Between March 2015 and early February 2016, the S&P/ASX 200 (Index ^AXJO) (ASX: XJO) plunged 19.2%, but since then the market has staged somewhat of a comeback – rising 7.3%, despite today's 0.7% slide.
A fairly upbeat reporting season helped, as have a revival in commodities prices.
But a number of high-quality companies delivered strong results and were still sold off. Two by so much that the opportunity was too good to pass up, and the other still appears cheap, despite a strong recent run in its share price.
I probably wasn't the only one either.
New Zealand small cap fund manager Pie Funds recently reporting that it was buying two of the three 'aggressively', and the other produced "a ripper of a result which I don't believe is reflected in its current share price".
Surfstitch Ltd (ASX: SRF)
The online surfwear retailer saw its share price slammed down more than 20% on the day it reported its half-year results. That was despite a 40% increase in revenues, with sales across all regions strong. What investors didn't seem to like was the company's decision to not provide forecasts – although it did say it had a lofty target of $1 billion in revenues within five years. This is a company successfully growing its business, including branching out into action sports entertainment and media. As Pie says, "we believe the business is performing extraordinarily well."[emphasis mine]
iSentia Ltd (ASX: ISD)
iSentia is another company that saw its share price tumble, despite reporting a 22% increase in underlying net profit for the first six months of the 2016 financial year. iSentia's share price is now down 22% in the past month at $3.33. The company provides media monitoring services to more than 5,500 public and private sector clients and is expanding into Asia, but the 22% increase in net profit was slightly under analysts' forecasts.
Pie's words explain the investment case more succinctly than I can – "We purchased more around $3.40 and below as we believe iSentia is one of the highest quality businesses on the ASX and it is now trading at one of the lowest multiples since listing."
I've personally owned iSentia since November 2014 and topped up again last week.
Vita Group Ltd (ASX: VTG)
Vita owns and operates many of Telstra's retail stores and an increasing number of the telco's business centres. The company produced another great half-yearly result with one standout being a 21% in same-store-sales from its Telstra shops. The dividend jumped by 40% too. No wonder then that the share price is up 19% since then, but still appears very cheap, trading on an annualised price/earnings ratio of 13.6x. It was Vita that Pie said had produced a 'ripper' of a result.
Vita has also ditched its underperforming Next Byte brand, which should help management focus on growing its small-to-medium and enterprise operations while the retail division hums along.
