Sunday, August 17, 2008

The Genie delivers the goods

Seems like things are going well in Waterloo, Ontario, home to Dalsa, not that the Toronto stock market agrees. The stock is trading at less than half its May ’04 peak. But Dalsa recently posted strong results at the half year mark: revenues (sales) up 16%, gross margin up 6 points and very, very strong cash flow – source: www.dalsa.com, so perhaps this is a good buying opportunity.

According to CEO Brian Doody, much of the growth is coming from, “new products such as our Genie and Piranha Colour [sic] cameras…” If you check these out you’ll see why: Dalsa have an impressive portfolio of both linescan and matrix (area) hardware.

It’s also noticeable how Mr. Doody paints a more optimistic picture of the second half of ’08 than did Cognex in their recent statement. Perhaps Dalsa believe that generating only one third of their business in North America makes them less exposed to any downturn in corporate investment. Recent economic news from Europe is not great, but as Dalsa have much of their business in the Asia/Pacific region this might go to show that it pays to be diversified.

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