James Awad Selling Quotations

North Fork Bancorp stock is selling at about 20. We think its fair value would be about 30. But meanwhile, you're getting a 3 percent dividend yield and it's selling at 10 times earnings. Demographically, it's a very attractive area. So, your risk in buying North Fork is that you're a little bit early and the market doesn't care about value stocks for a while. And of course, in a period of rising rates, financial stocks don't do particularly well. But, ... if you buy it and put it away, you'll end up making 50 percent from current levels over a 12 to 18 month period.

The company has already talked about selling its credit card business. If that happens, it could give a real pop to the stock,

They got pounded, ... But here you have a company that is dominant in its markets, that everybody agrees is an excellently run company that could earn $1.75 (per share) next year, so it's selling at about 11-times earnings. And it's an acquisition candidate down the road. So you see the theme here is growing earnings, low valuation.

It's just a great stock to own here, ... The company is growing in excess of 20 percent. The demographics are great for education. The company is selling at about 15 times what we think they can earn next year. It's also one of the few independent publishers left and so we think it's a strategic acquisition candidate, probably worth over $60 a share, and the stock's at about $45.