Despite Nike's third-quarter profit and revenue coming in better than expected, shares of the company fell today on news of somewhat weak guidance for the fourth quarter and the full year into 2015. Could the behemoth of sports apparel be in trouble? On Friday's Investor Beat, host Chris Hill and Motley Fool analyst Jason Moser take a look into Nike today.
Jason notes that the market is concerned, and rightly so, about the futures numbers from China falling about 3%. However, with the company putting a lot of focus on the higher margin direct-to-consumer sales business, including online sales growth, he has no concerns whatsoever that management is taking the right steps here to succeed. Jason also sees pullbacks like today's as good opportunities to open a position in a company like Nike, that investors could hold onto for the next five or even 10 years, and be glad they did.
Then, despite logging a loss for the fourth quarter due to some arbitration costs, North American same-store sales for Tiffany rose by 7% this quarter, suggesting this is one mature retailer that is still delivering solid performance. Chris and Jason discuss Tiffany, and the excellent decisions the company has made since 2012, when both the stock and the company were struggling. Jason names some of the steps Tiffany has taken to set its focus on longer-term expectations that are paying off, but says that, at 22 times the company's full-year estimates, the company looks pricey today. Jason says he'd rather buy into a luxury brand like Tiffany when the market perception of the stock has driven the price down to a lower valuation.
Also, Starbucks held its annual shareholder meeting this week, where the company announced that it will be rolling out across the country an idea that it had previously been testing at select locations: the sale of beer and wine in its stores in the evening hours. The guys discuss the latest move from Starbucks, and why Jason thinks this will succeed in certain markets where the demand for this exists. He says, though, that rather than being a revenue game changer for the company, this will be more of an incremental revenue bump upward. When asked, however, if he thinks McDonald's will be watching the move closely and considering it themselves, he says that he doesn't see any way that an offering like that could fit with McDonald's value model, and that he would be concerned as an investor seeing that company make a similar move.
Finally, Jason takes a close look at Disney, and tells investors why he's excited about multiple segments of this business. Disney continues to bring excellent movie offerings to the theaters, and Jason is also excited about the Disney Accelerator program, which will bring in and mentor 10 small businesses. He loves the stock as a long-term holding, and recommends that every investor keep it on their watch list.
