Companies: AFC    ERT    MBY    MOSB    MRX   

Analyst David Marshall is bullish about a number of stocks on his patrol, particularly children’s television intellectual property owner Entertainment Rights. He has upgraded his stance to a buy on the back of some notable deals – principally the agreement to get Postman Pat on HBO television in the US and on the Disney channel in Japan. In the UK, a contract is in place for Rupert the Bear with Five and Jim Jam & Sunny on ITV. Marshall says the shares, currently priced at 37.75p, are worth more than 40p.

In other sectors of the market, Marshall rates Moss Bross and Mayborn as still worth buying too. Improvements are continuing ‘apace’ at suits retailer Moss Bross, with a new CEO driving a more efficient supply chain and improving margins. ‘Stripping out the cash the p/e falls to 11 times’, and a bid ‘would have to be pitched considerably higher to induce the founding families to sell’.

The baby and child division of household goods counter Mayborn is its ‘main engine for growth’ and its market share is increasing. Dividend growth is outpacing earnings and, like Moss, the company sits on a p/e below 12.

Fellow number cruncher Ian McInally has flagged up two to sell: plumbing play Advanced Fluid Connections (AFC) at 4p and engineer Metalrax at 69p. With mounting copper prices adding to the cost of production, AFC had ‘a simply awful last year’ and the copper price is unlikely to fall dramatically in the near term. Therefore, short-term uncertainty merits selling. Uninspiring interims from Metalrax and ‘not much movement ahead for the shares’ leads McInally to another bearish conclusion. Although the current yield of 7.8 per cent is tempting, ‘the dividend seems unlikely to be maintained unless trading improves in the short/medium term’.