Topic: How To Invest

Stock Pickers Digest Hotline – Friday, February 1, 2019

Article Excerpt

FAIR ISAAC CORP., $228.51, symbol FICO on New York, is best known for its FICO Scores software. They let lenders make better decisions about customer creditworthiness. The company also makes programs that help credit-card issuers reduce fraud and analyze the spending patterns of cardholders. For the quarter ended December 31, 2018, revenue rose 12.9%, to $262.3 million from $232.4 million a year earlier. Sales of computer applications (56% of the total) rose 5%. Meanwhile, sales of credit-scoring programs (33%) jumped 25% and sales of analytics software (11%) rose 22%. Excluding one-time items, Fair Isaac earned $57.9 million in the latest quarter. That was up 13.2% from $38.8 million. Per-share earnings rose 17.9%, to $1.45 from $1.23, on fewer shares outstanding. The company expects to earn $6.88 a share in 2019. The stock trades at 33.2 times that forecast. That multiple is somewhat high considering banks supply 75% of the overall revenue—further interest-rate increases could reduce the number of mortgage applications they receive. That…