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Sector Performance: The rise of the Dollar and the fall of the Oil Empire?

After a 1 week hiatus, we are back with our weekly look at sector performance.

The first thing we noticed was almost Oil related industries residing at the bottom of the ladder. Perhaps (hopefully) Bernanke’s commitment to the Dollar in yesterday’s testimony will help firm up the greenback and hold commodity prices and oil at bay for at least a little while.

Performance versus the S&P 500
Rank Industry % Return +/- the S&P
59 of 59 OIL-INTEGRATED -3.52%
58 METALS-NON FERROUS -2.83%
57 ENERGY-ALTERNATE SOURCES -2.64%
56 OIL-EXPLORATION&PRODUCTION -2.21%
55 OIL&GAS PRODUCTION-PIPELINE -1.96%
6 BANKS & THRIFTS -1.91%


On the top rungs of the ladder we find:

Performance versus the S&P 500
Rank Industry % Return +/- the S&P
1 COAL 3.64%
2 POLLUTION CONTROL 2.82%
3 PAPER 2.73%
4 DRUGS 2.73%
5 COMPUTER SOFTWARE-SERVICES 2.68%
6 MACHINERY-ELECTRICAL 2.65%


One of the Computer Software Services stocks that caught our eye is:

TechTeam Inc. (TEAM) is a technology outsourcing company primarily to government entities and multinational corporations. It also provides business process outsourcing services as well.

The stock has caught our attention for several reasons. First of all, its earnings estimates jumped nicely over the past week. During that time, this year’s estimates have increased about 10% to 84 cents per share. Next year’s estimates increased 11 cents to $1.06 per share.

Also the stock is extremely cheap at less than 10x next year’s earnings. This is certainly attractive for a company growing at over 25% per year. It is trading for less than 0.5x sales and just over 1x book value. For a smaller company, the debt/equity ratio of 0.36 is quite manageable.

TEAM achieved record revenue in its first quarter achieved both by acquisitions and organic growth. Gary J. Cotshott, President and Chief Executive Officer said that it was the best first quarter since 2005. He went on to say that the company should generate double-digit organic revenue growth for 2008.

Given these factors, we feel the stock has upside to at least the $13 level. A stock with such a robust confluence of factors shouldn’t be trading at such a discount. One caveat is its thin volume of about 13,000 shares daily. As we have said in the past, these kinds of stocks are only for aggressive traders. This is not a stock to daytrade due to its low volume.

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