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The following are today's upgrades for Validea's Low PE Investor model based on the published strategy of John Neff. This strategy looks for firms with persistent earnings growth that trade at a discount relative to their earnings growth and dividend yield.

MARINE PRODUCTS CORP (MPX) is a small-cap value stock in the Recreational Products industry. The rating according to our strategy based on John Neff changed from 60% to 79% based on the firm’s underlying fundamentals and the stock’s valuation. A score of 80% or above typically indicates that the strategy has some interest in the stock and a score above 90% typically indicates strong interest.

Company Description: Marine Products Corporation is a manufacturer of fiberglass boats. The Company offers a range of products to the family recreational markets through its Chaparral brands and to the sport fishing market through its Robalo brands. The Company manufactures Chaparral sterndrive pleasure boats including SSi and SSX models, and the Chaparral Surf Series. It also manufactures Chaparral outboard pleasure boats which include OSX Luxury Sportboats and SSi outboard models. Its product line includes Chaparral - SSi Sport Boats, Chaparral - SSX Sport Boats, Chaparral - Surf Series, Chaparral - OSX Sport Boats, Robalo - Center Consoles, Robalo - Cayman Bay Boats and Robalo - Dual Consoles. The Company sells its products through approximately 203 domestic independent authorized dealers, consisting of 64 Chaparral dealers, 49 Robalo dealers and 90 dealers that sell both brands located in markets throughout the United States. The Company also sells its products through around 87 international dealers.

The following table summarizes whether the stock meets each of this strategy's tests. Not all criteria in the below table receive equal weighting or are independent, but the table provides a brief overview of the strong and weak points of the security in the context of the strategy's criteria.

Detailed Analysis of MARINE PRODUCTS CORP

About John Neff: While known as the manager with whom many top managers entrusted their own money, Neff was far from the smooth-talking, high-profile Wall Streeter you might expect. He was mild-mannered and low-key, and the same might be said of the Windsor Fund that he managed for more than three decades. In fact, Neff himself described the fund as "relatively prosaic, dull, [and] conservative." There was nothing dull about his results, however. From 1964 to 1995, Neff guided Windsor to a 13.7 percent average annual return, easily outpacing the S&P 500's 10.6 percent return during that time. That 3.1 percentage point difference is huge over time -- a $10,000 investment in Windsor (with dividends reinvested) at the start of Neff's tenure would have ended up as more than $564,000 by the time he retired, more than twice what the same investment in the S&P would have yielded (about $233,000). Considering the length of his tenure, that track record may be the best ever for a manager of such a large fund.

About Validea: Validea is aninvestment researchservice that follows the published strategies of investment legends. Validea offers both stock analysis and model portfolios based on gurus who have outperformed the market over the long-term, including Warren Buffett, Benjamin Graham, Peter Lynch and Martin Zweig. For more information about Validea, click here

The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.