Exporters’ Spins Cover Company Sins

You didn’t read it here first. The companies that now look the most attractive are those that can take advantage of the falling dollar. And they’re the big exporters. Their products are selling for less and less in overseas markets. And the cheaper they are, the better they sell.

But not all big exporters are good investments. Here are three easy steps to tell the duds from the studs.

1. Go into the company’s last quarterly report (always listed on its website).
2. Find the breakdown of sales between domestic and international. Is it 50-50? Probably not. One will be more than the other, and you need to know if it’s domestic or international.
3. But, say it is 50-50. And the company is growing international sales by 15 percent but domestic sales are falling by 15 percent. Where’s the growth? Sales growth would be 0. Of course, if international sales were 70 percent of overall sales and domestic sales were falling by only two percent, then you’d have pretty good growth.

With exporters, the devil is in the details. Companies that export will highlight their overseas sales growth in their public announcements. (That’s one of the few bright spots in the economy these days.) But it doesn’t necessarily mean the company is riding strong overall sales growth. It could be a spin job. You read that here first.

[Ed. Note: ETR’s Investment Director, Andrew Gordon, is the editor of INCOME, a monthly financial advisory service that uncovers income-generating stocks that promise safety (first and foremost), along with much-higher-than-average profit potential.]