Should You Sell Sunoco Right Now?

Should you sell Sunoco (NYSE: SUN  ) 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 Sunoco, ready to evaluate its price, valuation, margins, and liquidity. Let's get started!

Don't sell on price
Over the past 12 months, Sunoco has risen 48.5% versus an S&P 500 return of 13.7%. Investors in Sunoco have every reason to be proud of their returns, but is it time to take some off the top? Not necessarily. Short-term outperformance alone is not a sell sign. The market may be just beginning to realize the true, intrinsic value of Sunoco. For historical context, let's compare Sunoco's recent price to its 52-week and five-year highs. I've also included a few other businesses in the same or related industries:

Company	Recent Price	52-Week High	5-Year High
Sunoco	$40.17	$41.70	$97.30
Marathon Oil (NYSE: MRO  )	$42.98	$44.90	$67.00
Hess (NYSE: HES  )	$79.92	$82.38	$137.00
Murphy Oil (NYSE: MUR  )	$73.30	$76.74	$101.50

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

Sunoco is basically at its 52-week high. This means we need to dig into the valuation to ensure that these new highs are justified.

Potential sell signs
First up, we'll get a rough idea of Sunoco's valuation. I'm comparing Sunoco's recent P/E ratio of 25.8 to where it's been over the past five years.

Sunoco's P/E is higher than its five-year average, which could indicate the stock is overvalued. A high P/E isn't always a bad sign, since the company's growth prospects may also be increasing alongside the market's valuation. However, it definitely indicates that, on a purely historical basis, Sunoco looks expensive.

Now, 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 Sunoco's gross margin over the past five years:

Sunoco is clearly having issues maintaining its gross margin, which tends to dictate a company's overall profitability. Sunoco investors need to keep an eye on this troubling trend over the coming quarters.

Next, let's explore what other investors think about Sunoco. 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 rate 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.

Company	CAPS Rating (out of 5)	Short Interest (% of float)
Sunoco	***	4.7
Marathon Oil	*****	1.3
Hess	*****	1.1
Murphy Oil	*****	1.5

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

The Fool community is in the middle of the road on Sunoco. 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 Sunoco's stock pitch page to see the verbatim reasons behind the ratings.

Here, short interest is at a mere 4.7%. This typically indicates few large institutional investors are betting against the stock.

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

Sunoco has been taking on some additional debt over the past five years. When we take into account increasing total equity over the same time period, this has caused debt-to-equity to remain near its five-year average, as seen in the above chart. I consider a debt-to-equity ratio below 50% to be healthy, though it varies by industry.  Sunoco is currently above this level, at 87.2%.

The last metric I like to look at is the current ratio, which lets investors judge a company's short-term liquidity. If Sunoco 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 last filing, Sunoco has a current ratio of 0.97. This is a bad sign for Sunoco. 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 Sunoco 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 Sunoco.

The final recap

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

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