As Facebook IPO nears, the case for dull stocks

Investors thinking of buying a piece of Facebook after it goes public are hoping it will perform like Google, whose stock has risen 500 percent since its debut seven and a half years ago.

But they may want to spare a thought for companies slightly less exciting - a truck leasing company, perhaps, or a manufacturer of ball bearings.

Stocks of those two have left Google, and the investors who didn't get into it early, in the dust in the past several years. So have more than half the companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 index.

Since the stock market peaked on Oct. 9, 2007, Ryder System Inc., which rents moving trucks, has returned 26 percent, counting dividends. Timken, the ball bearing company, 49 percent.

And the staid Johnson & Johnson, the 125-year-old maker of Tucks ointment to relieve hemorrhoids among thousands of other products, has trounced Google, too - returning 12 percent with dividends.

Google is up more than most stocks if you pick a different starting point, like 2004. But measured from the market peak, it's down 1.5 percent. In other words, the people who got in then still haven't broken even - four and half years later.

Even Microsoft, the lumbering software company whose best days are widely considered behind it, has done better, returning 12 percent, counting dividends.

The lesson is that when it comes to hot stocks, you can sit on losses for years if you happen to buy at the top and can't make up ground with dividend checks.

"They move like rockets, straight up," says Robert Russell, president of Russell & Co., a wealth management company in Ohio. "But they can fall back to earth, too."

In a filing earlier this month, Facebook said it plans to sell a yet-unknown stake for $5 billion, the largest for an Internet company's initial public offering. The buzz is that the offering could value the whole company at as much as $100 billion - more than Hewlett-Packard, AOL and Yahoo combined.

Whether the newly public stock - ticker symbol FB - will prove profitable for investors is another matter.

For a taste of the dangers of buying stock in companies in the spotlight, check out the performance of Internet IPOs last year. You've done OK if you got in at the offering price, set before the stock starts trading. But that's mostly reserved for the favored customers - pension funds, mutual funds, hedge funds and other institutions. The little guy isn't doing nearly as well.

After sharp rises on the first day of trading, most stocks have fallen. That's true for Groupon Inc., the online daily deals site, Pandora Media Inc., an Internet radio operator, and the consumer reviews site Angie's List Inc.

Even the online professional network LinkedIn Corp., a stock that surged Friday on news of unexpected big quarterly profits, is down 4.6 percent from its IPO close.

In hindsight, people looking to strike it rich should have stuck with the IPOs of companies more obscure, like fertilizer maker CVR Partners. Since its public debt in April, the company, which sells nitrogen fertilizer to farmers from a factory in Kansas, is up 77 percent.

Its lucky owners also get something those of pie-in-the-sky Internet outfits can only dream about - dividends. CVR is expected to send checks to its shareholders over the next year of $2 per share, or 8 percent of its stock price even after the big run-up.

As it turns out, dividends have played a role in other recent triumphs of the boring over the bedazzling.

During the stock market swoon from Oct. 2007 to March 2009, Johnson & Johnson stock fell only half as much as Google. That's because J&J still has a fat 3.5 percent dividend yield. Google doesn't pay a dividend.

Those checks in the mail helped on the way up, too. Without dividends, J&J would have lost 2 percent since the market peak instead of returning 12 percent. Microsoft would be up just 2 percent instead of 12 percent.

Those companies can pay dividends because they make big profits, another thing lacking at many Internet companies. Internet bulls don't seem to be bothered, preferring to focus on sales. The idea is if you grow them fast, profits will come naturally.

But investors can lose patience waiting.

On Wednesday, Groupon announced that it had tripled revenue last quarter providing deals on restaurant meals, hotel stays, manicures and the like. No matter. The company also said it hadn't turned a profit - not yet at least. Its stock fell 14 percent.

Facebook is already profitable, but not enough to justify that top-end value of $100 billion. At that lofty height, the company would trade at 145 times what it earned in 2011. The S&P 500 is trading at 15 times last year's profits.

So investors are talking about Facebook's almost $3.7 billion in sales last year, which helps justify the value a bit more, maybe. At $100 billion, Facebook stock would be trading at 27 times sales. LinkedIn is trading at 20 times and Google at five.

We'd all be rich, of course, if picking stocks was just a matter of checking sales multiples or dividend yields or any other simple gauge. Apple doesn't pay a dividend, for instance, but that didn't stop it from rising. Facebook could indeed become the next Apple.

But when it comes to investing, you could do worse than avoiding exciting new businesses in the headlines and putting your money instead into tired old ones you never see articles about, and wouldn't care to read if you did.

Like a company hawking deep fryers.

National Presto Industries makes Big Daddy fryers and other kitchen gadgets as well as what's delicately called "incontinence products," better known as adult diapers. It's run out of a cinderblock converted World War II munitions factory in Eau Claire, Wis., by Maryjo Cohen, a woman so frugal she refused for years to fly anything but coach on business trips, upgrade from Microsoft Office 97 on her computer or replace the Eisenhower-era iron desks at headquarters.

Better to save money for dividends, which the company has been paying for 67 years. That's 40 years before the birth of Mark Zuckerberg, the hoodie-wearing Facebook CEO.

Cohen prefers sensible skirts and blouses but somehow has managed to lift Presto stock up 90 percent above where it was trading at the stock market peak. With dividends, it's returned 157 percent.

Optim buys a business

Optim LLC, a maker of optical imaging tools, has acquired a small startup called Precision Endoscopic Technologies. The acquisition will allow Optim to expand into the field of gastrointestinal endoscopy.

Precision makes a patented infrared coagulation system for the treatment of hemorrhoids. Precision Endoscopic Technologies LLC will become a division of Optim and will share Optim's headquarters at 64 Technology Park Road in Sturbridge.

Optim said the acquisition will allow it to transition from a purely diagnostic endoscope company to a company that provides both diagnostic and therapeutic endoscopic capabilities.
Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

“With over 4 million new cases of hemorrhoids reported each year, we believe that Precision will lead the way in providing a better quality of life for those suffering from this often painful condition,” Optim President Thomas V. Root said in a news release.

Lisa Skowyra, marketing associate at Optim, said Optim plans to market and sell Precision's hemorrhoid treatment system. She said Precision has about two employees, who will move to Sturbridge. One of them is Dr. Michael Epstein of Annapolis, Md., who invented the Precision system.

Sturbridge-based Optim, which is privately held, has about 55 employees.

'What To Expect When You're' Anna Kendrick

One thing you can say about Anna Kendrick: girlfriend is versatile! One minute she's playing a flighty high school student in "Twilight," the next minute she's wowing us as a be-suited professional businesslady in "Up in the Air", and then—BAM—it's back to school again for more Forks drama and a stint in "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World." (Not to mention her part in the upcoming "Rapturepalooza," where she'll take her own turn battling evil forces to save the human race from apocalypse and extinction.)

So it's no surprise, after all this, that her most recent casting announcement is totally unlike any of those other roles in any way whatsoever.

The news: Lionsgate has confirmed that Anna will appear in "What to Expect When You're Expecting" (a movie based on that terrifying book about puking, hemorrhoids and all the other lovely things that happen during pregnancy). The film will be a "Love Actually"-style mashup of multiple plotlines—only with babies and minus the English Prime Minister—and also features Brooklyn Decker, Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Lopez.

Anna will play Rosie, a young woman who "reunites with an attractive old flame after a turf war between their respective food trucks, and they embark on a funny, poignant journey together in the wake of a surprise pregnancy."

Sounds like the 25-year-old may need to tap "Breaking Dawn" co-star Kristen Stewart for some on-screen pregnancy advice!

Colorectal cancer is preventable, treatable – provided you have regular colonoscopies

The best way to screen for colorectal cancer is with a colonoscopy. Howard Regional Health System's Dr. John Salter, a medical oncologist and hematologist, just can't say it any plainer than that.

March is Colon Cancer Awareness Month, and it brings to mind a body part that a lot of people don't like to talk about.

"People will occasionally pass blood in their stool – and I'm not talking about going to the bathroom and wiping and finding some blood on the toilet tissue, which is usually minor bleeding from hemorrhoids or diverticulitis, but I'm talking about where the water in the bowl turns red with all the blood – for weeks or longer before seeking medical attention because they're so embarrassed about talking about their bowel movements," said Salter. "The colon is dirty. It excretes waste. There's a lot of negative connotation to it."

"What upsets me is colon cancer's very treatable," Salter said. "It's preventable if caught early."

Someone who dreads talking to a doctor about bowel movements, the colon and rectum and fear having a colonoscopy should consider the alternative: Polyps can become cancerous, possibly leading to surgery, chemotherapy, radiation and excreting waste through an ostomy bag.

"It's terrible to think that a patient will be forced to use an ostomy for the rest of his or her life when this outcome is potentially preventable for most patients," Salter said.

Because a person is given general sedation, it's not painful to undergo a colonoscopy.

During the colonoscopy, a gastroenterologist or surgeon (depending on the patient's choice) will remove any polyps and perform any needed biopsies.

"The great thing about a colonoscopy is we can find anything and remove it right there and then," Salter said. "That's why having a colonoscopy is so important. If a polyp is precancerous, we can remove it before it becomes cancer."

Left undetected and untreated, colon cancer can spread to other organs, increasing a person's chance of dying from the disease.

Some colon cancers are genetic, just like with breast cancer.

According to the American Cancer Society, "Genetic tests can help determine if members of certain families have inherited a high risk for developing colorectal cancer due to syndromes such as familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) or hereditary non-polyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC). Without genetic testing, all members of a family known to have an inherited form of colorectal cancer should start screening at an early age and get screened frequently. If genetic testing is done for a known mutation within a family, those members who are found not to have the mutated gene may be able to be screened at the same age and frequency as people at average risk.

"When looking at whether testing might be appropriate, a genetic counselor will try to get a detailed view of your family history. For example, doctors have found that many families with HNPCC tend to have certain characteristics:

A least three relatives have colorectal cancer.

One should be a first-degree relative (parent, sibling, or child) of the other two relatives.

At least two successive generations are involved.

At least one relative had cancer when that person was younger than age 50.

Tumors should be verified by pathologic examination."

Reduce your risk of colorectal cancer

Reducing your risks for colon and rectal cancer can be easier than you think.

It is important to consider your colon and rectal health during March, which is Colorectal

Cancer Awareness Month, and every day.

Many of the measures that are recommended to prevent heart disease and diabetes will also

serve to decrease your chances for getting colon cancer, said Gregory FitzHarris, a

colorectal surgeon with Sentara Surgery Specialists.

He said many diseases work in similar ways. If you don't take care of your health, your risk

for developing diseases you are most susceptible to is even higher.

Smoking, eating a large amount of red meat and not eating enough fruits and vegetables will

increase your odds of getting colon cancer.

Exercising and having a healthy diet will decrease your risk most of all. He also strongly

advises people to get regular colorectal screenings.

Western Tidewater has some of the highest mortality rates from colon and rectal cancer in all

of Virginia, according to Virginia Department of Health data from 2004 to 2008.

Symptoms of colorectal cancer include rectal bleeding, blood in your stool, a change in bowel

habits, constipation or diarrhea that lasts for more than two weeks, abdominal discomfort,

feeling like your bowel does not empty completely, fatigue, weakness, unexplained weight

loss, and gas pain lasting more than two weeks.

Sometimes, rectal bleeding can occur when a person has hemorrhoids, so it is difficult to

pinpoint distinguishable symptoms, he said. The other symptoms, too, could be caused by

something other than colorectal cancer.

"It takes quite a while for polyps to turn into cancer," he said.

Removing precancerous polyps and being screened regularly can decrease your chances for

getting colon cancer, he said. Getting a screening can help people avoid getting colon

cancer.

When a person is able to identify the symptoms as being related to colon cancer, they already

have the disease.

"Unfortunately, we have folks that don't get a colonoscopy," he said.

If a patient is found to have stage 1 colon cancer, their chances of having a disease-free

survival after the removal of the diseased part of the colon is 90-95 percent, he said.

"The earlier you catch it, the better your survival rate," he said.

There are other methods that doctors use to screen for colon cancer and polyps, but

FitzHarris said other methods are less effective.

"They're nowhere near as sensitive as a colonoscopy," he said.

If a polyp is found or suspected using the other methods of screening, the patient will need

to have a colonoscopy to follow up.

"A colonoscopy is the gold standard," he said.

Most people should have a colonoscopy at age 50, he said. Black people are more susceptible

to getting colorectal cancer and getting it sooner in life. He recommends that they begin

screenings at age 45. If you have a family member with colorectal cancer, he recommends being

screened 10 years earlier than the age your family member discovered they had the cancer.

If polyps are detected, go to a colorectal surgeon, he said.

"Don't wait for symptoms to get screened," he said.