EPAM Systems

A few weeks ago, I was screening the market, looking for some great stocks.

I discovered a name I never heard of: EPAM Systems.

I bet most of you never heard about it too, except on one of my recent posts where I listed that stock as an interesting name.

I have to admit that I'm a bit puzzled by the width of services offered by EPAM: Brand development and communication, multichannel content strategy, process optimization, cybersecurity, automation, cloud transformation, virtual and augmented reality, robotic process automation and many more. So, it's a tech stock combined to a marketing stock. Or a kind of CGI and Accenture. I don't really know how to qualify them.

Anyway, who gives a fuck about what they do, as long as they make money. In that regard, things look pretty good for EPAM systems if we take a look at recent EPS:

2012: 1,17$
2013: 1,28$
2014: 1,40$
2015: 1,62$
2016: 1,87$
2017: 1,32$
2018: 4,24$
2019: 4,53$

EPAM share price 8 years ago: 23$
EPAM share price 5 years ago: 72$
EPAM share price today: 192$

The growth hasn't been ultra steady, but it's been consistent enough to qualify this stock on my watch list. According to Value Line, it's predictability is about 75%, which is an interesting level to me.

Plus, the company has a very low debt in comparison to annual earnings.

The recent growth rate has been high and is expected to stay at a high level for the next year (but who really knows in these highly uncertain times?). If the estimates are OK, the forward PE of the stock is about 25. It's not cheap, but for a high-growth company with a very low debt, it's an OK price.

The CEO is a guy from Belarus. He looks very intelligent but a bit like a killer. A kind of KGB killer, as long as KGB has probably nothing to do with Belarus. Take a look at these eyes. The guy could probably make you shit in your pants if he was your boss. I wouldn't say he doesn't inspire trust, but he surely inspires fear. Like a middle-age king.


Well, EPAM headquarters are in the USA. So, perhaps only his heart is in Belarus.

Who knows who we can trust in that stock market? Since big fat Mike Pearson of Valeant fame put his small dick in my ass, I feel cheated and I can't trust blindly any CEO.

If I can't trust canadians and americans, what about a CEO from an ancien communist country?

It's so complicated. I just want to love someone.