New Positions on Covestor (ASYS, NFP)

The Analytic Investment model seeks to take advantage of equity mispricing opportunities caused by market inefficiencies. Last month, Amtech Systems Inc (NASDAQ: ASYS) was added to the model. ASYS’ stock price had been climbing pretty steadily over the past six months. According to Yahoo! Finance, on June 29th ASYS had a closing price of $8.27, which increased to $18.55 on November 16th. Then, on November 17th—just two days after ASYS announced that they expected their quarter one 2011 revenue to exceed the expectations of analysts, the stock price fell to a closing price of $15.76. It has since picked up steam again, closing at $21.55 on December 1st.

In the Discount to Intrinsic Value model, manager Ginu Thomas takes a value-based approach to investing. He attempts to achieve absolute returns and looks for stocks with a gap between price and intrinsic value. In November, he added National Financial Partners Corp (NYSE: NFP). NFP’s net revenues fell from $1.2 billion in 2008 to $948.3 million in 2009. So far, in the first three quarters of 2010, the company has reported a total of $697.7 million. Their shareholder equity also fell from $788.2 million in 2008 to $340 million in 2009. Earnings per share has been dropping for several years. NFP’s EPS was $1.43 in 2006. It fell to $1.35 in 2007 then to $0.36 in 2008. In 2009, EPS was -$12.02. On December 1st, Yahoo! Finance reported that the company’s closing price was $12.43.