Most Popular
1. Banking Crisis is Stocks Bull Market Buying Opportunity - Nadeem_Walayat
2.The Crypto Signal for the Precious Metals Market - P_Radomski_CFA
3. One Possible Outcome to a New World Order - Raymond_Matison
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
5. Apple AAPL Stock Trend and Earnings Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
6.AI, Stocks, and Gold Stocks – Connected After All - P_Radomski_CFA
7.Stock Market CHEAT SHEET - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.US Debt Ceiling Crisis Smoke and Mirrors Circus - Nadeem_Walayat
9.Silver Price May Explode - Avi_Gilburt
10.More US Banks Could Collapse -- A Lot More- EWI
Last 7 days
Stock Market Volatility (VIX) - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Investor Sentiment - 25th Mar 24
The Federal Reserve Didn't Do Anything But It Had Plenty to Say - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Breadth - 24th Mar 24
Stock Market Margin Debt Indicator - 24th Mar 24
It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - 24th Mar 24
Stocks: What to Make of All This Insider Selling- 24th Mar 24
Money Supply Continues To Fall, Economy Worsens – Investors Don’t Care - 24th Mar 24
Get an Edge in the Crypto Market with Order Flow - 24th Mar 24
US Presidential Election Cycle and Recessions - 18th Mar 24
US Recession Already Happened in 2022! - 18th Mar 24
AI can now remember everything you say - 18th Mar 24
Bitcoin Crypto Mania 2024 - MicroStrategy MSTR Blow off Top! - 14th Mar 24
Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - 11th Mar 24
Gold and the Long-Term Inflation Cycle - 11th Mar 24
Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - 11th Mar 24
Two Reasons The Fed Manipulates Interest Rates - 11th Mar 24
US Dollar Trend 2024 - 9th Mar 2024
The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - 9th Mar 2024
Investors Don’t Believe the Gold Rally, Still Prefer General Stocks - 9th Mar 2024
Paper Gold Vs. Real Gold: It's Important to Know the Difference - 9th Mar 2024
Stocks: What This "Record Extreme" Indicator May Be Signaling - 9th Mar 2024
My 3 Favorite Trade Setups - Elliott Wave Course - 9th Mar 2024
Bitcoin Crypto Bubble Mania! - 4th Mar 2024
US Interest Rates - When WIll the Fed Pivot - 1st Mar 2024
S&P Stock Market Real Earnings Yield - 29th Feb 2024
US Unemployment is a Fake Statistic - 29th Feb 2024
U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - 29th Feb 2024
What a Breakdown in Silver Mining Stocks! What an Opportunity! - 29th Feb 2024
Why AI will Soon become SA - Synthetic Intelligence - The Machine Learning Megatrend - 29th Feb 2024
Keep Calm and Carry on Buying Quantum AI Tech Stocks - 19th Feb 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

An Unstoppable Technology Trend for Investor Profits

Companies / Robotics Jun 14, 2013 - 11:06 AM GMT

By: Investment_U

Companies

Carl Delfeld writes: One of my favorite television series as a child was The Jetsons. Its creators worked to give us their vision of life in 2062 – a full century from the show’s debut in 1962.

We’re halfway there.

But many of the gadgets in the show still seem farfetched. First to mind is the folding space car that fits neatly into a briefcase. And how about eating nothing but a pill for dinner?


On the other hand, the family’s robot maid “Rosie” highlights an area where we are well ahead of the game.

Take “Ava,” the 5-foot robot with an iPad for a brain and Xbox motion sensors to help it navigate around a kitchen or living room. It’s built by Boston-based iRobot (Nasdaq: IRBT).

IRobot has already sold millions of disc-shaped Roomba vacuum cleaners, and its bomb-disposal robots have protected soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Growth Potential
The military is a key player in the growth of robotics.

The Robot Report notes that Recon Robotics received Marine and Army orders for 1,100 of its Scout XT robots (a $13.9 million deal). And iRobot received a Department of Defense order for 105 of its FirstLook robots (worth $1.5 million in sales).

The health sector is another promising opportunity for robot makers.

IRobot recently expanded its partnership with InTouch Health, a small company that enables doctors at computer screens to remotely treat stroke victims and other patients.

And then there is a $775 million acquisition of Kiva Systems by Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN). Kiva makes self-propelled turtle-like robots that scramble around warehouses to retrieve and carry packages to their proper shipping point.

Since fulfilling orders costs Amazon about $3.5 billion a year, this fresh robotic technology will help increase efficiency and lower costs.

Following the Leader
While iRobot is an intriguing, high risk/high reward story worth watching, let me tell you about Fanuc (FANUF.PK), a Japanese blue chip.

Headquartered in the shadows of Mount Fuji, Fanuc is the world’s leading manufacturer of computerized numerical control devices that are used in machine tools. Its products also serve as the “brains” of industrial robots.

Fanuc, whose name is an acronym for Fuji Automatic Numerical Control, has been a world leader in robotics since the early 1970s. It was founded as a wholly owned subsidiary of Fujitsu in 1955 after the electronics giant decided to enter the factory automation business.

Fanuc offers investors a pristine balance sheet with zero debt and a whopping $7 billion in cash. Profit margins are impressive with a 38% operating margin and a 26.7% net margin for a return on assets of almost 10%. The company is also showing solid top-line growth with its latest quarter showing a 15.8% rise in year-over-year sales.

One key idea to keep in mind is China’s manufacturing wages are rising by 20% per year. Companies will turn to robots to combat the added costs.

To help prepare for future growth, Fanuc is using a joint venture to build a brand-new 37,900-square-meter facility. The new plant will pump out as many as 3,800 sets of robot systems each year.

But what’s really interesting, Fanuc claims to be the world’s only company using robots to build robots. It’s proof that the Jetsons were on to something big. Robots play a larger role than even the show’s creators imagined some 50 years ago.

With Fanuc stock off 20% so far this year, I suggest you dig deeper into this intriguing opportunity.

Fanuc is a high-quality play on an unstoppable trend.

Good investing,

Carl

Source: http://www.investmentu.com/2013/June/an-unstoppable-trend.html

http://www.investmentu.com

Copyright © 1999 - 2013 by The Oxford Club, L.L.C All Rights Reserved. Protected by copyright laws of the United States and international treaties. Any reproduction, copying, or redistribution (electronic or otherwise, including on the world wide web), of content from this website, in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited without the express written permission of Investment U, Attn: Member Services , 105 West Monument Street, Baltimore, MD 21201 Email: CustomerService@InvestmentU.com

Disclaimer: Investment U Disclaimer: Nothing published by Investment U should be considered personalized investment advice. Although our employees may answer your general customer service questions, they are not licensed under securities laws to address your particular investment situation. No communication by our employees to you should be deemed as personalized investment advice. We expressly forbid our writers from having a financial interest in any security recommended to our readers. All of our employees and agents must wait 24 hours after on-line publication or 72 hours after the mailing of printed-only publication prior to following an initial recommendation. Any investments recommended by Investment U should be made only after consulting with your investment advisor and only after reviewing the prospectus or financial statements of the company.

Investment U Archive

© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in