EMN is a more compelling value than a few months ago

Any experienced investor, no matter what their investment philosophy is, will undoubtedly tell you that one of the most useful ways they keep track of new opportunities as they come up is by maintaining a watchlist of stocks that they can check on a regular basis. A good, diversified list of stocks in a variety of different industries can be an effective way to keep your investing functional, no matter what the ebb and flow of market sentiment is doing at any given time, since as one industry may be moving out of favor with investors, another will undoubtedly be moving into favor.

As a value-oriented investor, I actually get a little more interested when I see stocks falling out of favor with the broad market. Institutional rotation away from a sector usually means that there is a lot of money getting pulled out of stocks in a certain sector of the market, and so that usually puts a lot of pressure on just about everything related to that sector. That creates downward trends and bargain pricing levels, even for the biggest players in those industries that I can take advantage of.

The challenge when most of the market is moving in bullish fashion is that sometimes there aren’t a lot of sectors seeing the kind of selling pressure that comes from institutional sentiment moving away from them. That’s certainly true right now for the Materials sector; despite trade exposure that has created volatility at different points in the year, the sector is still up more than 15% year to date, including a surge in the last month of nearly 6% as measured by the S&P 500 Materials Sector SPDR ETF (XLB). Interestingly, that strong performance hasn’t translated to one of the leaders in the Chemicals industry, and that is something that creates a useful opportunity if, like me, you have a value-oriented investing preference.

Eastman Chemical Co. (EMN) is one of the biggest companies in the Chemicals industry, and that has acted as a proxy for the effect of tariffs over the past year. EMN was one of the first companies earlier this year to begin citing the effects of trade exposure on their quarterly earnings results, but even so the company’s fundamental profile has remained pretty solid, if not altogether unaffected. The stock itself is struggling in the midst of a downward trend that began in March of 2018 at around $112.50 and saw the stock hit a multi-year low at around $61 early this month. It has rallied a bit from that point over the last few weeks, and that is creating an interesting opportunity to re-evaluate the stock’s prospects as a useful value-based investment.

Fundamental and Value Profile

Eastman Chemical Company (Eastman) is an advanced materials and specialty additives company. The Company’s segments include Additives & Functional Products (AFP), Advanced Materials (AM), Chemical Intermediates (CI), and Fibers. In the AFP segment, it manufactures chemicals for products in the coatings, tires, consumables, building and construction, industrial applications, including solar energy markets, animal nutrition, care chemicals, crop protection, and energy markets. In the AM segment, it produces and markets its polymers, films, and plastics with differentiated performance properties for end uses in transportation, consumables, building and construction, durable goods, and health and wellness products. The CI segment leverages large scale and vertical integration from the cellulose and acetyl, olefins, and alkylamines streams to support its specialty operating segments. Its product lines in Fibers segment include Acetate Tow, Acetate Yarn and Acetyl Chemical Products. EMN’s current market cap is $9.9 billion.

Earnings and Sales Growth: Over the last twelve months, earnings declined a little more than -10% while revenue dropped about -9.8%. Those numbers improved significantly in the last quarter; earnings increased almost 12.5% while sales were flat, but slightly negative. The company’s margin profile is healthy and showing signs of strength. Net Income for the last twelve months was 9.44% of Revenues, and increased modestly to about 10.9% in the most recent quarter.

Free Cash Flow: EMN’s free cash flow is healthy, at $1.07 million. This is a number that has increased significantly since 2017, from about $650 million.

Debt to Equity: EMN has a debt/equity ratio of .95, implying they use a fair amount of debt, but it is also worth noting that this number decreased from a little above 1 earlier in the year. The company’s balance sheet indicates their operating profits are more than adequate to service their debt for the time being, however liquidity could be a concern moving forward. Their balance sheet shows $180 million in cash and liquid assets versus about $5.6 billion in long-term debt.

Dividend: EMN pays an annual dividend of $2.48 per share, which translates to a yield of about 3.48% at the stock’s current price.

Price/Book Ratio: there are a lot of ways to measure how much a stock should be worth; but one of the simplest methods that I like uses the stock’s Book Value, which for EMN is $43.40 and translates to a Price/Book ratio of 1.67 at the stock’s current price. Their historical average Price/Book ratio is 2.46, suggesting the stock is undervalued by more than 47%. In addition, the stock is also trading 37% below its historical Price/Cash Flow ratio. Together, these two measurements offer a long-term target price between $99 and $106 per share.

Technical Profile

Here’s a look at the stock’s latest technical chart.

Current Price Action/Trends and Pivots: The diagonal red line traces the stock’s downward trend from February 2018 to its low in early September; it also provides the reference for calculating the Fibonacci retracement levels indicated by the horizontal red lines on the right side of the chart. EMN has rallied from that low point at around $61, but more recently hit a pivot high at around $75.50 per share, and has dropped off of that level. The stock appears to be trying to establish support around its current level, but if that doesn’t hold, it should find support around $60 from a previous pivot low in late December of 2018. A drop below that point could see the stock fall to somewhere between $61 and $65. If the stock can break above the resistance at $75.50 from its recent pivot high, it should be able to rally near to the resistance shown by the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement line, which is at about $80.50.

Near-term Keys: The value proposition right now for EMN is very attractive, if you agree with the idea that the current holes in the company’s fundamental profile are temporary in nature. Since most of those problems are tied to trade, it makes sense that the sooner a trade agreement is reached, the sooner management should be able to reverse those troubling patterns. If you prefer to work with short-term trading strategies, the best approach would be to wait to see whether the stock can rally and break its current resistance at $75.50 to set up a good opportunity to buy the stock or work with call options; in that case, the 38.2% Fibonacci line at about $80.50 would provide a good upside target price. A push below support at $69, on the other hand would be a good signal to consider shorting the stock or working with put options, with an eye on $65 as a bearish short-term profit target.


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