Author: Noah Kiedrowski

Inexpensive Stocks: Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Cohort

Posted on by Noah Kiedrowski

The entire pharmaceutical supply chain cohort, specifically, McKesson (MCK), Cardinal Health (CAH), CVS Health (CVS) and Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) are all near multi-year lows despite still posting growth albeit slow with healthy balance sheets and growing dividends. This cohort has 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 including drug manufacturers, pharmaceutical wholesalers, and pharmacies/pharmacy benefit managers. Compounding 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 the pricing power 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. Cardinal Health shelled out $6.1 billion to acquire Medtronic's Patient Care, Deep Vein Thrombosis, and Nutritional Insufficiency business. McKesson has made a string of acquisitions over the past two years deploying $1.2 billion for Biologics, $2.1 billion for Rexall and $525 million for Vantage Oncology in 2016. This was followed by a $1.1 billion acquisition of CoverMyMeds, undisclosed acquisition costs for RxCrossroads and Well.ca in 2017. Thus far in 2018, McKesson acquired Medical Specialty Distributors. Continue reading "Inexpensive Stocks: Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Cohort" →

Facebook - $119 Billion Disastrous Conference Call

Posted on by Noah Kiedrowski

Facebook’s (FB) fundamentals were shining bright and outweighed its data misuse scandal from months’ prior leading into its Q2 earnings. In the wake of mishandling user data, Facebook’s stock tumbled from $195 to $152 or 22%. Facebook was well off those data misuse induced sell-off lows and marched right through its previous 52-week high and broke out to $219 for a nice ~44% rebound. This scenario ended abruptly on the heels of its Q2 earnings which came in shy of analysts’ expectations on the revenue front. Facebook also 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. Facebook’s CFO stated that investors could expect "revenue growth rates to decline by high single-digit percentages from prior quarters." 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. Factoring in this high single digit decrease in revenue, 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 is a good opportunity to initiate a long position as the company contends with and addresses all the issues across its platforms. Facebook remains a premier large-cap growth stock and inexpensive relative to other large-cap growth stocks in its cohort.

Disastrous Conference Call

Well, that was a disaster of a conference call. Facebook posted the largest one-day loss in market value by any company in stock market history. Facebook shed $119 billion worth of market capitalization after dropping ~20%. No other company has ever lost greater than $100 billion in market value in a single day (Figure 1). To add insult to injury, this was also Facebook’s worst day ever on the stock market. This sell-off came on the heels of a minor Q2 advertising revenue miss of $13.04 billion versus expectations of $13.16 billion and lower than expected daily active users in Europe. Key metrics suffered from data misuse and fake news issues within its platform. Continue reading "Facebook - $119 Billion Disastrous Conference Call" →

Hasbro Spikes 13% Following Positive Q2 Earnings

Posted on by Noah Kiedrowski

Hasbro's stock skyrocketed 13% after reporting better than expected Q2 earnings. Hasbro Inc. (NASDAQ:HAS) 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. Hasbro reported year-over-year overall revenue decline of 7%, however, beat on EPS and revenue by posting $0.48 (bearing by $0.18) and $904.5 million (beating by $66.4 million), respectively. Despite the negative revenue numbers, Hasbro's stock bounced to the upside especially after the earnings call commentary painted a positive long-term narrative while weathering the Toy "R" Us liquidation domestically and abroad. As Hasbro realigns and effectively manages the Toy R Us liquidation, this challenging backdrop is beginning to resolve itself to Hasbro's benefit. There's many current and future growth catalysts for Hasbro in movie franchises such as Marvel, Star Wars and other Disney properties since 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 has great Q3/Q4 2018 catalysts, 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.

Jim Cramer’s Mad Money Follow-Up Interview - “The Worst Is Over”

Previously, Jim Cramer interviewed Hasbro's CEO Brian Goldner on Mad Money, and he was confident that "the worst is over" for Hasbro as the Toys "R" Us liquidation unfolds. Goldner went on to say "I am certain that, a year from now, we will not be talking about Toys "R" Us in this negative light," Goldner added.

Now as a follow-on from that interview, conducted on July 23rd, Jim Cramer caught up Goldner to assess the progress Hasbro was making towards circumventing the Toys "R" Us liquidation and its other growth initiatives within the company. Continue reading "Hasbro Spikes 13% Following Positive Q2 Earnings" →

Visa: The Valuation Conundrum In A Frothy Market

Posted on by Noah Kiedrowski

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) continues to deliver phenomenal shareholder returns year after year, and thus far 2018 is no exception. Over the past year, Visa has appreciated 45% and currently sits at a 52-week high. Visa has become a top-performing perineal large-cap growth stock that continues to deliver despite emerging threats in the digital payments space, blockchain technology and maturing markets in the traditional payments space leading to slower growth prospects. I’ve been reluctant to get behind the stock of Visa considering its valuation, slowing growth and trends away from the traditional credit card space among the younger demographics that embrace PayPal (PYPL) and PayPal’s Venmo for payment options and exchanging payments between multiple parties.

Furthermore, Amazon (AMZN) may be disrupting the credit card transaction space with its potential launch of Amazon financial services and Amazon Pay. Despite Visa’s massive move over the past year, growth has become worrisome and touched down to single digits before bouncing back to double digits over the last two quarters. I feel that shareholders have become overly enthusiastic about Visa’s growth prospects. The stock has appreciated over 45% during the past year, boasts a P/E of over 35 and a PEG of over 2.0 in the midst of a frothy market. This scenario doesn’t provide a great benefit-reward profile at these levels in my opinion. Continue reading "Visa: The Valuation Conundrum In A Frothy Market" →

AMC Looks Compelling With Record-Setting Box Office Numbers

Posted on by Noah Kiedrowski

Introduction:

AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. (AMC) is looking compelling in the midst of record-setting box office numbers, a robust slate of movies thus far in 2018 and through 2019, strong consumer demand, dividend yield of over 5% and accelerating revenue and EPS growth. AMC’s stock price is nearly 30% below its 52-week high despite coming off record first quarter numbers across all categories. Additionally, AMC is reengaging the consumer via digital, mobile and loyalty program options, reformatting theaters to enhance the user experience and international expansion augmented by a healthy share buyback program. AMC will report its Q2 earnings in early August, and the stock looks very attractive considering its depressed valuation, industry strength forecasted through the remainder of 2018 and through 2019 coupled with a slew of company initiatives to drive the consumer experience.

2018 Record-Setting Box Office Numbers:

Major theatrical releases continue to break U.S. box office revenue records thus far in 2018. Yearly box office revenue already topped $6 billion outpacing 2017 by 10% and the 2016 record year by 11%. Thus far 2018 has posted the second largest first quarter and record second quarter at the box office. U.S. box office revenues hit a record $3.3 billion in the second quarter due in large part to Disney’s (DIS) “Avenger’s: Infinity War” and “Incredibles 2” with domestic grosses of $673 and $440 million, respectively. The previous record was set in the second quarter of 2015 when the domestic box office drew $3.1 billion in revenue. It’s noteworthy to point out that April and June were record months at the box office and revenue from April to June was up ~23% compared to the same period in 2017 ending the second quarter on a strong foot. Furthermore, summer 2018 is currently pacing 19% ahead of 2017 with the third largest summer on record at the same point in the season. Overall, June brought in a record $1.269 billion in domestic box office receipts besting the previous record set in 2013 at $1.246 billion. Translating these numbers into actual ticket sales to normalize for inflation and actual demand, 2018 has seen the most ticket sales since 2010. Ticket sales for 2018 are estimated to be 675 million through the end of June, and compared to the previous two decades this is the seventh largest number of tickets sold and the most since 2010 when the number of tickets sold was 679.7 million. Continue reading "AMC Looks Compelling With Record-Setting Box Office Numbers" →