{"id":16696,"date":"2019-09-26T16:52:27","date_gmt":"2019-09-26T20:52:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=16696"},"modified":"2019-09-26T16:52:27","modified_gmt":"2019-09-26T20:52:27","slug":"hot-stocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/hot-stocks\/","title":{"rendered":"Hot Stocks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe allowfullscreen allow=\"fullscreen\" style=\"border:none;width:100%;height:450px;\" src=\"\/\/e.issuu.com\/embed.html?backgroundColor=%23fefefe&#038;d=oct19_flipbook&#038;hideIssuuLogo=true&#038;pageNumber=44&#038;showOtherPublicationsAsSuggestions=true&#038;u=portlandmagazine\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h1 class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Crystal balls<\/b> &amp; <b>construction helmets<\/b>:<br \/>\nOur <b>oracle<\/b> looks at Maine\u2019s investment <b>opportunities<\/b>.<\/span><\/h1>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">By William Hall<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong><span class=\"s1\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-16753\" src=\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/sky-high-maine-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"sky high maine\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/sky-high-maine-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/sky-high-maine-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/sky-high-maine-36x36.jpg 36w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/sky-high-maine-200x201.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/sky-high-maine-349x350.jpg 349w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/sky-high-maine.jpg 750w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>\u201cIf you invested $1,000 in <\/span><span class=\"s1\">IDEXX June 1, 1991, and <\/span><span class=\"s1\">held it, your investment <\/span><span class=\"s1\">would be worth $262,000 <\/span><span class=\"s1\">(split-adjusted) today. If <\/span><span class=\"s1\">you invested $1,000 in WEX, <\/span><span class=\"s1\">formerly Wright Express, <\/span><span class=\"s1\">on February 1, 2005, it <\/span><span class=\"s1\">would now be worth <\/span><span class=\"s1\">$12,365.\u201d \u2014Evan Livada<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">P<\/span><span class=\"s1\">redicting the rising and falling fortunes of Maine businesses is as chancy as finding Friday-afternoon parking spots in the Old Port.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">For much of his career, <strong>Evan Livada<\/strong> ran Livada Securities, Maine\u2019s largest independent stock brokerage firm before it was acquired by Bangor Savings Bank, with over $200M in investments under management. Today, he has rare insights about the local mix.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">The most dramatic player to watch is Maine\u2019s newest publicly held company. <strong>Covetrus Inc.<\/strong> (Nasdaq: CVET) launched in February from the merger of Portland-based Vets First Choice and the veterinary division of Henry Schein Inc., a medical supplier based in New York. The new animal-health company is currently building a 170,000-square-foot headquarters in Portland that may house over 1,100 employees after completion in 2020. The headquarters are just three blocks from WEX. The businesses that formed Covetrus had combined sales of about $4B in 2018, making it Maine\u2019s largest public company in terms of revenue.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">But in its first full quarter of business, the rookie stumbled. After reporting a net loss of $10M from April to June, Covetrus shares fell nearly 40 percent overnight. \u201cTheir stock was just creamed,\u201d Livada says. \u201cStill, I see potential ahead. Covetrus had early growing pains, but they have a lot of things going for them, including manageable debt and exploding demand for veterinary products and services.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">While Covetrus has dominated the public eye recently, another Maine company Livada recommends has been absent from it. <strong>Unum Group<\/strong> (NYSE: UNM) is an employee benefits provider that traces its roots to the 1848 incorporation of Union Mutual Life Insurance Co. in Portland. The company went public in 1986 and remained headquartered in Portland until 2002, three years after merging with the Provident Cos., an insurer based in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Although Chattanooga is home to Unum\u2019s main offices, the company\u2019s largest base is still Portland with nearly 3,000 employees.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p6\"><span class=\"s1\">A<\/span>$42M renovation of Unum\u2019s campus on outer Congress Street last year never drew the same attention as the new WEX, Covetrus, and IDEXX projects. While Unum\u2019s stock was trading at historic highs less than two years ago, it\u2019s since generally tracked downward. \u201cThe recent decline may be a reflection of skepticism about the financial health of long-term care insurers,\u201d according to Livada. \u201cThe stock\u2019s taken it on the chin recently, but there are some pretty good upsides.\u201d As they say, s\/he who does not risk cannot win.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">Sure-fire winners are <strong>WEX Inc.<\/strong> (NYSE: WEX)\u2014payment processing systems for commercial vehicle fleets\u2014and IDEXX Laboratories (Nasdaq: IDXX), of Westbrook, purveyors of diagnostic products and technology for the veterinary industry. \u201cThey\u2019re both the darlings of Wall Street,\u201d says Livada. In March, WEX moved its headquarters from South Portland to a new 100,000-square-foot, four-story complex in Portland\u2019s East End. Last year, IDEXX broke ground on a 135,000-square-foot addition to its Westbrook campus after completing a similar addition in 2014.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">Amid Portland\u2019s shapeshifting, where construction cranes sprout from every street corner, Livada sees more reason for optimism despite recent volatility in the global economy. \u201cPeople thought the world was going to come to an end back in December,\u201d he says. \u201cBut there\u2019s certainly no sign of a downturn in Portland.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Evan Livada looks at Maine\u2019s investment opportunities.<br \/>\nBy William Hall<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16736,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[457,455,454,127,456],"class_list":["post-16696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-dollars-and-sense","tag-evan-livada","tag-hot-stocks","tag-maine","tag-stocks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16696"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16776,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16696\/revisions\/16776"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}