Today I’m looking at the investment prospects of three recent Footsie fallers.
Falling from orbit
Satellite builder Inmarsat (LSE: ISAT) took a heavy pasting from Monday-Friday after downgrading its revenues forecasts for the year.
Inmarsat commented that the “sustained recession in global maritime and energy markets continues” is forcing the business to cut its 2016 sales projections by $50m to $1.175bn-$1.25bn. The company saw total revenues slip 2% between January and March, to $298.6m.
Indeed, problems in the shipping and commodities markets are expected to drive earnings 22% lower in 2016 alone, resulting in a conventionally-high P/E rating of 24.5 times.
Although the mobile satellite services sector provides exciting growth opportunities for Inmarsat, I reckon the troubles washing across its other markets make the business an unattractive selection at present, particularly in view of its hefty share price.
Metals migraine
I have long argued that the recent surge in commodity prices — and with it the share values of many mining and energy producers — is in danger of a colossal retracement.
These advances have come in spite of extremely-poor supply and demand balances persisting across most commodity segments. So fresh signs of economic cooling in the US, allied with lasting fears over the health of China, have pushed stock values heavily to the downside in recent days.
Diversified digger Anglo American (LSE: AAL), for example, saw its share price slump by double-digit percentages last week, the firm toppling from recent eight-month highs just below 800p. And the business has slumped again in Monday business, this time by a chunky 8%, following bearish news surrounding the iron ore sector.
Prices of the steelmaking ingredient — a segment from which Anglo American generates a third of all earnings — have tanked in start-of-week trading after Bloomberg data showed stockpiles at Chinese ports rocketed to their highest since last April, at 92.2m tonnes.
With Anglo American’s other major markets also suffering from chronic oversupply, the City expects earnings to tank 32% in the current year alone. This projection leaves the digger dealing on a vast P/E rating of 23 times.
I believe Anglo American’s elevated multiple is unfathomable given the firm’s huge risk profile and lack of obvious growth drivers, and reckon the ratio leaves plenty of space for a hefty correction.
Driller dives
But Anglo American isn’t the only commodities stock in danger of a mammoth retracement. Indeed, I reckon fossil fuel producer Ophir Energy (LSE: OPHR) could also add to last week’s heavy losses as the oil industry heaves under excess supply.
The company’s massive risk profile went up another notch in late April after an accord with oil services provider Schlumberger went up in smoke. The pair had agreed to develop the Fortuna FNLG project in Equatorial Guinea, in a deal that would have given the US firm a 40% stake in the asset in return for covering half of Ophir’s previous costs.
Questions have now been raised over Ophir’s ability to fund the development of the project, not to mention the economic viability of the asset in the current climate.
The City already expects Ophir to keep punching losses until next year at the earliest. Given the company’s poor revenues outlook and rapidly-diminishing cash pile, I reckon investors should give the business short shrift.
