Author: Noah Kiedrowski

Hasbro Stock Struggling To Find Footing

Posted on by Noah Kiedrowski

The retail cohort reported a mixed bag during the most recent earnings season with Target (TGT), Khol’s (KSS), Gap (GPS), WalMart (WMT), Best Buy (BBY) and the Retail ETF (XRT) all experiencing downward pressure. This pressure has been exacerbated by the market wide sell-off in the broader indices. Hasbro (HAS) has struggled to find its footing moving into its historically biggest quarter. Hasbro is setting the post Toys R Us bankruptcy narrative and laying out a business roadmap for long-term profitable growth across its brands. The headwinds attributable to the bankruptcy of Toy R Us appear to be subsiding. This sentiment has been further bolstered by positive commentary from its CEO that the company will absolve itself of this Toy R Us related bankruptcy headwind come 2019. As Hasbro realigns and effectively manages the Toy R Us liquidation, this challenging backdrop is beginning to resolve itself to Hasbro's benefit. There are many current and future growth catalysts for Hasbro in movie franchises such as Marvel, Star Wars and other Disney (DIS) properties (Hasbro is the exclusive toy maker). Potential e-sports with Dungeons and Dragons and Magic: The Gathering, newly acquired Power Rangers franchise which will emulate Hasbro’s My Little Pony and Transformers’ Bumblebee within Hasbro Studios and its legacy games such as Monopoly and Nerf. Hasbro may benefit from a strong consumer, record low unemployment, a strong and growing dividend yield, clear skies post Toy R Us liquidation and putting forth initiatives within Hasbro Studios to further propel growth thus presenting a compelling long-term buy.

E-Commerce Channels Mitigating Toys R Us Bankruptcy

Analysts are predicting e-commerce toy orders to balloon to 40% of overall sales this year, up from 28% last year. Since Toys R Us has gone bankrupt, this puts a void of ~14% of last year’s U.S. toy sales that needs to be bridged, translating into $2.5 billion in revenue. This void will likely be filled by Target, Walmart and Amazon (AMZN) which recently, for the first time it will offer free shipping to everyone through the day before Christmas with no minimum purchase required. Per Jefferies analyst Stephanie Wissink, 70% of toy sales occur during the holiday season. Target and Walmart have announced expanded free-shipping programs of their own to drive online sales. Wissink sees Hasbro’s stock hitting $120 within a year and notes that the overall set-up for 2019 looks better than 2018. As other retail chains close the gap with the Toys R Us vacancy, Hasbro will likely return to form and growth across its brands. Hasbro has one more quarter to report earnings in which the Toys R Us issues will be impacting its numbers. 2019 will be free of this headwind, and all numbers will come full circle and be compared to post Toys R Us landscape. Continue reading "Hasbro Stock Struggling To Find Footing" →

CVS: Successfully Fighting Back to 52-Week Highs

Posted on by Noah Kiedrowski

Back in August, I had written an article highlighting the pharmaceutical supply chain cohort, presenting the case that these stocks were inexpensive in a very frothy market. Specifically, I profiled McKesson (MCK), Cardinal Health (CAH), CVS Health (CVS) and Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) and made the case that these stocks presented compelling value investments as all were near multi-year lows. The four companies above have healthy balance sheets and growing dividends while seizing partnerships and acquisitions to propel growth into the future. It’s no secret that these companies have been faced with several headwinds that have negatively impacted the growth and the changing marketplace conditions have plagued these stocks. The political backdrop has been a major headwind for the entire pharmaceutical supply chain (i.e., drug manufacturers, pharmaceutical wholesalers, and pharmacies/pharmacy benefit managers). Exacerbating the political climate, the drug pricing debate continues to rage on throughout political and social media circles weighing on the overarching sector. This backdrop erodes pricing power and margins of drugs that ultimately move from drug manufacturers to patients with insurers and other middlemen playing roles in the supply chain web. In an effort to address these headwinds and restore growth, companies within this cohort have made bold moves such as CVS acquiring Aetna (AET) to form a colossus bumper-to-bumper healthcare company and Cardinal Health shelling out $6.1 billion to acquire Medtronic's Patient Care, Deep Vein Thrombosis and Nutritional Insufficiency business. The overall cohort has been making bold acquisitions, heeding the competitive threats from the likes of Amazon (AMZN), possess great balance sheets, growing dividends, share buyback programs and more often than not posting growth albeit slower growth. These stocks presented value that provided a margin of safety that were largely de-risked considering the multi-year lows. Relative to the frothy market, these stocks were very inexpensive and witnessed a nice resurgence since proposing these stocks as value plays. CVS and Walgreens have retraced their 52-week highs as of late moving from their August lows and posting a 25% ($64 to $80) and 24% ($66 to $82), respectively. Specifically, I’ll be highlighting CVS Health as a continued value play for a long-term investment.

CVS and Aetna Combination

To further boost long-term growth prospects and fend off potential competition, CVS made a move to acquire Aetna and creates the first through-in-through healthcare company, combining CVS's pharmacies and PBM platform with Aetna's insurance business. Collectively, the acquisition is valued at $78 billion between stock and cash. This new CVS will combine its existing pharmacy benefits manager (PBM) and retail pharmacies with the second largest diversified healthcare company. This is a bold and hefty price tag to pay yet may be necessary to compete in the increasingly competitive healthcare space in the face of drug pricing pressures. CVS is making a defensive yet necessary acquisition moving into the future. Continue reading "CVS: Successfully Fighting Back to 52-Week Highs" →

Will IBM's Red Hat Acquisition Finally Move The Needle?

Posted on by Noah Kiedrowski

International Business Machines (IBM) had been trading range bound for five months from mid-April through mid-September, trading between roughly $140 and $145. Before its Q3 earnings, IBM had finally broken out to $154 with a subsequent implosion after its earnings release that fell short of expectations coupled with its announcement that it will be acquiring Red Hat (RHT) for $34 billion.

IBM’s stock is now at a 52-week low after the company missed revenue targets, notably a drop in Cognitive Solutions and server weakness implying that its revived nascent growth earlier this year will be subdued moving forward. IBM’s stock has been decimated and now trades at ~$115 per share or down over 30% from it's 52- week high of $171. IBM has had a long turn in restoring growth after posting 20+ consecutive quarters of declining revenue however IBM had posted back-to-back quarters of revenue growth as of late.

This growth has come on heels of its long-term imperatives beginning to bear fruit in emerging high-value segments that has fundamentally changed its business mix while evolving its offerings to align with new age information technology demands. The Red Hat acquisition will ostensibly augment its transition away from its dependency on legacy businesses to the future of cloud, artificial intelligence, and analytics. Continue reading "Will IBM's Red Hat Acquisition Finally Move The Needle?" →

Facebook - Compelling Buy Heading Into Q3 Earnings

Posted on by Noah Kiedrowski

Facebook’s (FB) disastrous second quarter conference call erased $119 billion in market capitalization in a single session marking the worst one day drop for any large-cap company in history while the stock shed a fifth of its value. Since then, ancillary fallout emanating from its core data misuse scandal involving Cambridge Analytica continue to surface.

Security issues affecting 50 million accounts, a lawsuit alleging concealing video ad measurements and increasing EU scrutiny have continued to plague the stock since its second-quarter implosion. The original mishandling user data resulted in the stock tumbling from $195 to $152 or 22% at the time. Facebook appreciated off those data misuse lows and broke out to $220, however, this scenario ended abruptly on the heels of its Q2 earnings. Facebook issued a major guide down in growth for the next few quarters tampering growth expectations in the near term. Facebook is facing a challenging confluence of slowing revenue growth, margin compression and stagnant daily active users in the near to intermediate term.

There’s been a recent initiative that has the backing of four large institutional investors to remove Mark Zuckerberg as Facebook’s chairman in the wake of all of these security issues. Despite these headwinds, Facebook is still posting accelerating revenue growth across all geographies, expanding market penetration with Instagram’s IGTV, Facebook’s Stories and monetization efforts in Messenger and WhatsApp. Facebook is still poised to grow at a double-digit clip with the most recent growth rate coming in at 42% in Q2.

The long-term picture looks bright for Facebook, and the recent sell-off in the stock and tech cohort is a good opportunity to initiate a long position as the company contends with and addresses all the issues across its platforms (Figure 1). Facebook remains a premier large-cap growth stock and inexpensive relative to other large-cap growth stocks in its cohort heading into Q3 earnings.

Facebook
Figure 1 – FANG cohort performance throughout the tech sell-off with Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google all shedding ~10% of their market capitalization

Scandals and High-Level Departures

There’s been a slew of negative press regarding additional issues negatively impacting the company’s platform and inflicting further damage on its reputation. Facebook disclosed a security issue that affected 50 million accounts. Continue reading "Facebook - Compelling Buy Heading Into Q3 Earnings" →

Disney: Fox Acquisition and Strong ESPN Numbers

Posted on by Noah Kiedrowski

Stock Trends Upward to New Highs

Disney (DIS) has finally broken out to new highs as the Fox (FOX) acquisition, and its streaming initiatives come into the fold. Now that the Fox acquisition is complete and its assets are being absorbed by Disney this once opaque situation now appears clear and definitive. Furthermore, Disney is divesting its 39% Sky ownership stake that it acquired via the Fox acquisition to Comcast (CMCSA). This divestiture enables Disney to reduce its debt that was required to purchase the Fox media assets and will allow more investment into its streaming services such as Hulu, ESPN Plus and its Disney branded streaming service that will directly compete with Netflix (NFLX) in 2019. The Fox acquisition brings a majority stake in Hulu (60% ownership) while its ESPN Plus launched earlier this year and has over 1 million subscribers in its early phases of being rolled out. Disney continues to dominate at the box office while posting great growth at its theme parks translating into robust and durable revenue streams. The company is evolving to meet the new age of media consumption demands of the consumer via streaming and on-demand content. To this end, shareholders are beginning to resonate with Disney’s vision for future growth and the stock has appreciated to a 52-week high as of late-breaking above the $118 level. Disney currently trades at a P/E of 14.5 while the average stock in the S&P 500 trades at ~25, representing a ~40% discount to the average stock in the index. Disney offers a compelling long-term investment opportunity given its backdrop.

ESPN Plus – Subscriber Numbers Released

ESPN Plus was launched earlier this year in April to a mixed skeptical reception among shareholders and consumers upon its debut. Due to precipitous declines in ESPN viewership via traditional cable, Disney was cornered to remediate its ESPN business and evolve to the cord cutting consumer. Recently, Disney announced a key milestone for its streaming platform, reaching over 1 million paid subscribers. ESPN is Disney’s first inroads into the streaming arena offering a package of sports which include Major League Baseball (MLB), National Hockey League (NHL), college football, soccer, boxing and UFC for $4.99 per month. Disney has kept its ESPN Plus subscriber numbers a secret and would only state that its paid subscriptions were "strong" and that growth was surpassing expectations. Continue reading "Disney: Fox Acquisition and Strong ESPN Numbers" →