Earnings season is quieting down. Air Transport Services Group reported last Tuesday but otherwise it will be about a month before some of the early birds start reporting in May.

Overall our stocks enjoyed a great season with many seeing big surges in revenue and earnings. Charles River Labs (NYSE: CRL up 20%), our longest held position, finally got the market to agree with its soup to nuts outsourced lab strategy. Housing related stocks continue to do well on strong numbers. We enjoyed gains in U.S. Concrete (NSDQ: USCR)   and Masonite (NSDQ: DOOR) up 19% and 21% respectively since purchase. I’ll be reviewing all estimate changes for our stocks and will be sure to notify you of any targets that are updated based on new estimates.

In addition I’ll be spending some time looking at several new IPOs that are lined up to price their deals in the next two weeks. The Snap IPO has inspired confidence in these young bucks and their bankers so look for a busier new issue calendar. Current holding Ichor Systems (NSDQ: ICHR), which is up 24% in two months, and sold position Camping World Holdings (NYSE: CWH), which gained 46% in a similar time frame, were found in the IPO bin so it’s a great place to find new stocks for our portfolio.

Be sure to note we added a new stock and call position in Big Five Sporting Group (NSDQ: BGFV). The company should continue to prosper due to the demise of several sporting good competitors and its focus on outdoor retail locations, which are outselling mall based retailers significantly.

I’ll be issuing a sell early in the week on the Winnebago puts (NYSE: WGO). Although they are in the money right now I was hoping for another big drop to give us a nice profit in this trade. These calls expire Friday so the trade will need to be made early this week. Unfortunately the news I expected came but was too late to generate a gain. Our H&E Equipment (NSDQ: HEES) calls will unfortunately expire worthless. The entire energy group got clocked with the drop in the price of oil. I still like the fundamentals but the calls were too far out of the money for us to make a good trade. I underestimated the influence the price of oil would have on the stock price. 

Air Transport (NSDQ: ATSG) shot up over $17.50 last week when it reported a strong fourth quarter. Revenue was $20 million higher than expected and earnings beat by a penny, a surprise as an unexpected labor strike hit the quarter by $7 million of additional  expenses. Management was quite bullish on 2017. Amazon will start using the 6 remaining planes ordered from Air Transport by mid-summer. Amazon will then be using a total of 20 Air Transport planes. Almost 80% of its fleet is under long term contracts currently, a percent management expects to increase this year. Long term contracts help lessen the risk of idle aircraft for Air Transport. The stock was upgraded to Outperform at Stephens which has a $22 target.