XP Power (XPP) a long standing holding in the Compound Income Scores Portfolio (CISP) has announced final result for the year to December 2017 today. These were good as expected given their previous updates, but did still came in slightly ahead of forecasts at the earnings and dividend lines. While James Peters, the Chairman of XP Power struck a reasonably confident note tinged with some realism when he said: ..."Although we cannot be immune from all external economic shocks resulting from cyclicality in the capital equipment markets we serve, we are optimistic regarding our prospects for 2018.”

Thus they seem set fair for another reasonable year and if you want to read more about the results I suggest you look them up on your favoured news provider. In addition there was a good sponsored brokers note from Edison with an update on the back of the results which included some upgrades from them given the results beat their forecasts and the outlook seems fine. Their forecasts for this year of 158.9p with an 82p dividend may, they suggest , still be conservative with the possibility of upgrades as the year progresses. Nevertheless at the current 3180p price, this does leave them on just under 20x with a 2.6% yield, which looks fairly full but is probably deserved given the quality of their business and the steady delivery they have offered over recent years and their on going growth and investment plans.

On the charts I note a gap the 200 day moving average and a gap on the chart from their previous positive update at around 3000p which could offer a good entry point if they should get down there on any more market weakness or profit taking. I say that because this one does tend to move in fits and starts with strong rises punctuated by some long sideways pauses, as seen a couple of times in the last year. It does however continue to score reasonably well on the Compound Income Scores and will therefore remain in the portfolio.

That's all I have time for today but, weather permitting, I hope to be back tomorrow with a month end update on the CISP and the timing indicators for the UK Market. So hope to see you back here then and mind how you go in the snow and keep warm if you can.

Today's update of note for the CISP is another of the portfolios longer term winners in the shape of XP Power (XPP) - which if you are not familiar with it (you can click the name link for more details) is a £700m  United Kingdom-based developer and manufacturer of critical power control components for the electronics industry.

They had Q4 trading update today in which they said the Company had a good finish to the year, in line with the Board's expectations, as the strong order intake reported in the third quarter drove robust revenue growth in the final quarter. Other points of note were that they moved into a small net debt position following the acquisition of Comdel on 29 September 2017 for US$23.0 million (£17.0 million), net debt at 31 December 2017 was £10.1 million, compared with a net cash position of £3.6 million at 31 December 2016.

They also said that the 4th quarterly dividend is not expected to be less than 28 pence per share, representing a minimum total dividend of 77 pence per share for 2017, an increase of 8% over the total dividend of 71 pence per share paid for 2016. Furthermore on the outlook they said they are encouraged by the continued strong order intake experienced across the business during the second half of 2017 and the overall book to bill level for the year and that they enter 2018 with positive momentum and therefore expect to grow orders and revenue in 2018 above that in 2017. I would suggest you check out the full statement at their investor relations part of their website for full details if you are interested in researching this one further.

As far as the CISP goes it remains in the portfolio as it continues to score highly, although the valuation has got a bit higher than I would normally entertain for new purchases at 24 to 25x with a yield of just over 2%. However, having trimmed it late last year in a portfolio re-balancing, I'm allowing it to run as a winner while it continues to make the cut on the scores despite my reservations about the valuation, as it does seem like a good quality operation.

Finally talking of quality companies and winners, the latest Compound Income Scores are out today. So if you are not already a subscriber and would like to be able to sort the good form the bad and the ugly and pick some future winners for yourself, then check out more details about the Scores and how you can gain access to them by clicking here or in the Scores navigation tab on the site. Otherwise thanks for reading, have a great weekend and good luck with your investing and see below for a couple of tunes / videos on today's theme.

....while HSBC is approaching it's 2009 lows. Looks like it will be a busier week for news flow and it will be interesting to see if last weeks rally fails at the 6000 to 6100 resistance level. Today we have had disappointing and flat looking results from HSBC which they described as broadly satisfactory, but which did included a small 2% increase in the dividend from 50c to 51c for the year.

In approving the dividend increase, the Board noted that prospective dividend growth remained dependent upon the long-term overall profitability of the Group and delivering further release of less efficiently deployed capital. Actions to address these points were core elements of the Investor Update that they provided last June and which they expanded on in the statement. 

No doubt we will gets lots of column centimetres on this one but it does look good value with a PE of 6.5x with an 8% yield and a price to book value of around 0.6 to 0.7x which seems fair given the 7.2% return on shareholders equity that they reported in these figures. Thus with the shares down by 4% or so to around 430p on the back of these drab looking numbers this morning they are closing in on their 2009 lows around 400p and as such might be interesting for a brave contrarian value investors down here, but the Compound Income Score is only 18 and Stockopedia only ranks it at 45 which both suggest caution and that there might be better opportunities elsewhere. Talking of which we have also had

 final results from XP Power (XPP) the £280m market cap power supply solutions business which I have written up in the past. These came in ahead of recently downgraded forecasts as it seems they had a strong Q4. Therefore earnings came in at 104.3p v 98.8p and 106p currently forecast for this year. On the dividend this came in at 66p v 64.9p forecast and 68.9p for the coming year.

In the statement they said: "While early 2016 has seen economic headwinds strengthen in some of our markets, we consider that the Group remains well positioned, with good momentum established as our design pipeline continues to grow and a healthy order book.  We are encouraged by the progress made by the Group during 2015 and look forward to another successful year in 2016.”

So this suggests that the current forecasts could be upgraded but should at least be maintained. So taking the current forecast for this year and this mornings 3% higher price of 1524p this leaves them on a fairish looking PE of 14.4x with a prospective yield of 4.5% which seems fine to me and it scores 90 on the Compound Income Scores and coincidentally the Stockopedia StockRank too.

What a first week to the New Year in stock markets with Chinese shares being suspended limit down a couple of time this week which has spooked markets around the world. Today after they removed the trading halts the Chinese market actually managed to close up - go figure. So it seems like we will have a more positive end to the week, but I did hear an interview with Neil Woodford on the BBC Today programme talking bearishly on the outlook for China, so we may not be out of the woods just yet. To cap it off there is quite a lot of news today so lets dive right in.

First up in relation to the Compound Income Scores (CIS) portfolio re-screening I did at the start of the year. Worth noting that Next (NXT) have now started to buy back more shares as their share price dipped below their indicated buy back price on the back of their trading update. So this should help to support the price going forward in the short term but if the price remains below their threshold and they continue to buy back stock with their surplus cash then there may not then be any special dividend this year. Time will tell on that, but worth bearing in mind if you are attracted by the high headline yield which includes specials. Meanwhile in this weeks market volatility I also note that the two purchases of Easyjet (EZJ) and Zytronic (ZYT) that I made for the portfolio are now available at knocked down prices. So if you have done your research and like the look of those then you can pick them up at better prices now than I did when I added them to the CIS Portfolio.

Talking of the CIS Portfolio we have also had an interesting announcement today from Photo-Me (PHTM) which was included in the original portfolio and therefore still held in the Annually rebalanced version which I am running to see if screening quarterly has added value. It exited the quarterly screened portfolio quite early on as its score deteriorated on the back of some earnings downgrades and still only scores 64. In today's update they have however flagged positive trading in their Japanese operations ahead of the introduction of a new ID card in January, with turnover up by 90% in November and December. They say that if this is continued in the rest of their financial year then all things being equal they would expect to to report results materially ahead of current market expectations. Now I understand that companies usually have to put these kind of statements out if they come to realise that their profits are going to be at least 10% or so away from consensus in either direction. So we should probably expect at least 10% upgrades and possibly more if the trend is continued for the rest of their financial year. The shares are up nearly 9% so they have probably factored most of it in but I guess it could be better than that, although it is hard to get a handle on it as I can't find what proportion of the Asia and ROW division is in Japan, but at the full year they had added 1,000 machines there and said that Japan was the largest territory by far by reference to size of the machines estate and revenue. I did some very rough back of the envelope calculations and if it was say two thirds of that division then this could lead to an extra £11m of operating profit from Japan which could lead to upgrades approaching 30%, but I must stress that is very much a guestimate without knowing the actual proportion they have in Japan and if the recent trend will continue or not.

Meanwhile in a strange coincidence the stock which replaced Photo-Me in the portfolio, Paypoint (PAY) has announced the sale of part of its planned disposal with the sale of its Online Payment businesses comprising PayPoint.net and Metacharge to Capita, for a consideration of £14 million satisfied in cash at completion today. This leaves the sale of the Mobile Payments business to be competed in due course and we won't therefore know if the proceeds come up to their downwardly revised expectations until then. This is another one which is now on offer at a cheaper price than I paid for it in the portfolio, although it still has its attractions as it still scores 92. So maybe another opportunity there perhaps if you like the look of that one?

Finally we have had an update from another high scoring stock which I have mentioned in the past and which I own as part of a broadly diversified income portfolio, namely XPP Power (XPP), which announced its Q4 trading was in line with expectations. This has driven revenue growth of 8% in FY15 (4% in constant currency). This was helped by a recovery in orders from the US, and overall Q4 order intake was strong, providing positive momentum going into FY16. The recently acquired EMCO business is also said to be trading well and the company has already identified cross-selling opportunities. They also announced a further dividend and suggested that the full year dividend would be up by at least 7% to 65p for the full year which is in line with forecasts. This one also scores well with a CIS of 86 and reasonable looking rating of around 14x with a 4.5% yield.

Phew there you go, oh yes and I've updated the Scores today too as usual. So time now for a well earned coffee break - cheers see you back here next week, have a great weekend and be careful out there whatever you are up to in the market or elsewhere.

Probably because most are trying to get their announcements out before they head to the beach in August. Note to self must take most of August off because I can!

However before I do I note in passing an unsurprising profits warning from Merlin Entertainment (MERL) blamed on the after effects of the unfortunate accident at Alton Towers earlier this year. Not one I hold having stagged it when it floated and it looks richly valued to me with downgrades to come, not a great attraction for me.

Talking of richly valued I note that Reckitt Benkiser (RB) also announced H1 results in which they upgraded their guidance for the year which is welcome given they are on nearly 25x. They also cut their dividend as expected post the demerger of Indivor (INDV) & even factoring in the dividend from them shareholders if they still hold both will have seen a reduction in their overall dividend.

Of more interest to me as a holder was the half year report from XPP - which looked a little lack lustre at first glance. However they explain in the commentary that the fall in margins was due to start up costs for power converter manufacturing at their Vietnamese facility. They say more of their revenues (67.2%) is now coming from their own designs & within that ultra-high efficiency “Green XP Power” products now accounting for 21% up from 17%. They also acquired a 51% share in a Korean power converter company which brings them sales and engineering capability in an important manufacturing centre for industrial electronics.

The outlook commentary from the chairman was positive as it alluded to strong order book and backlog together with the developments above and a strong balance sheet giving him confidence that they should be able to continue to grow revenues in the second half of 2015 as designs won in 2014 and prior years enter their production phase. Thus with the earnings estimates having drifted back so far this year it seems they should be able to hit the modest 5% or so growth that is forecast. Perhaps as a sign of their confidence I note that they have increased the interim dividend by a useful 8% which is ahead of the current forecast of a 6% increase for the full year.

Therefore based on current forecasts the shares at around 1600p look like a fair value hold to me on around 15x with a 4% yield as they are nearer the top of their trading range over the last couple of years which has been between 1775p & 1300p. So I wouldn't suggest rushing out to buy them just now, but might be worth a look a bit lower down around 1500p and the 200 day moving average, if they should drift off again as they do sometimes. However I note it has a Compound Income Score of 94 and a Stockopedia StockRank of 94 too so it scores well according to The robots.