Will Precision Ag Take American Vanguard To A New Level?

For what it is, American Vanguard (NYSE:AVD) is a good company. This small agricultural chemicals company does not have the R&D resources to compete with companies like Syngenta (NYSE:SYT), Bayer (OTCPK:BAYRY), or BASF (OTCQX:BASFY) in novel crop protection ingredients, nor the scale to compete with companies like ChemChina in large-scale generic crop protection, but it does have a solid record of acquiring and marketing niche products for an array of row crops, fruits, vegetables, and cotton.

The challenge I have with American Vanguard is when the market runs ahead of itself by overestimating what the company can be, as has happened in the past when investors thought the corn boom established a "new normal" for sales or when Zika would lead to a major sales opportunity for its mosquitocide. Now I have similar concerns about SIMPAS, the company's entry into precision agriculture. While the SIMPAS system seems legit, I think the sales effort will be challenging, and I think the company will always be challenged by its lack of proprietary R&D capabilities. As I think $15 to $17 is a reasonable estimate of fair value, I don't see all that much upside today.

Read the full article here:
Will Precision Ag Take American Vanguard To A New Level?

Seeking Alpha: American Vanguard Paying For The Recent Glory Days

It has been about 10 months since I last wrote about American Vanguard (NYSE:AVD), but things haven't really gotten any easier in the company's core crop protection market. Lower corn acreage, high channel inventories, and benign insect pressure have severely sapped the company's insecticide business and the company is having to deal with suboptimal operating leverage and the cash absorption of excess working capital as it works through this tough stretch.

I believe that if you adjust for the "corn bubble", American Vanguard has continued to operate as a respectable niche crop protection company with mid-single digit revenue growth and the potential to generate double-digit FCF margins. "Potential" is a tricky word, though, and often the difference between value traps and successful investments. Monsanto's (NYSE:MON) aggressive bid for Syngenta (NYSE:SYT) has brought some excitement back to crop protection, but actual results show a tough environment and M&A is unlikely to benefit American Vanguard unless a company not currently active in the U.S. wants to facilitate a market entry. I don't think American Vanguard is particularly expensive here, but the year ahead is still going to be a challenging one for AVD management and investors.

Read the full article here:
American Vanguard Paying For The Recent Glory Days

Seeking Alpha: American Vanguard Starting A Long Road Back

Back in my Wall Street days, American Vanguard (NYSE:AVD) would have been called "a stock split the hard way", as the shares have dropped almost 50% over the last year on persistently weak sell-through of soil insecticides and herbicides for corn. Weather has had an impact, as have acreage switches to other crops and less insect pressure, but the fundamental issue is that management significantly overestimated the on-the-ground demand for its products and is now stuck working through inflated inventories and inefficient overhead utilization. I don't think the positives that moved the stock in 2013 have all vanished, but management has a lot to prove before these shares can move back into the $20's.

Continue reading here:
American Vanguard Starting A Long Road Back

Seeking Alpha: The Street's Ag Blues Seem To Be Weighing On American Vanguard

This has been a frustrating year for American Vanguard (AVD) and its shareholders. While the stock has done a fair bit better than fertilizer names, it has absolutely lagged other crop-related stocks like Monsanto (MON), DuPont (DD), and FMC (FMC). Bad weather hit the company hard around mid year, and even though results (and the stock) have recovered since, the damage was already done.

In my view, American Vanguard's prospects and appeal as a stock have a lot to do with your time frame. It looks as though the company is going to go into next year with more inventory than normal, but the Street is already well aware of this issue. There are also more rumblings about competition, but I have to wonder if this is a real change in philosophy on the part of major chemical companies or more of a passing fancy. American Vanguard does seem undervalued today, at least enough so as to deliver an expected long-term return in the double-digits, but with the markets turning skittish on the ag sector, this is likely only a good name for more patient investors.

Continue here:
The Street's Ag Blues Seem To Be Weighing On American Vanguard

Investopedia: Monsanto Has Eased Off, But Still Not Cheap

Monsanto (NYSE:MON) generates a huge volume of press and public interest, but the reality is that the public bickering about GM crops has very little quarter-quarter impact on the decisions that farmers make in the U.S. and Latin America. The bigger issue for Monsanto, frankly, is that crop plantings seem to be coming in lower overall than expected and more of the earnings story revolves around the volatile and unreliable herbicide business. Though I continue to see Monsanto as a core holding, expectations for this company are not what I'd call conservative and investors may want to see how this apparent reallocation away from ag stocks plays out before stepping in to buy.

Please follow this link for more:
http://www.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/062613/monsanto-has-eased-still-not-cheap-mon-dd-avd-syt.aspx

Seeking Alpha: Wet Weather Soaks American Vanguard, But Analysts Look All Wet

Using discounted free cash flow as a primary valuation tool comes with certain drawbacks. Looking at the reaction to American Vanguard's (AVD) warning on second quarter earnings brings one of the biggest back to mind - namely, that sell-side analysts and buy-side investors don't look at stocks this way and it can create significant disruptions for more long-term-oriented investors. While American Vanguard shares are going to sit in the sin bin for a while now, and a lot of the positive 2013 momentum may be sapped from this stock, relatively little about the long-term has changed.

Read more here:
Wet Weather Soaks American Vanguard, But Analysts Look All Wet

Seeking Alpha: American Vanguard Should Reap A Better Multiple

American Vanguard (AVD) has long been a volatile small-cap stock. Some of that can be chalked up to the vagaries of the agricultural chemicals market, a business where the likes of FMC Corp. (FMC) have also had ample ups and downs. Some of it, too, can be attributed to the fact that investors in agricultural stocks often seem to look and think no further than the next harvest, so planting, weather, and harvest data can make these stocks move in the opposite direction of fundamentals.

To that end, I think it's worth checking out American Vanguard today. Although I do have some long-term concerns about the company's position vis a vis new GM crops that target lucrative parts of the company's business, I believe there's a very good chance that the stock will deliver stronger results in the short term as capacity upgrades and strong marketing support from partner Monsanto (MON) lead to much better herbicide and pesticide sales.

Continue on here:
American Vanguard Should Reap A Better Multiple

Seeking Alpha: Monsanto's Start To Fiscal 2013 Is Good, But Not Perfect

The Street is in one of those stretches where it wants to like Monsanto (MON), so it doesn't look like analysts or investors are being too pointed in how they approach results for the fiscal first quarter. While the results were indeed solid overall, and Monsanto remains a high-quality play in the agriculture space, there were a couple of details that investors shouldn't ignore before paying up for what is by no means a cheap stock anymore.

Continue reading here:
Monsanto's Start To Fiscal 2013 Is Good, But Not Perfect

Investopedia: American Vanguard No Shrinking Violet

Add a little attention to some solid performance and a small cap can soar. Plenty of ag-focused stocks have done well over the past year or so, but American Vanguard (NYSE:AVD) has more than doubled, as this previously under-known ag chemical company has garnered some much-deserved attention. While easy value seems to be gone now, this is a good name to watch for the future.

A Solid Close to 2011 

American Vanguard has put together a powerful combination of integrated acquisitions and increasing demand for its somewhat specialized herbicide and insecticide products. Revenue rose 36% this past quarter and handily beat the highest estimate. Granted, there are very few analysts covering the stock today, so that outperformance has to be kept in context.

Continue reading here:
http://stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2012/American-Vanguard-No-Shrinking-Violet-AVD-DD-DOW-SYT0308.aspx

Seeking Alpha: Monsanto - Execution Needs To Merge With Opportunity

A good story will only take a company so far, and the last few years have brought that lesson home to Monsanto (NYSE: MON) the hard way. After years of aggressive pricing on their seed traits and tactics towards farmers that skirted (if not crossed) the line of bullying, Monsanto found to its dismay that rivals like DuPont (NYSE: DD) and Syngenta (NYSE: SYT) had closed the performance gap and customers were more than happy to give them a try. While Monsanto has what looks to be the most exciting pipeline in agribiotech and ample growth opportunities; management must be careful not to repeat the errors of the past if investors are to reap all the rewards they should.

Monsanto Fixing Itself Faster Than Some Expected
After years of riding high on the success off its genetically-engineered seed traits, Monsanto has had a rough couple of years recently. The company basically overpriced its seeds relative to their yield production (particularly SmartStax and Roundup Ready 2) and farmers began switching over to alternatives from DuPont and Syngenta. This transition was aided in no small part by a bad reputation that Monsanto had built with its customers after years of arrogance and aggressive tactics designed ostensibly at protecting its franchise. 

Please follow this link for the full article:
Monsanto: Execution Needs To Merge With Opportunity