KForce Inc. (KFRC $10.77) Kforce Inc is a national provider of professional and technical specialty staffing services in two categories - Flexible Staffing Services and Search Services.  KFRC serves Fortune 1000 clients and both local and regional companies that are small to mid-size.  It operates through 69 locations in over 40 metropolitan markets. Thorough consulting with clients helps them determine their staffing and time duration requirements. Kforce  

One noticeable drawback is that for the company's fiscal year ended 12/31/03, revenues fell 3% to $495.6 million. Net income before an accounting change totaled $5.1 million, much improved from a year earlier loss of $13.2 million. Results were said to reflect billing reductions in Health Care, offset by reduced commissions.

Technically, on Friday the stock attempted to break out of a better than 15 week base, and it did a fairly respectable job before later reversing and ending the session under its February 11th, 2004 peak.  On breakouts we like to see better than 50% above average volume which is the minimum guideline suggested by O'Neil for a proper technical buy signal.  It was up on high volume, nearly five times its average. But a lack of extremely meaningful price progress is a small hint that its prior highs are still serving as a fairly stiff resistance level for now.  Follow through action may be worth waiting to see as a buy confirmation. However, if the latest new intra-day highs alone were considered as a technical buy signal, under the guidelines it would now be considered well within the buyable range.  (See the pivot point and maximum buy price in the table below). 

IMPORTANT NOTE: KFRC is scheduled to report it first quarter 2004 earning on Tue, Apr 27, 2004, 11:00 am Eastern, and it may be best to see how KFRC reacts to earnings before considering for a long term purchase.  Kforce recently affirmed its first-quarter forecast of revenue between $129 million and $133 million and earnings per share of breakeven to 2 cents. This would be compared to an EPS of $0.01 for the same quarter a year ago, and while we like to see of a minimum of a +25% increase, in comparisons versus a penny a report of two cents would not necessarily be considered as substantial growth.  At least not as impressive as a +100% increase might sound. Furthermore, earnings news often leads stocks to trade with excessive volume and volatility, and stocks that are low priced (under $10) can be especially dangerous without a strict sell discipline in place to protect against losses of greater than 7-8%. 

More Info: 5-year Chart from BigCharts.com

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