David BurrowsATS Automation Tooling SystemsATS.TOHOLDMay 17, 2024

Investment thesis remains firmly intact. Bookings remain resilient, strong backlog. Improving margins. Sees ~15% upside. Ranks 8/10 fundamentally.

Still a great entry point.

Remains one of the most compelling automation platforms in the market. Benefits directly from structural shifts in reshoring, labour scarcity, and modernization of global manufacturing. Positioned at the high-value end of this trend. 

Project pipeline remains healthy. Margins improving. Recent price momentum reflects business resilience. Sees ~10% upside, with strong price target around $49-50. No dividend.

(Note the short timeframe.)  Not a full year, so letting the stock play out. Still builds the machines that build everything else, and they sit quietly behind the products we all rely on. Analysts have recently raised price targets. Revenue growth expected to cool, but profitability is doing more of the heavy lifting. 

She sees ~25% upside from here. 8/10 on fundamentals. Should do well in next 6-12 months.

Upward trend from April selloff, showing strong support from the technical side. Fiscal 2025 EPS was slightly down, but forecast to rebound. Price target is 10% upside from here. Still below 52-week high. Analysts remain confident in company's leadership despite CEO stepping down, and she'll be monitoring closely.

It is in the industrial space which she likes. Has a $2 billion backlog. It is now re-focusing on high value sectors. She sees 18% earnings per share growth and 20% upside overall. It has strong momentum and she rates it an 8 out of 10.             Buy 6  Hold 2  Sell 1

Rolled over and he got stopped out. Wasn't making higher highs and higher lows, no longer in an uptrend. In your portfolio, you have to quickly carve out the ones that aren't working before they hurt you.

Struggling. The best we can say is that the chart seems finally to be stabilizing. Hard to say whether it needs a washout before the downtrend is over. Trying to bottom, but hasn't picked up yet.

When you ask yourself what could happen, technicians look at a 50% retracement, where a stock would give up half of the move. So, if you went from $15 to $60, that's a $45 gain. Half of that is $22.50. The high of $60 - $22.50 brings you to $37.50, which is close to the 2022 lows.

Investors are still fretting about the decline in the backlog, and then its largest shareholder compounded problems by selling a large block of shares. We would remain a HOLD at the current (cheap) valuation and reference this recent answer. We might start picking away with more at the $42 level in any further declines. 
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A long-term compounder, a top performer, but ATS is not easy to understand. They buy tech and manufacturer companies. IS concern that EV sales are flopping, but the PE of ATS looks attractive. Would look at during a pullback.

Lots of contracts in last year that were EV-related. Recently, EV sales slowed. Market got worried, stock came down. Yesterday, largest shareholder offloaded stock. Good time to buy in mid-high $40s, EVs aren't going away. Probably just delays, no cancellations. Accretive acquisitions in life sciences, which are high margin.

Current valuation a little high - but is a quality business (~13% ROE). Strong brand name is a good long term investment. 

Impressive global reach. Improves line speed and yield in manufacturing. Maintenance contracts, too. Less profitable than markets. Leveraged balance sheet. Trades at a premium of 20x vs. market at 15x. No dividend. Better ideas out there.

AI is a really hot theme that's being chased. Operating fundamentals not as strong as he would have thought, in terms of profit margins, ROC and free cashflow. Avoid. Better businesses out there. Better way to play is through chips or sensors, such as TSM or TEL. 

Automation is here to stay. They have great experience and lots of opportunities.