HURC - Slowing Orders At Hurco A Growing Risk

I always considered a cyclical slowdown at Hurco (HURC) a “when, not if” proposition, and it seems like the when is an increasingly near-term concern. Fiscal first quarter results weren’t bad, but a third consecutive decline in orders shouldn’t be ignored, particularly when major players in the machine tool market are calling for a double-digit decline in orders in 2019 and European demand appears to be weakening.

Hurco remains undervalued relative to industrial sector norms, but I’m pretty cautious about the outlook for a host of industrial sectors, including “general manufacturing” and it’s