noah kiedrowski Archives - Page 19 of 45

AMC - 10% Post Earnings Pop And Captain Marvel Catalyst

Posted on March 23, 2019March 22, 2019 by Noah Kiedrowski

Captain Marvel has pumped life back into the domestic box office, delivering an epic $153 million opening weekend debut, while hauling in $455 million worldwide. AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. (AMC) has been struggling as of late on the heels of a record-breaking year at the box office in 2018 in conjunction with the disastrous stock market in Q4 of 2018. Despite a robust slate of movies for 2019, the year has been off to a sluggish start at the box office. AMC will likely have a nice catalyst as the slate of 2019 movies roll out, and the box office numbers strengthen. To smooth out these box office revenue fluctuations, AMC has a rapidly growing loyalty program with over 700,000 members to evolve a large segment of its business mix towards a subscription-based model. This will allow durable and predictable revenue streams in the backdrop of changing box office dynamics. AMC offers a great dividend yield of over 5% and accelerating revenue and EPS growth. The company 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. The stock looks very attractive considering its depressed valuation, solid Q4 earnings that drove the stock higher and company initiatives to drive the consumer experience. The long term growth narrative remains intact while revenue continues to grow at a healthy clip.

2019 Box Office Finally Jolted

Disney (DIS) has finally released its first highly anticipated film of 2019 with Captain Marvel (the first female lead for a Marvel film). The film has performed exceptionally well, delivering an opening weekend box office gross of $457 million worldwide and $153 million domestically (Figure 1). The first two months of the year for the domestic box office has been a struggle relative to 2018. Captain Marvel brought in the third highest March opening of all-time and places the film on par with past blockbusters such as The Dark Knight, The Hunger Games and Rouge One. Dumbo, Avengers 4, Aladdin, Toy Story 4, Lion King, Frozen 2 and Star Wars Episode 9 is Disney’s slate of films that will bode well for the box office on the domestic front as these films stand to rack in billions in box office receipts. It’s noteworthy to point out that Disney is poised to defend its box office dominance again in 2019 for the fourth consecutive year. Continue reading "AMC - 10% Post Earnings Pop And Captain Marvel Catalyst" →

CVS - Earnings Implosion And Opaque Near-Term

Posted on March 9, 2019March 8, 2019 by Noah Kiedrowski

The pharmaceutical supply chain cohort is simply unable to obtain firm footing in the backdrop consolidation within the sector, legislative backdrop, drug pricing pressures, rising insurance costs and a market that has lost patience with these stocks. All of these factors culminate into sub-par growth with a level of uncertainty as this sector continues to face headwinds from multiple directions. Many of the stocks that comprised this cohort presented compelling valuations in a very frothy market. CVS Health (CVS) was one stock that stood out as compelling value sitting, near multi-year lows in December of 2018. During the market rebound in January and February, CVS began to appreciate to new highs moving from $63 in mid-January to $70 in mid-February or an 11% move to the upside. Upon the release of its Q4 earnings, the narrative quickly changed as the transition to growth and Aneta integration is proving to be much slower than investors had anticipated, yielding an opaque situation near term for the stock. CVS has a healthy balance sheet and growing its dividend 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. Regardless, until growth is restored and Aneta is fully integrated to yield a fully functional bumper-to-bumper healthcare colossus, the stock remains range bound. However, the long-term picture looks rewarding for value investors as growth initiatives and acquisitions bear fruit.

Market Challenges

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 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. Continue reading "CVS - Earnings Implosion And Opaque Near-Term" →

HealthEquity - Compelling Buy Heading Into Q4 Earnings

Posted on March 2, 2019March 1, 2019 by Noah Kiedrowski

HealthEquity Inc. (HQY) was not immune to the market wide sell-off in equities during the fourth quarter of 2018 which disproportionally impacted growth stocks with high price-to-earnings multiples. The market quickly lost its appetite for these richly valued high-growth stocks with steep valuations. Health Equity’s rich valuation became a concern to me during the fourth quarter as its growth albeit double-digits, did not justify its sky-high valuation. This concern prompted me to write a piece discussing this concern and warned that the “current valuation is rich in an already frothy market thus caution at these levels is wise” prior to the stock selling off from $101 to $47 shedding 53% of its market value during the fourth quarter of 2018. The company continues to post quarter after quarter of double-digit growth in revenue and EPS without any debt on the balance sheet thus has been rewarded with a rich valuation as a function of its impressive growth and total addressable market. This high price-to-earnings multiple came under fire as the market moved into a risk-averse environment in the fourth quarter. As high-flying equities came down in the broader market sell-off, Health Equity lost over half of its market capitalization and erased all of its gains in 2018. Now that the market correction has passed and the company continues to post great quarterly growth along with enhancing its growth profile, the valuation is now compelling moving into its Q4 earnings and the stock is still well off its highs for a long-term investment.

Addressable Market and Market Position

On the fundamental level, the company is an intermediary servicing the secular growth Health Savings Account (HSA) space that’s largely independent of legislative actions, drug pricing, rising insurance costs while not playing any role in the pharmaceutical supply chain. The company manages funds allocated for medical, dental and vision expenses that are deducted on a pre-tax basis and deposited into a dedicated HSA account. The HSA space has grown in popularity as corporate adoption has allowed access to these plans in conjunction with consumer awareness. Continue reading "HealthEquity - Compelling Buy Heading Into Q4 Earnings" →

Hasbro: "We're Past the Toys "R" Us Debacle"

Posted on February 23, 2019February 22, 2019 by Noah Kiedrowski

The Toys “R” Us bankruptcy has proven to be an albatross around Hasbro’s neck despite the confident, forward-looking narrative that’s been put forth for the previous two quarters by its CEO. The recent fourth-quarter earnings were disappointing, to say the least, capping off its historically best quarter. Revenue declined on an annual and quarterly basis by 12% and 13%, respectively. Despite these Toys “R” Us headwinds, Hasbro remains confident as the company annualizes the inventory glut caused by the liquidation. Hasbro (HAS) has a compelling future across its portfolio with many catalysts on the near and long term time horizon. This confident future was reinforced with an 8% increase in its quarterly dividend payout despite its revenue declines.

Hasbro is setting the post-Toys “R” Us bankruptcy narrative and laying out a business roadmap for long term profitable growth across its brands. 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. There's 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.

Jim Cramer’s Mad Money 2018 Interviews

Hasbro’s CEO Brian Goldner has had a string of interviews with Jim Cramer on Mad Money. Over the past year, Goldner has had the tough task of getting out in front of the Toys “R” Us bankruptcy and glut of merchandise. Continue reading "Hasbro: "We're Past the Toys "R" Us Debacle"" →

Fed Chairman Powell Resuscitates Financial Cohort

Posted on February 9, 2019February 8, 2019 by Noah Kiedrowski

The market-wide sell-off in the fourth quarter of 2018 was largely induced by the Federal Reserve and its alleged commitment to sequential interest rate increases into 2019. This was largely viewed as reckless and misguided while turning a blind eye to broader economic data-driven decision making about further interest rate hikes. The stock indices responded to the sequential interest rate hike stance with overwhelming negative sentiment, logging double-digit declines across the broader markets. Many market observers were questioning the Federal Reserve’s aggressive stance as companies issued weakness in ancillary economic metrics (slowing global growth, strong U.S. dollar, trade war, government shutdown, weak housing numbers, retail weakness, auto sluggishness, and oil decline) as an indication that cracks in the economic cycle were materializing. The strong labor market and record low unemployment served as a basis to rationalize increasing rates to tame inflation however these aforementioned economic headwinds appeared to cause the Federal Reserve to pivot in its aggressive stance. As Chairman Jerome Powell began to issue a softer stance on future interest rate hikes, January saw very healthy stock market gains after being decimated for months prior. On January 30th, Jerome Powell issued language that the markets were craving to levitate higher as he left interest rates unchanged and exercised caution and patience as a path forward. Using data-driven decision making as a path forward was cheered by market participants as the broader indices popped for healthy gains on top of the already robust gains throughout January.

Financial Cohort Squeezed

The financial cohort was stuck in a precarious situation in the latter half of 2018. On the one hand, a rising interest rate environment would provide boosts to bottom line revenue as a function of the increased rates on their deposit base. Banks had domestic and global economic expansion tailwinds at their back while posting accelerating revenue growth, increasing dividend payouts, engaging in a record number of share buybacks, benefiting from tax reform and deregulation. Augmenting this positive backdrop was a record number of IPOs, a record number of global merger and acquisitions along with consulting fees regarding mergers and acquisitions and trading around market volatility. All of these elements ostensibly provided an ideal confluence that boded well for the financial sector. JP Morgan (JPM), Citi (C), Wells Fargo (WFC), Goldman Sachs (GS) and Bank of America (BAC) seemed to be poised to continue to benefit from the favorable economic backdrop. Despite all these elements, 2018 was terrible for the financials which performed horribly, especially during the fourth quarter as rapid rate hikes were in the cards. Continue reading "Fed Chairman Powell Resuscitates Financial Cohort" →

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