NEW YORK ( TheStreet) -- St. Joe Corporation (NYSE: JOE) has been upgraded by TheStreet Ratings from sell to hold. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures, solid stock price performance and notable return on equity. However, as a counter to these strengths, we also find weaknesses including unimpressive growth in net income, premium valuation and poor profit margins.
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- JOE's debt-to-equity ratio is very low at 0.07 and is currently below that of the industry average, implying that there has been very successful management of debt levels.
- JOE, with its decline in revenue, underperformed when compared the industry average of 7.5%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues fell by 12.3%. The declining revenue appears to have seeped down to the company's bottom line, decreasing earnings per share.
- The gross profit margin for ST JOE CO is rather low; currently it is at 16.76%. It has decreased from the same quarter the previous year. Along with this, the net profit margin of -9.24% is significantly below that of the industry average.
