenues for the nine months ended September 30, 2007 increased by $7 million, compared to the same period last year, to $14.2 million, and our gross profit increased by $3.1 to $4.8 millions. Net cash provided by operating activity increased by $3.5 million to $3 million, compared to net cash of $500,000 used in operating activities in the same period last year. We had a net profit of $1.2 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2007, compared to a net loss of $400,000 in the same period last year." Mr. Postbinder concluded, "I believe that we are well positioned for growth and expansion in our markets and we look ahead optimistically that our share price will in time reflect our company's true value."
Deliver a solid year end quarterly report Mr. Postbinder, and that time should come quite quickly. Full press release here.
By the way, stock blogger Steve Hoven has done some great DD on the valuation of DFNS. Check him out here: StockDoubling
Hope you make a Fast Fortune.

FRPT: Signs of Life

In what looks to be a very volatile week on Wall Street, we find a couple positives for one of our picks, FRPT.
First, a contract announcement. Issued January 15, 2007 after hours:

Force Protection Industries Inc. (FPII), Ladson, S.C., is being awarded $74,130,482 for firm-fixed-priced delivery orders #0003 and #0005 under previously awarded contract (M67854-07-D-5031) for the purchase of integrated logistic support (ILS) support. The sustainment ILS will consist of authorized stockage list category (CAT) I and CAT II, prescribed load list CAT I and CAT II, deprocessing, and special tools. Work will be performed in Ladson, S.C., and work is expected to be completed by Jul. 2008. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured. The Marine Corps Systems Command, Quantico, Va., is the contracting activity. FPII Contract No. M67854-07-D-5031 / D.O. 0003 and D.O. 0005.
Source: U.S. Department of Defense

While this is not an additional MRAP vehicle order, the revenue is substantial when compared to the current market valuation of the company.
In addition to this news, "Fritz" over at the IV board points out that Institutions have been heavily buying in the last 2 weeks. 12 Fund Managers bought a combined total of 1.5 million FRPT shares. Check out the stats here: The Buy List.
Hopefully this will start a little positive momentum rolling up to what should be a great quarterly/year end earnings release (and hopefully in depth conference call) coming late February/early March. It would appear that catching this stock under $4.00 would be following the "smart" money.

Reaching For The Panic Button?

As you can see below, it has not been a stellar start to the new year for our stocks. Nasdaq has outperformed our top 3 holdings so far and begs the question: Have mistakes been made here?



Here's why we're not quite in full panic mode just yet:
1)It's still a brand new year, and there are still 355 days to meet our goal.
2)Nothing has fundamentally changed with our selections. There has been no significant news, good or bad, that would cause us to second guess ourselves just yet.
3)The market has given us an opportunity to add to these positions, or start a new position in another security.

Don't lose sleep to red ticker quote nightmares. Enjoy the multitude of stocks on sale and find a fast fortune.

Stocks Double in Six Months

The new year will bring a new direction and focus for this blog. The writings here have always been meant to follow the story of building a fortune out of nothing. This began in June when I asked my youngest brother to split a $100 deposit into a Zecco Account just to see what we could accomplish in a short amount of time, helped with zero commission trades. The result: We doubled the money as 2007 came to a close. We did a great job in a short amount of time and this has inspired some goals for 2008.

1)Make it a family affair. Three brothers collectively sharing ideas and making money.
2)Double again by Dec31, 2008 (or sooner!)

We will begin by doing an account reset. $50 is on its way into the account. I've also included my excess holdings into our figures which unfortunately did not do remotely as well and will drop our overall percentages. All together we will be starting with holdings totaling $297. Rounding up a bit we arrive at a year end goal of $600.
Gone this year are the free trades though, as our account is under the new $2500 minimum account balance that is required. We simply have to work that much harder and make wise choices in our stocks.
Stocks that are currently in play:
CBAK
FRPT
DFNS
IOGH
I hope everyone's new year is off to a great start and wish everyone a fast fortune!

Gaining: CBAK, FRPT

As mentioned in previous posts, we recently acquired CBAK and FRPT and both are performing very well for us. Since picking up a few shares of FRPT at $4.05 we see the producer of mine resistant vehicles holding steady:
We may continue to accumulate if we see a nice dip before January 1st. Foreign orders and Cheetah updates could propel this stock higher.
CBAK saw a nice pop today and then settled lower at the close. Our entry point here was averaged at $4.05 also:
We will hold both stocks going into the new year.
Also: Sold off ONNN @9.oo today for small gain.