The Razor's Edge
2-Year Price History
Recent Price
(12/3/2008)
$28.42
52-Week Price
$26.87 - $90.81
Market Capitalization
$8.7 Billion
Most Recent Dividend
$0.52
About Baker Hughes, Inc.
Baker Hughes, Incorporated is considered to operate in the Basic Materials
sector. They specifically operate in the Oil & Gas Equipment/Services
business segment contained within the Energy industry.
The Company is a supplier of products and technology services and systems to the worldwide oil and natural gas industry, including products and services for drilling, formation evaluation, completion and production of oil and natural gas wells.
Ockham's Rating
Rating Specific Information Withheld
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BHI Revenue
As a value investing shop, we are interested in seeing how BHI's revenues measure up against past performances. One easily understandable way of doing that is to compare Price to Sales per share levels over a given time frame. Assuming it is available, Ockham prefers to look at ten years of history (for this stock there are 10 years of history available) and we weigh recent years more heavily. This allows us to find weighted average historical high and low Price to Sales ratios, which give us a better idea of the stock's current underlying value. Using this method, we have established a high range for Price to Sales of 2.78x and the low end of the range at 1.62x.
With respect to these historically rational metrics, notice that the current Price to Sales per share ratio for BHI of 0.84x is well below its normal historic Price to Sales levels. At a price of $34.83, BHI is 62% below where we would expect to see it. Clearly, this stock looks undervalued compared to historical levels, at least on a Price to Sales basis. This will positively affect our analysis because it is rare to find a stock this far below historical norms, and we would expect some price appreciation to bring this metric back towards a more normal range.
BHI Cash Earnings
As the old saying goes, "Cash is King!" However, we prefer to capture a few other items within our analysis to identify "cash earnings". Nevertheless, an analysis of Cash Earnings is absolutely pivotal to assessing a company's value, and currently BHI is significantly below their historical average multiples of Cash Earnings, as calculated by our proprietary analysis. It is incredibly important to understand that for BHI, the current level of Cash Earnings compared to its historical levels helps identify where BHI is in relation to what the investing community was willing to pay for this level of Cash Earnings in the past. With a historical high Cash Earnings per share ratio of 16.08 and a historical low Cash Earnings per share ratio of 9.52, an investor can relate where value becomes optimal.
So what does "significantly below" mean when we talk about Price to Cash Earnings numbers for BHI? From the Ockham perspective, we are looking specifically at BHI to see if the market is recognizing the huge disparity between BHI's past stock price to Cash Earnings ratio to today's levels. At a difference of 67% below the average historical Price to Cash Earnings ratio, our view would be quite positive at this point. However, as with all metrics, we need to also take other factors into account when looking at BHI. While we view better Cash Earnings metrics as very important, if the market is slow to identify this value, or if Cash Earnings were to fall from these levels, we would become more neutral in our stance.
BHI Dividends
While it is not necessary to pay an attractive dividend or a dividend at all, to receive a positive rating from Ockham, we view dividends as an additionally helpful measure in determining the future potential of any company.
In BHI’s case, the estimated annual dividend is $0.60 resulting in a current dividend yield of 1.72%. Similar to our review of Sales and Cash Earnings per share, we evaluate dividend yields from BHI against the historic high and low levels over the past 10 years. The highest dividend yield from BHI over this period was 2.34% while the lowest dividend yield was 0.52% If you are looking for some “bang for your buck” then a dividend yield of 20.28% above the historically median should be enticing. BHI receives a positive boost in our view because as you know, equity at its core is simply a claim on future dividends.
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