Boral is another stock I keep my eye on. Since I made my basic fundamental analysis of BLD’s last full year financial report, on 7 February the company released their interim results for FY2007. The facts are as follows:

Results for half year ended 31 December 2006

• Revenue up 6% to $2.5 billion
• Profit down 15% to $147 million
• Interim dividend 17 cents (same as this time last year)
• Balance sheet: Working capital of $618.7mil versus total debt of $1,636.3mil ($17.1mil decrease in total debt)

Reasons given by the management

1. Building products in Australia facing difficult housing market conditions
2. US housing market sharp downturn

PROS AND CONS
+++ Long established business, major player in its industry
+++ Good balance sheet for company of its size
— This CYCLICAL stock is now facing downturn in their industry
— Decrease in the available cash not entirely offset by decrease in the long term debt
— Issuing new shares and hence decreasing the value of existing ones
— Takeover speculations are pushing the stock to new highs despite the lower earnings and tough times ahead

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Looking for a potentially profitable investment can be, at times, rather daunting task not unlike a little treasure hunt. One needs to look under enough rocks to discover a stock which may fulfill his investment requirements and bring in the potential rewards.

So I thought it could be helpful if I list here some free online tools I normally use for scrutinizing the 1,600 or so Australian and 7,000 or so US shares.

Australian markets

• Australian Stock Screener is a free online stock scanner which I found very helpful over the time. It was the first stock scanner for ASX I discovered while back and I keep using it until these days.
  The use is pretty self explanatory - simply tick the boxes according to your investing needs and let the treasure hunt begin.
• Equities info is the web where I look for value amongst the companies currently trading at their 52 week highs and lows.

US markets

• Yahoo Finance Stock Screener is one of the more obvious tools I only came across not that long ago. The screening facility for US stocks there is extensive and you can narrow your search down to levels not available in the ASX stock scanner mentioned above.
• Barchart.com is what I use for highs/lows and other market indicies of US markets. I am sure that there will be lots of similar US sites freely available but this one is the one I found good enough for my initial lookarounds.

With help of the tools above you should be able to find some potential value investments fairly quickly. But don’t forget, that you will also need to put the newly found treasures under your “investor microscopy�? for some closer look at its earnings, balance sheets etc.

Not that long ago I made the basic fundamental analysis of GUD’s last full year financial report. On 29 January 2007 the company released their results for the 6 following months so let’s quickly look at them.

Results for half year ended 31 December 2006

• Revenue up 10.17% to $265.8mil
• Restructuring expenses up 100% to $3.5mil
• Profit down 26.44% to $14.9mil
• Interim dividend 27 cents (same as this time last year)
• Balance sheet: Working capital of $89mil versus total debt of $129mil ($50mil increase in total debt)

Reasons given by the management

1. Restructuring expenses were associated with closure of the New Zealand automotive filter business
2. Weaker demand for Victa’s mowers due to drought
3. Oats Clean business experienced delay in contribution from the Bissell product range and competitive conditions in cleaning products range
4. Loss of $2mil due to forward valuation of foreign exchange contracts

PROS AND CONS
— Earned only 24.8 cents per share yet paying 27 cents dividend
— Increase in the total debt
— No longer a GROWTH stock but rather it is now a cyclical performer
+++ Balance sheet remains sound