And they are wasting no time in dumping their losing stocks. Hugh Holman, an analyst with Robertson Stephens in Boston, says he is maintaining his buy rating on the company's stock despite the decline in share price. But, he adds, Waste Connections is a different story. It is still small and can show good growth momentum of 30 percent to 40 percent through its acquisitions. The others are too large to benefit from these smaller purchases.
Most analysts rate the company a strong or moderate buy.
Most importantly, Bouck says, all were profitable. The company's strategy has been to focus on rapidly growing secondary markets west of the Mississippi. In that way, the Folsom company doesn't find itself competing head-on with much larger and heavily financed competitors. Bouck says Waste Connections has been buying about four companies a month and notes that there are still a large number of companies out there to buy. The bottom line on this stock is that it's essentially back to its IPO price with considerably more earnings and revenues.