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Shares of America’s Car-Mart, Inc. have skyrocketed 83% over the last 12 months to crush the S&P 500’s 10% climb and 2019 has seen the stock hit multiple new 52-week highs. The company operates 144 automotive dealerships in the U.S. and is expected to see strong top and bottom-line expansion in fiscal 2019 and 2020.
Overview & Growth
America’s Car-Mart is a used vehicle dealer that specializes in what it calls “Buy Here/Pay Here” and is an attractive place for people with less-than-stellar credit to purchase a car. As we touched on already, America's Car-Mart operates 144 automotive dealerships across 11 states. The firm operates mostly in small cities in the South-Central U.S., including Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Mississippi, and Texas.
CRMT allows its customers to purchase, finance, and make payments all in one place. The business might not be attractive to some people as there can be a stigma surrounding the used car industry in general. But people who might not qualify for traditional loans because of bad credit or no credit need a place to buy a vehicle, especially in spread out areas with few public transportation options.
Investors should note that the company’s 72-hour 100% satisfaction return policy has helped it stand out in the industry. The company also offers low down payments, flexible payment and financing offerings, as well as a wide range of trade-in options. America's Car-Mart has seen its revenues climb by a roughly 11% CAGR (compound annual growth rate) from 2002 through fiscal 2018. CRMT has also grown its active customers base by 7.5% during this same period as it continues to stand out in terms of service and quality compared to smaller, mom and pop used car dealerships in many of its markets.
L Brands’ Bath & Body Works has performed well recently, but its Victoria’s Secret brands have dragged the company down. Shares of LB have fallen 28% in the last 12 months as part of a much larger three-year decline as shopping habits and consumer sentiment evolve.
Overview & Problems
As we mentioned at the top, L Brands owns Victoria’s Secret, Victoria's Secret PINK, and Bath & Body Works. The company’s operations include nearly 3,000 company-owned stores throughout the U.S., Canada, the U.K., China, and more. L Brands also operates roughly 650 franchised locations and, like every other retailer, has tried to expand its e-commerce business.
Overall, L Brands’ revenue has continued to climb in the midst of the rough stretch. But the disappointment at Victoria’s Secret has led to increased worries that include CEO turnover and calls to break up the business. The lingerie unit’s former CEO Jan Singer resigned last fall after just two years with the company. Since then, New York-based hedge fund Barington Capital Group LP has urged the company to split its growing Bath & Body Works business from the faltering Victoria’s Secret.
The former president of luxury label Tory Burch, John Mehas, did take over as chief executive at Victoria’s Secret shortly after Singer stepped down on the back of continued comparable sales declines. Nonetheless, Barington thinks the company needs to expand beyond its current focus on racy push-up bras. “Victoria’s Secret’s brand image is starting to appear to many as being outdated and even a bit ‘tone deaf’ by failing to be aligned with women’s evolving attitudes towards beauty, diversity and inclusion,” Barington wrote in a March 2019 letter.
Outlook & Earnings Trends
LB shares are up 7% in 2019, which still falls well below the S&P 500’s 15% climb and its industry’s 9% growth. Despite the recent positivity, L Brands stock has tumbled 28% during the last year and 65% over the past three years. And the chart helps investors see just how quickly things turned negative for the once high-flying retailer.
Looking ahead, the company’s Q1 fiscal 2019 revenue is projected to dip 2.6% to touch $2.56 billion. On top of that, LB’s second-quarter sales are expected to dip 1.8%, with full-year 2019 revenues projected to slip 0.70%. Peeking a bit further ahead, L Brands’ fiscal 2020 revenue is projected to climb 1.2% above our current year estimate.
At the bottom end of the income statement, the company’s adjusted first-quarter earnings are projected to tumble 100% from $0.17 per share in the year-ago period to break-even earnings, or $0.00 per share. For the full year 2019, L Brands’ adjusted EPS figure is expected to sink 16.3%. On top of that, the company’s 2020 earnings are projected to come in far below 2018. And L Brands’ earnings estimate revisions have turned far more negative recently, especially for 2019.
Additional content:
Alibaba vs. Amazon: Who Will Take Over the World First?
Alibaba initially made a name for itself in the US as the go-to place to buy cheap knock-offs of NBA jerseys and designer shoes. Alibaba is now the principal e-commerce retailer in China on a scale with Amazon, dominating 58% of the total e-commerce market in China, according to eMarketer. With a total addressable market (TAM) coming close $5 trillion, which makes up China’s overall retail industry. BABA captured 636 million annual customers in 2018, up a whole 23% from the previous year. This company is growing at an exponential rate and is striving to continue until their TAM is reached.
Alibaba vs. Amazon
Alibaba is often considered the Amazon of China; they both control the e-commerce space in their geographic regions and are both quickly becoming the largest corporations in the world. Despite their seemingly identical product/service proposition, these companies have very different approaches.
The biggest difference is the way in which they sell their online products.
Amazon sells most of its products to customers directly through its extensive warehouse network where the goods are housed. Alibaba, on the other hand, acts like a middleman between merchants and consumers. Amazon makes most of its money from product margins while Alibaba’s collects revenue through something called a merchant fee which places sellers’ products higher up on Alibaba's search lists.
Financial Comparison
Amazon posted 2018 revenue of $232 billion, more than 4 times the $53 billion in revenue that BABA achieved in 2018. The fascinating part is that AMZN and BABA had bottom-lines that were less than $1 billion apart, $10.1 billion and $9.2 billion respectively. Giving Amazon a 4.3% net margin and Alibaba a 17% net margin. This enormous margin difference for comparable businesses would be a red flag under most circumstances but what you need to consider are the costs associated with of the different business models as well as the geographical location that these companies operate. Alibaba operated a business with much less overhead than Amazon considering that their main functions is just connect buyers and sellers, they don’t need the extensive warehouse network along with the storage costs of carrying as much inventory as Amazon does. The cost of operating a business in China is much less than operating one in the US considering that the cost of living is substantially lower. Amazon also makes it their priority to provide the consumer with the lowest prices so a lot of their economies-to-scale are being passed along to the consumer. These factors aside, seeing Alibaba’s margins being 4x that of Amazon is quite an attractive figure especially considering it’s trading at much cheaper multiples.
Alibaba has seen 44% annualized top-line growth over the past 5 years while Amazon only saw 27% annualized growth over the same period. 86% of Alibaba’s revenue is being driven by its core e-commerce business with other revenue streams like cloud computing and subscription entertainment services are growing; e-commerce is still what this firm primarily relies on. Amazon’s revenue streams are a little more diversified, only 71% of revenue is from online sales, brick-and-mortar operations making up a growing 7% of sales (driven by their Whole Foods acquisition), web services (AWS) make up 11% of their income and the fasted growing segment is AMZN’s advertising revenues. The diversification of Amazon’s revenue drivers makes it a safer bet than a less diverse Alibaba, though BABA is growing its noncore businesses at an expanding rate. Below is a 2-year return chart comparing BABA (blue) and AMZN (red) performance.
Valuations
Amazon’s continuing success story in the United States has been an inspiration for small businesses across the world. From Jeff Bezo’s garage to being in the top 5 biggest tech companies in the world. People love the company and the stock, and this is likely part of the reason AMZN is trading at 68x forward earnings. This P/E might have been a reasonable valuation if the company had just turned a profit but they have been profitable for 5 years. It’s P/E-growth (PEG) ratio is 1.95 which is a much more reasonable valuation considering the industry average is 1.79. The growth priced in to Amazon is colossal, with EPS growth expected to be 32.37% and 49.52% for 2019 and 2020 respectively. There is too much uncertainty with these priced-in growth numbers for my liking. At this moment I wouldn’t be comfortable jumping into a tech company with a 1.63 beta and a 68x P/E in such uncertain economic conditions. I would wait for a dip before putting on a position. Watch for earnings on the 25th of this month for more clues into the future of this firm. If they can continue to grow margins I would feel more comfortable going long in AMZN. $1,600 has been my price point to consider buying since the end of last year and I stick by that. AMZN – Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
Alibaba is trading at much more competitive multiples, with a price of 36x forward earnings and a P/E-to-growth (PEG) ratio of 1.29. This firm doesn’t have nearly as much EPS growth priced into the stock because of economic instability brought by both the trade war and poor economic numbers coming out of China.
The beta for this stock exceeds 2, which is a small red flag when economic stability is questionable, but I see a larger upside to BABA especially considering the unprecedented 332% top-line growth in the last 5 years. I also understand their growing revenue diversity as a huge opportunity for this business to take market share in different categories that they don’t already dominate. I would look to buy this stock sub $170 with a price target north of $200. BABA – Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
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Zacks.com provides investment resources and informs you of these resources, which you may choose to use in making your own investment decisions. Zacks is providing information on this resource to you subject to the Zacks "Terms and Conditions of Service" disclaimer. www.zacks.com/disclaimer.
Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss.This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.
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Car-Mart, L Brands, Alibaba and Amazon highlighted as Zacks Bull and Bear of the Day
For Immediate Release
Chicago, IL – April 9, 2019 – Zacks Equity Research Car-Mart, Inc. (CRMT - Free Report) as the Bull of the Day, L Brands asthe Bear of the Day. In addition, Zacks Equity Research provides analysis on Alibaba (BABA - Free Report) and Amazon (AMZN - Free Report) .
Here is a synopsis of all four stocks:
Bull of the Day:
Shares of America’s Car-Mart, Inc. have skyrocketed 83% over the last 12 months to crush the S&P 500’s 10% climb and 2019 has seen the stock hit multiple new 52-week highs. The company operates 144 automotive dealerships in the U.S. and is expected to see strong top and bottom-line expansion in fiscal 2019 and 2020.
Overview & Growth
America’s Car-Mart is a used vehicle dealer that specializes in what it calls “Buy Here/Pay Here” and is an attractive place for people with less-than-stellar credit to purchase a car. As we touched on already, America's Car-Mart operates 144 automotive dealerships across 11 states. The firm operates mostly in small cities in the South-Central U.S., including Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Mississippi, and Texas.
CRMT allows its customers to purchase, finance, and make payments all in one place. The business might not be attractive to some people as there can be a stigma surrounding the used car industry in general. But people who might not qualify for traditional loans because of bad credit or no credit need a place to buy a vehicle, especially in spread out areas with few public transportation options.
Investors should note that the company’s 72-hour 100% satisfaction return policy has helped it stand out in the industry. The company also offers low down payments, flexible payment and financing offerings, as well as a wide range of trade-in options. America's Car-Mart has seen its revenues climb by a roughly 11% CAGR (compound annual growth rate) from 2002 through fiscal 2018. CRMT has also grown its active customers base by 7.5% during this same period as it continues to stand out in terms of service and quality compared to smaller, mom and pop used car dealerships in many of its markets.
Bear of the Day:
L Brands’ Bath & Body Works has performed well recently, but its Victoria’s Secret brands have dragged the company down. Shares of LB have fallen 28% in the last 12 months as part of a much larger three-year decline as shopping habits and consumer sentiment evolve.
Overview & Problems
As we mentioned at the top, L Brands owns Victoria’s Secret, Victoria's Secret PINK, and Bath & Body Works. The company’s operations include nearly 3,000 company-owned stores throughout the U.S., Canada, the U.K., China, and more. L Brands also operates roughly 650 franchised locations and, like every other retailer, has tried to expand its e-commerce business.
Overall, L Brands’ revenue has continued to climb in the midst of the rough stretch. But the disappointment at Victoria’s Secret has led to increased worries that include CEO turnover and calls to break up the business. The lingerie unit’s former CEO Jan Singer resigned last fall after just two years with the company. Since then, New York-based hedge fund Barington Capital Group LP has urged the company to split its growing Bath & Body Works business from the faltering Victoria’s Secret.
The former president of luxury label Tory Burch, John Mehas, did take over as chief executive at Victoria’s Secret shortly after Singer stepped down on the back of continued comparable sales declines. Nonetheless, Barington thinks the company needs to expand beyond its current focus on racy push-up bras. “Victoria’s Secret’s brand image is starting to appear to many as being outdated and even a bit ‘tone deaf’ by failing to be aligned with women’s evolving attitudes towards beauty, diversity and inclusion,” Barington wrote in a March 2019 letter.
Outlook & Earnings Trends
LB shares are up 7% in 2019, which still falls well below the S&P 500’s 15% climb and its industry’s 9% growth. Despite the recent positivity, L Brands stock has tumbled 28% during the last year and 65% over the past three years. And the chart helps investors see just how quickly things turned negative for the once high-flying retailer.
Looking ahead, the company’s Q1 fiscal 2019 revenue is projected to dip 2.6% to touch $2.56 billion. On top of that, LB’s second-quarter sales are expected to dip 1.8%, with full-year 2019 revenues projected to slip 0.70%. Peeking a bit further ahead, L Brands’ fiscal 2020 revenue is projected to climb 1.2% above our current year estimate.
At the bottom end of the income statement, the company’s adjusted first-quarter earnings are projected to tumble 100% from $0.17 per share in the year-ago period to break-even earnings, or $0.00 per share. For the full year 2019, L Brands’ adjusted EPS figure is expected to sink 16.3%. On top of that, the company’s 2020 earnings are projected to come in far below 2018. And L Brands’ earnings estimate revisions have turned far more negative recently, especially for 2019.
Additional content:
Alibaba vs. Amazon: Who Will Take Over the World First?
Alibaba initially made a name for itself in the US as the go-to place to buy cheap knock-offs of NBA jerseys and designer shoes. Alibaba is now the principal e-commerce retailer in China on a scale with Amazon, dominating 58% of the total e-commerce market in China, according to eMarketer. With a total addressable market (TAM) coming close $5 trillion, which makes up China’s overall retail industry. BABA captured 636 million annual customers in 2018, up a whole 23% from the previous year. This company is growing at an exponential rate and is striving to continue until their TAM is reached.
Alibaba vs. Amazon
Alibaba is often considered the Amazon of China; they both control the e-commerce space in their geographic regions and are both quickly becoming the largest corporations in the world. Despite their seemingly identical product/service proposition, these companies have very different approaches.
The biggest difference is the way in which they sell their online products.
Amazon sells most of its products to customers directly through its extensive warehouse network where the goods are housed. Alibaba, on the other hand, acts like a middleman between merchants and consumers. Amazon makes most of its money from product margins while Alibaba’s collects revenue through something called a merchant fee which places sellers’ products higher up on Alibaba's search lists.
Financial Comparison
Amazon posted 2018 revenue of $232 billion, more than 4 times the $53 billion in revenue that BABA achieved in 2018. The fascinating part is that AMZN and BABA had bottom-lines that were less than $1 billion apart, $10.1 billion and $9.2 billion respectively. Giving Amazon a 4.3% net margin and Alibaba a 17% net margin. This enormous margin difference for comparable businesses would be a red flag under most circumstances but what you need to consider are the costs associated with of the different business models as well as the geographical location that these companies operate. Alibaba operated a business with much less overhead than Amazon considering that their main functions is just connect buyers and sellers, they don’t need the extensive warehouse network along with the storage costs of carrying as much inventory as Amazon does. The cost of operating a business in China is much less than operating one in the US considering that the cost of living is substantially lower. Amazon also makes it their priority to provide the consumer with the lowest prices so a lot of their economies-to-scale are being passed along to the consumer. These factors aside, seeing Alibaba’s margins being 4x that of Amazon is quite an attractive figure especially considering it’s trading at much cheaper multiples.
Alibaba has seen 44% annualized top-line growth over the past 5 years while Amazon only saw 27% annualized growth over the same period. 86% of Alibaba’s revenue is being driven by its core e-commerce business with other revenue streams like cloud computing and subscription entertainment services are growing; e-commerce is still what this firm primarily relies on. Amazon’s revenue streams are a little more diversified, only 71% of revenue is from online sales, brick-and-mortar operations making up a growing 7% of sales (driven by their Whole Foods acquisition), web services (AWS) make up 11% of their income and the fasted growing segment is AMZN’s advertising revenues. The diversification of Amazon’s revenue drivers makes it a safer bet than a less diverse Alibaba, though BABA is growing its noncore businesses at an expanding rate. Below is a 2-year return chart comparing BABA (blue) and AMZN (red) performance.
Valuations
Amazon’s continuing success story in the United States has been an inspiration for small businesses across the world. From Jeff Bezo’s garage to being in the top 5 biggest tech companies in the world. People love the company and the stock, and this is likely part of the reason AMZN is trading at 68x forward earnings. This P/E might have been a reasonable valuation if the company had just turned a profit but they have been profitable for 5 years. It’s P/E-growth (PEG) ratio is 1.95 which is a much more reasonable valuation considering the industry average is 1.79. The growth priced in to Amazon is colossal, with EPS growth expected to be 32.37% and 49.52% for 2019 and 2020 respectively. There is too much uncertainty with these priced-in growth numbers for my liking. At this moment I wouldn’t be comfortable jumping into a tech company with a 1.63 beta and a 68x P/E in such uncertain economic conditions. I would wait for a dip before putting on a position. Watch for earnings on the 25th of this month for more clues into the future of this firm. If they can continue to grow margins I would feel more comfortable going long in AMZN. $1,600 has been my price point to consider buying since the end of last year and I stick by that. AMZN – Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
Alibaba is trading at much more competitive multiples, with a price of 36x forward earnings and a P/E-to-growth (PEG) ratio of 1.29. This firm doesn’t have nearly as much EPS growth priced into the stock because of economic instability brought by both the trade war and poor economic numbers coming out of China.
The beta for this stock exceeds 2, which is a small red flag when economic stability is questionable, but I see a larger upside to BABA especially considering the unprecedented 332% top-line growth in the last 5 years. I also understand their growing revenue diversity as a huge opportunity for this business to take market share in different categories that they don’t already dominate. I would look to buy this stock sub $170 with a price target north of $200. BABA – Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Is Your Investment Advisor Fumbling Your Financial Future?
See how you can more effectively safeguard your retirement with a new Special Report, “4 Warning Signs Your Investment Advisor Might Be Sabotaging Your Financial Future.”
Click to get it free >>
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Zacks.com provides investment resources and informs you of these resources, which you may choose to use in making your own investment decisions. Zacks is providing information on this resource to you subject to the Zacks "Terms and Conditions of Service" disclaimer. www.zacks.com/disclaimer.
Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss.This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.