Should You Sell SUPERVALU Today?

Should you sell SUPERVALU (NYSE: SVU) today?

The decision to sell a stock you've researched and followed for months or years is never easy. If you fall in love with your stock holdings, you risk becoming vulnerable to confirmation bias -- listening only to information that supports your theories, and rejecting any contradictions.

In 2004, longtime Fool Bill Mann called confirmation bias one of the most dangerous components of investing. This warning has helped my own personal investing throughout the Great Recession. Now, I want to help you identify potential sell signs on popular stocks within our 4-million-strong Fool.com community.

Today, I'm laser-focused on SUPERVALU, ready to evaluate its price, valuation, margins, and liquidity. Let's get started!

Don't sell on price
Over the past 12 months, SUPERVALU is down 32.6% versus an S&P 500 return of 11.3%. Investors in SUPERVALU are no doubt disappointed with their returns, but is now the time to cut and run? Not necessarily. Short-term underperformance alone is not a sell sign. The market may be missing the critical element of your SUPERVALU investing thesis. For historical context, let's compare SUPERVALU's recent price with its 52-week and five-year highs. I've also included a few other businesses in the same or related industries:

Source: Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's.

As you can see, SUPERVALU is down from its 52-week high. If you bought near the peak, now's the time to think back to why you bought it in the first place. If your reasons still hold true, you shouldn't sell based on this information alone.

Potential sell signs
First, let's look at the gross margins trend, which represents the amount of profit a company makes for each $1 in sales, after deducting all costs directly related to that sale. A deteriorating gross margin over time can indicate that competition has forced the company to lower prices, that it can't control costs, or that its whole industry's facing tough times. Here is SUPERVALU's gross margin over the past five years:

Source: Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's.

SUPERVALU has been able to grow its gross margin, which tends to dictate a company's overall profitability. This is great news; however, SUPERVALU investors need to keep an eye on this over the coming quarters. If margins begin to drop, you'll want to know why.

Next, let's explore what other investors think about SUPERVALU. We love the contrarian view here at Fool.com, but we don't mind cheating off of our neighbors every once in a while. For this, we'll examine two metrics: Motley Fool CAPS ratings and short interest. The former tells us how Fool.com's 170,000-strong community of individual analysts rates the stock. The latter shows what proportion of investors are betting that the stock will fall. I'm including other peer companies once again for context.

Source: Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's.

The Fool community is in the middle of the road on SUPERVALU. We typically like to see our stocks rated at four or five stars. Anything below that is a less-than-bullish indicator. I highly recommend you visit SUPERVALU's stock pitch page to see the verbatim reasons behind the ratings.

Here, short interest is at a high 11.7%. This typically indicates that large institutional investors are betting against the stock.

Now, let's study SUPERVALU's debt situation, with a little help from the debt-to-equity ratio. This metric tells us how much debt the company has taken on, relative to its overall capital structure.

Source: Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's.

SUPERVALU has taken on substantial debt over the past five years. Even with increasing total equity over the same time period, debt-to-equity has increased, as seen in the above chart. Based on the trend alone, that's a bad sign. I consider a debt-to-equity ratio below 50% to be healthy, though it varies by industry. SUPERVALU is above this level, at 513.5%.

The last metric I like to look at is the current ratio, which lets investors judge a company's short-term liquidity. If SUPERVALU had to convert its current assets to cash in one year, how many times over could the company cover its current liabilities? As of the latest filing, SUPERVALU has a current ratio of 0.85. This is a bad sign for SUPERVALU. The company's current liabilities are greater than its current assets, which means it could have liquidity issues in the short term.

Finally, it's highly beneficial to determine whether SUPERVALU belongs in your portfolio -- and to know how many similar businesses already occupy your stable of investments. If you haven't already, be sure to put your tickers into Fool.com's free portfolio tracker, My Watchlist. You can get started right away by clicking here to add SUPERVALU.

The recap

SUPERVALU has failed four of the quick tests that would make it a sell. Does it mean you should sell your SUPERVALU shares today solely because of this? Not necessarily, but keep your eye on these trends over the coming quarters.

Remember to add SUPERVALU to My Watchlist to help you keep track of all our coverage of the company on Fool.com.

If you haven't had a chance yet, but sure to read this article detailing how I missed out on more than $100,000 in gains through wrong-headed selling.