股票观察:CMG和PCLN 这是两家很热门的股票,也是最近突然大跌的股票。是不是一个难得的投资机会来临?大家读读这里的两篇文章,会有不少的收获的。我的感觉是:绝对值得好好的观察,很可能在这之后有不错的投资机会。 Is Chipotle Now A Buy? Jacob Steinberg As of closing on August 10th 2012, Chipotle's (CMG) share price was $295 which is 34% lower than the 52-week high price of $442 reached just a few months ago. For months, many analysts warned that Chipotle was overpriced and it was due for a sharp correction. Even I had a couple of articles about Chipotle stating that it was one of the most overpriced companies in the market. Of course, there were also many analysts that were overly optimistic regarding the stock, setting up price targets as high as $500 for the company. Even the company itself issuedwarnings regarding the slowing same-store growth and contracting margins in the last couple quarters, but that wasn't good enough for many of the overly optimistic investors and analysts of the company. Now that the correction has happened, is Chipotle a good buy? First, I will look at it from a psychological perspective. For the last several years, Chipotle was the "sweetheart" of Wall Street. When a company becomes a Wall Street Sweetheart, it can rally for a long time with or without a legit reason. But again, many times Wall Street dumps its sweethearts and these stocks take a long time to recover. For example, during the dot.com bubble, Cisco (CSCO) was one of Wall Street's sweethearts, and for the last decade, the company's stock price appreciation failed to impress many investors as it fell way below the company's earnings growth. Now, we don't know if Chipotle will be "dumped" from the Wall Street Sweetheart status or not. Psychologically speaking, if it continues to receive support from the analysts and large investors, the stock price can recover quickly regardless of the company's fundamentals. Otherwise, it may be a tough road for the company even if it develops the strongest fundamentals ever. This is just the psychological aspects of the matter. As much as the numbers go, the company's P/E ratio dropped from 57 to 36 in the last few months. This is encouraging for the investors wanting to get in. As Chipotle continues to enjoy double-digit growth and has very low amount of debt in its balance sheet, the company could support a P/E ratio of 30. While the current P/E ratio for Chipotle is still a bit high, the psychological factors I mentioned above will be the real determinants of the bottom price for the company. Because Chipotle already got many of the premier locations in American cities, most of the company's future growth will rely on either international markets or offering different niches, such as a Chinese restaurant. Currently, the company has very little exposure to international markets with a few restaurants here and there. Outside of the USA, the company is not well known and it is difficult to know what kind of reaction and demand it can get in places like Europe, Asia and Latin America. The company will have to do its homework and determine which countries would be more receptive to its products, or perhaps offer completely new products in countries that may not be as receptive to its current line of products. The company's same-store sales growth rate is 8%, which is much higher than the industry average of 3%. Yet, this is not able to satisfy the investors of the company as it enjoys a higher P/E ratio than the industry average. The company sees growth through both new stores and existing stores. Of the 22 analysts covering the stock, 14 recently increased their earnings estimate for this year for the company. The analysts currently expect the company to earn between $8.61 and $9.30 per share. The average earnings estimate for the company is $9.02 per share, giving it a forward P/E ratio of 32. In 2013, the analysts are expecting the company to make $10.94 per share followed by $13.42 in 2013 and $16.75 in 2014. This would yield a forward P/E ratio of 17 for 2014. Of course, if the company expands overseas successfully, the earnings might be much higher than the analyst estimates. According to Yahoo Finance, Chipotle has $405 million of cash, $124 million of short term investments and $169 million of long term investments, giving it cash and equivalents of $698 million. Given the company's market cap of $9.36 billion, its cash holdings make up 7.46% of the company's market value. Back in April, when Chipotle's market value was divided by its number of restaurants, each restaurant was valued at $11 million. Obviously this was a very high valuation for a burrito restaurant with a simple business model. Today -according to the latest earnings call- Chipotle has 1,316 active restaurants. According to the company's market value, each Chipotle restaurant has an average value of $7.11 million. This is not a very attractive valuation either but much better than it used to be. I rate Chipotle as hold as I am still not totally convinced of Chipotle's valuation. If the company's share price falls further and carries its P/E ratio at or below 30, I might consider initiating a position in this company. Until then, I will be on the sidelines. What To Do With Priceline? August 14, 2012 In this earnings season, one company after another blamed the economic weakness in Europe for the deceleration in their growth rates. After companies like Ford (F), Nike (NKE) and Apple (AAPL), Priceline (PCLN) also joined the camp of companies suffering from the European recession. Priceline also counted the strong US Dollar as one of the reasons for the disappointing earnings figures. The company sees a decelerating growth rate in the next few quarters and this trend is not likely to change until European economy can get on track (which in my personal view will take multiple years to accomplish). In the last few years, Priceline had an impressive amount of growth. The company's rally in the last couple years was very similar to the one in late 1990s during the dot.com boom, with the exception that this time the rally was tied to fundamentals rather than pure speculation. In the last decade, the earnings of the company grew at such a high rate that a possible 30% growth rate looks like a disappointing figure at the moment. In the next quarter Priceline expects its international bookings to grow by 25-30%, whereas the analysts were expecting a figure near 50%. The company generates a significant portion of its revenues from Europe and the slowness in Europe might hurt growth prospects of the company in the near term. In the last quarter, Priceline posted an earnings growth of 37% compared to the same period a year ago. This may sound impressive, however it fells far below the growth rate in the last several quarters. Many analysts and investors fear that the company's growth might slow down from here as the company nears maturity. Another issue for Priceline is presented by increased pressure from the competition such as Expedia and Orbitz. Currently the company enjoys a strong market share in North America and Europe and its market share seems to be stabilizing. For the time being, Priceline will have to seek growth in markets outside of Europe such as Latin America and Asia in order to keep its momentum going. It is hard to tell how much of the deceleration in Priceline's earnings growth is due to the temporary economic conditions and how much of it is due to other pressures such as competition. The answer to this question will determine whether Priceline is still a buy or not. One day after Priceline, Orbitz announced very similar results, hinting that the problem might be across the industry and not specific to Priceline alone. Most analysts covering the stock have lowered their earnings expectations for Priceline. The analysts now expect the company to earn $28.77 this year, $34.54 next year and $40.34 in 2014. Given the company's current share price of $559, we are looking at forward P/E ratios of 19, 16 and 14 for the next 3 years. This is not bad considering the $3.94 billion of cash and short term investments held by the company. The company's long term debt sits at $938 million. When a company has a strong balance sheet coupled with double-digit annual growth, it can sustain a relatively high P/E ratio compared to one with a weaker balance sheet and lower rate of growth. Priceline is currently far away from its 52-week high price of $775 per share. To be precise, the company's current share price of $559 is 28% lower than the company's 52-week high. The analysts have a wide range of price targets between $615 and $760 for the company, with the average price target sitting at $693. Goldman Sachs (GS) recentlyreduced its price target from $860 to $760, keeping the "buy" rating. Discounting for the company's liquid assets and assigning a P/E ratio south of 20 would give the company a target range around $650 for the next 12 months. Now back to the question, what do we do with Priceline? Younger investors will find a lot of growth potential in the company. While the company's growth rate was below the analyst expectations, it was still impressively high. This company will keep growing at a double-digit rate for at least 5-6 years and it is far from maturity. If you've been waiting to get in Priceline, this is a good time to get in. On the other hand, if you are ready to retire within a couple years and don't want to wait 3-4 years to get a return on your investment, I suggest that you choose a less volatile growth company such as Apple. Despite the recent plunge in its share price, Priceline is not a value stock; it is a pure growth stock and will continue to be for a while. This is important to keep in mind before investing in this company. Those who can afford to buy at least 100 shares of this company should reduce their risk by writing covered calls. Currently, the calls that expire in January 2013 with a strike price of $600 yield a premium of $36.40 which provides protection until the stock price falls below $522. 中国概念股贱卖为那般? |