Spring cleaning doesn't have to be something you do around the home. This is probably a good time to go through your portfolio, toss out what you don't need, and pick up a few new things.
Roku (ROKU +2.95%), Five Below (FIVE +0.20%), and Vipshop Holdings (VIPS 0.47%) are three stocks set up for some interesting days ahead. Let's go over why these are three stocks to watch this season. running away with this market. Each one has a killer advantage helping them lead the way.
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Roku
There were 39.8 million Roku users on its platform at the end of March -- up 37% over the past year -- and they're not going anywhere these days. They're right where Roku wants them, consuming a record amount of streaming content. Roku itself is a free platform for consumers, but it generates ad revenue and royalties from premium services that folks can sign up for through the hub itself.
Viewers went through 13.2 billion hours of content through the first three months of the year, and that number should be much larger this time around. This translated into average revenue per user that continued to move higher the way it consistently has in Roku's tenure as a publicly traded company.
We're basking in Roku weather these days, but surprisingly the stock is trading lower this year. Yes, the shares did more than quadruple in 2019, but it would be shocking to see it close the year with a negative return.
Five Below
Retail is a scary place to be these days. We've seen the weak shopping metrics, and Five Below's online game remains a non-factor so far. It closed all 900 of its stores in mid-March, but there's still a lot to like here.
For starters, most of its stores are now already open. The deep discounter announced on Friday that it has already reopened 75% of its stores. It also reaffirmed plans to open another 100 to 120 locations in 2020. You have to like that brazen approach, especially at a time when so many strip mall chains are folding. Five Below is going to get some sweetheart lease deals on prime retail real estate.
Five Below is also going to be sitting pretty when shoppers realize that they don't have as much money to spend as they used to, driving its core teen and pre-teen audience to its stores where everything costs $5 or less.
Vipshop Holdings
Let's wrap things up with a Chinese online retailer of discounted apparel that's already starting to turn the corner. Vipshop stock has moved higher in each of the past four months, and earlier this week it posted better-than-expected financial results.
Sales did take the first three months of 2020 off, and that isn't a surprise given how China's economy took a big hit from the COVID-19 pandemic. It still managed to grow its adjusted earnings by 20%, and guidance for the current quarter calls for a return to positive year-over-year gains on the top line.
Vipshop has been hot and cold before. The stock more than doubled in three consecutive years between 2012 and 2014, and it's back on track after more than doubling in 2019. It's beating the market again in 2020, but the stock can still be had for 14 times what Wall Street thinks Vipshop will earn this year. With Vipshop routinely smoking analyst projections the smart money has to be on Vipshop topping bottom-line targets with the earnings multiple getting even lower or the stock going higher. Investors may be steering clear of China stocks right now, but watching Vipshop Holdings bounce back was a thing of beauty eight years ago -- and it could be happening again.
