I don't believe it is anything structural. Companies evolve to...

I don't believe it is anything structural. Companies evolve to align with markets - BKL's early move into the medical cannabis market as one example - changing their supply models in China (and Asia more broadly) another. Remove 2016 (which the company has rightly called themselves an aberration) and the pricing movement etc is just a re-balance. The one mistake I made was probably coming in a bit early but I don't intend to sell and in my experience a share price will eventually find intrinsic value which I judge to be between the $115 to $125 level over the next 3 years.

As to your question on EPS - it is a fairly simple\rudimentary model I deploy, but I measure the weighting of EPS between 1st and 2nd half's. Since 2004 1st year EPS tends to be higher by approx 7% than the 2nd year (though the last 3 years have seen a near exact reverse of that). Based on a 2017HY EPS of 163.8 I multiply by 1.93 (which reduces a straight doubling of the EPS by 7%) to get to $3.17. It has been a fairly accurate model I have used over a number of years and tends to capture the seasonality of a lot of stocks (particularly retail orientated ones)