Gathering New Information about Stocks, Health, and Sports

          After reading many of my articles over the past few months, many of you should start to understand that the financials is one sector that I absolutely endorse. My new pick, Franklin Resources Incorporated (BEN), is no different to any of this sentiment. Even with its slightly high share price, Franklin can be regarded as a tremendously safe bet for long term investors but quite a steal for short term investors as well.

         Regarded as an asset management company, Franklin provides many investors with an excellent chance to be nourished in capital gains in a relatively short amount of time. Just looking at fundamentals alone should be a key cornerstone to any investor looking for an excellent long term plan. Even with such a long tenure in terms of duration, you would expect a company of such stature to begin to see an end to economies of scale. However Franklin disposes of such a conviction as over the last two years this firm has increased revenue on an annual basis by nearly 64% and has basically doubled its cash flow, with a large percentage of such statistic retaining back to the ever important operating income. Franklin also has provided a strong basis for the lauding of elite fundamentals with its current ratio (assets over liabilities). Over the last year, ratio wise, such statistic has grown from 1.32 to 3.42, almost doubling, which is an incredible attribute to carry. Not only does Franklin support the fundamentals prudent to direct business operations, but relative to its share price as well. With a healthy P/E ratio of 22 and an even lower forward ratio of near 16 (Yahoo Finance), Franklin not only beats competitors ratios such as Eaton Vance and Brookfield Asset Management, but, according to my own opinion, would be a tremendous asset for a private equity company to take hold of regardless its history and industry. Thus, such fundamentals are key to such a delicate but tenacious equity and should be regarded highly from long term investors.

         While many of you may acquiesce with such sentiments regarding the fundamentals this company possesses, you may be wary to purchase shares because of the large share price. Such can be described as a valid claim in many cases, but as technical analysis will prove, Franklin utilizes a very favorable pattern to promote optimism with investors. Since its IPO days, Franklin has been a steady and, in most cases, rapid growth stock. Even during times when economic slowdown was unfavorable to companies such as Franklin, this firm managed to grow, in terms of share price, about 16% from 2000 to 2002. When economic times were strong and resilient, Franklin did outstanding as a stock most investors would consider as a long term investment. For example, over the past two years Franklin has grown in terms of share price over 60%. To put that in perspective with a competitor such as Eaton Vance, who only grew 30% during such duration and Principal Financial Group which only grew 50% absolutely looks fantastic juxtaposed to its competitors. To add some more optimism, Franklin also posted a near 200% gain over the past two years which beats out both respective competitors, and along with its respective fundamentals, Franklin absolutely deserves the respect and capital that it desires.

         Thus, while purchasing shares of Franklin may not be the most lucrative short term investment with the current economic situation, as a stock many investors favor for long term growth and accumulation of capital, Franklin absolutely would be a safe a great place to earn gross sums exceeding your foreshadowing growth potential. The fundamentals and technical graphs may sometimes deceive foolish investors who may not look at the statements close enough, but in the case for Franklin, I can safely argue that this is a company you want to be invested in.

-Dennis Biray
December 1st, 2006