Psychiatric Solutions, Inc. [PSYS: $23.94] is a pure-play provider of inpatient behavioral health care services. They offer its services for children, adolescents, and adults through acute inpatient behavioral health care facilities and residential treatment centers. Services include 24-hour nursing observation and care, daily interventions and oversight by psychiatrists.  These services are all coordinated by physician-led teams of mental health professionals. PSYS also provides contract management and managed care plans involving the development, organization, and management of behavioral health care and rehabilitation programs within medical/surgical hospitals. As of year-end 2009, it owned and leased inpatient behavioral health care facilities with approximately 11,000 beds in 32 states, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

PSYS came public during the stock market’s boom years and was priced accordingly at $21.25 /share even though they were yet to show earnings. Losses ensued through the year 2000 before the company turned consistently profitable in 2001.  Since then, six of the past eight years have shown year-over-year improvement and EPS surged from $0.10 in 2001 to $2.10 last year.  Revenues grew from $113.9 million to $1.81 billion over that same eight years.

Here are PSYS’s per share numbers as reported by Value Line:

At this morning’s quote of $23.94 these shares are offered at just 11.4x trailing 12-month earnings and about 10.4x forward estimates of $2.30 for 2010. That seems extremely cheap for a company that has shown historical growth that often merited much higher multiples in the recent past.

Even 14x forward projections would bring PSYS back to $32.20 or up 34% from the current quote. Value Line is using an 18 multiple in calculating their 3 – 5 year target zone. Standard and Poors and Morningstar both agree that PYSY seems undervalued. Their ‘fair value’ estimates [reflecting their views of today’s true worth] are now at $27.30 and $30 respectively.

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Avery Dennison Corporation (NYSE:AVY - $30.80) manufactures pressure-sensitive materials, office products and a range of tickets, tags, labels and other converted products. AVY also makes and sells a range of office products and other converted products such as binders, organizing systems, markers, fasteners, business forms, tickets, tags, radio-frequency identification (RFID) inlays and imprinting equipment for retail and apparel manufacturers. They operate three segments: Pressure-sensitive Materials, Retail Information Services and Office and Consumer Products.

2009 was a year to forget for AVY. EPS dropped from $3.30 to $1.97 (excluding a $9.18 /share charge for discontinued operations) and the dividend was cut from $0.41 to $0.20 quarterly. Even so, 2010 looks to be a recovery year. Estimates for 2010 range from $2.50 - $2.65 and for 2011 the consensus is centered on $3.00 per share.

The (already reduced) current yield is a decent 2.6% and is likely to begin rising again as the earnings ramp up from last year’s depressed level. AVY had shown improved year-over –year results in 11 of the past 15 years. The low 2009 quarterly earnings will make for easy comparisons as 2010 unfolds.

Here are AVY’s per share numbers from continuing operations as reported by Value Line:

Some things that jump out at me after looking over the chart:

1)     Avery Dennison clearly has ‘earnings power’ of $3 - $4 /share in a normalized economic period.

2)     AVY’s current P/E of a12.3x is well below any previous multiple (excluding the bottom of the 2008 – 2009 meltdown.

3)     AVY’s absolute share price is well below the lows from the entire 7-year period 2001 – 2007 and also significantly under the highs of market challenged 2008 – 2009 as well.

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Interactive Brokers Group, Inc. (NDAQ:IBKR - $17.15) is a web-based,  global electronic market maker and broker specializing in routing orders and executing and processing trades in securities, futures and foreign exchange instruments on more than 80 electronic exchanges worldwide. As a market maker, IB provides bid and offer quotations on approximately 577,000 securities and futures products listed on electronic exchanges. As a direct market access broker, IBKR serves customers of both traditional brokers and prime brokers. They provide customers with state-of-the-art order management, trade execution and portfolio management at consistently rock-bottom commission rates.

IBKR came public via the same ‘Dutch Auction’ process that Google used when it held its IPO. The April 2007 starting price was set by its bidders at $30.01 /share during the final stages of the last bull market. IBKR shares high peak prices of $34.25 and $35.93 in 2007 and 2008 before breaking down with the overall market in late 2008 – early 2009.

The shares bottomed at $12.68 almost exactly one year ago, rebounded to $20.99 last October, and then dipped again into the $16 range in late January 2010 after posting poor Q4 earnings. At this afternoon’s quote of $17.15 IBKR shares offer great potential for investors with a one to two year time horizon.

IBKR earned $1.16 per share in the nine-month stub period from its IPO through year-end 2007 and $1.82 in their first four quarters. They earned $2.24 /share for the full year 2008 despite the nasty market environment. EPS fell off to just $0.87 in 2009 due to compressed overall volume and almost no ability to earn money on free cash balances due to the near-zero interest rate environment.

Expectations for 2010 range from S&P’s $0.89 to Reuter’s view of $1.11 and Value Line’s $1.32 guesstimate. All three services see much improved earnings for 2011 with current estimates of $1.38 - $1.47 /share.

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Wal-Mart [NYSE:WMT - $53.40] is the world’s largest retailer with almost $406 billion in FY 2010 sales (FY ended Jan. 31, 2010). Despite the poor economic conditions WMT posted all-time record sales and earnings last year.

Here are the excellent long-term per share numbers for WMT as reported by Value Line:

Consensus views for FY 2011 and 2012 are now running $3.99 and $4.38 respectively putting Wal-Mart’s multiple at < 13.4x this year’s and 12.2x the FY 2012 expectations. Those are both lower than any P/E on the chart above listing the past decade’s data.

Even better, Wal-Mart receives Value Line’s top ratings for ‘safety’, ‘financial strength’, ‘stock price stability’ and ‘earnings predictability’.  Total interest coverage is almost 11x and the well-covered dividend has been raised each year to the present level of $0.2725 quarterly for a current yield of 2.04%.

These low volatility shares (Beta = 0.6) haven’t gone anywhere since peaking at $70.30 back in late 1999. Since then EPS have surged by 189% going from $1.28 to $3.70. Dividends have grown by 473% over that same period (from $0.19 to $1.09 annually).

While the high multiples of the 1998 – 2002 period may never return it doesn’t seem justified to think we won’t see at least a 15 P/E sometime in the reasonable future.  That multiple would lead to a 12-month target of close to $60 and a two-year goal of over $65/share.

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Alliance Data Systems [NYSE:ADS - $56.15] provides data-driven and transaction-based marketing and customer loyalty solutions. They have three major focus areas:

Retail Services manages nearly 90 branded credit card and marketing programs for many of today’s leading retail brands.

Epsilon is a full-service marketing firm providing a range of solutions, including consumer database marketing, direct mail, email, and consulting.

LoyaltyOne designs, delivers, and manages a suite of loyalty marketing services, most notably the AIR MILES Reward Program.

Since coming public in 2001 every year has shown improved sales and earnings including the economically savaged 2008 and 2009 periods. Here are ADS’s per share numbers (from continuing operations) as reported by Value Line:

As the revenues, cash flow and earnings have grown the P/E has compressed to the lowest ever post-IPO of this good performing company. Zacks sees 2010 – 2011 EPS of $5.36 and $6.27 while Value Line is looking for $5.90 and $6.50 respectively.

Value Line notes that ADS has outperformed 95% of their 1700 stock universe for “stock price growth persistence” and is in the 85^Th percentile for “earnings predictability”. Reuters has an ‘outperform’ rating on ADS and has estimates even higher than Value Line at $5.98 and $6.85 for 2010 – 2011.

Using the lowest, Zacks’ estimates,  ADS now trades at < 10.5x this year’s and <9x next year’s expectations. A reversion to a more normal 13 – 14x the 2010 projection would bring ADS shares back up to between $69 - $75 or about 23 – 33% above yesterday’s closing price.

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VSE Corporation (NDAQ:VSEC - $42.53) serves as a centralized management and consolidating entity for business operations that consist of diversified program management, logistics, engineering, information technology (IT), Construction program and consulting services performed on a contract basis. VSE’s contracts are with agencies of the United States Government and other government prime contractors, non-government organizations and commercial entities. They conduct operations under four principal segments: Federal, International, IT, Energy and Management Consulting and the Infrastructure.

VSE Corp has been a sensational long-term grower and its shares have reflected its fundamentals. VSEC shares grew from a (split-adjusted) 2001 low of $2.66 to a 2007 peak price as EPS surged from $0.20 to $2.82 over that six-year period. Since then earnings have continued to grow with fully diluted EPS of $3.74 in 2008 and $4.67 in the period concluded on December 31, 2009.

Despite these stellar results VSEC closed on Feb. 26^th at $42.53 /share or just 9.1x trailing earnings. The shares had hit $54 as recently as January 21, 2010. Why did they sell off by about 17% last Friday? Q4 earnings came in at $1.01 versus $1.05 last year and management indicated that contract delays would hurt first half revenues and earnings.

Here are the VSEC’s per share numbers as reported by Value Line:

The company is debt-free, pays a 0.47% current yield (at just a 4.3% payout ratio) and now trades at near the lowest P/Es of the past decade.

A rebound to a still-below-normal multiple of 12.5x last year’s earnings would lead to a target share price of $59.50 or about 40% above last Friday’s closing quote. Is that reasonable? As noted earlier VSEC touched $63 in 2007 on EPS of just $2.82 and they hit $54 just six weeks ago before the record 2009 earnings of $4.76 /share were formally announced. 

I originally wrote this one up on September 2, 2009 at $33.30/share. I used last week’s drop to add to my position. Where else can you find growth like this at a single digit multiple?

Disclosure:  Author is long VSEC shares.

FLIR Systems, Inc. [NDQ:FLIR - $26.47] designs, manufactures, and markets thermal imaging and broadcast camera systems for a variety of applications in the commercial and government markets. FLIR makes products for condition monitoring, research and development, airborne observation and broadcast, search and rescue, and surveillance and reconnaissance.

2009 marked the tenth straight year of improving year-over-year results for FLIR Systems. Full year EPS were up 14% climbing from $1.28 to $1.46. Fourth quarter earnings slightly disappointed however at $0.38 versus $0.41 and the shares pulled back to finish today at $26.47 from $33.35 in late December and an all-time high of $45.50 in 2008.

Here are FLIR’s (split-adjusted) per share numbers from continuing operations as reported by Value Line:

Along with their Q4 report management indicated expectations of $1.48 - $1.53 for 2010. Consensus views have adapted and now center on $1.51 and $1.68 for this year and next.

That puts FLIR’s multiple at about 17.5x the 2010 view and < 15.8x the 2011 estimate. Those are near the low end of the valuation range of the past nine years making this a potential buying opportunity.

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