Dana Doing The Right Things And Reaping The Benefits

Finding an undervalued stock with a solid story behind it is always good, but finding that story getting better with time is even better. That's what appears to be happening with Dana (DAN), as this diversified supplier of components for passenger, commercial, and off-highway vehicles continues to execute well on its plan to grow content, improve margins, and position itself for the evolving demands of its end-markets.

It can be deceptively easy to get caught up in and taken along with Wall Street's short attention span-driven boom-and-doom cycles. With that in mind, I've been cautious about fundamentally overhauling my long-term growth and profitability assumptions for the business. I do like Dana's prospects for value-adding M&A, margin self-improvement, and leveraging a better mix (including more power tech products down the line), but I don't believe Dana is going to suddenly become a FCF-generating machine in an industry where mid-single-digit margins are generally the best that even great companies (like Cummins (CMI)) can do. To that end, while a fair value in the $20s seems reasonable, and I'm comfortable modeling exceptional cash flow growth, today's valuation already seems to be pricing in a lot of progress.

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Dana Doing The Right Things And Reaping The Benefits