Based on the aggregated intelligence of 180,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, burrito specialist Chipotle Mexican Grill
With that in mind, let's take a closer look at Chipotle's business and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.
Chipotle facts
| Headquarters (founded) | Denver (1993) |
| Market Cap | $12.3 billion |
| Industry | Restaurants |
| Trailing-12-Month Revenue | $2.3 billion |
| Management | Founder/Chairman/Co-CEO Steve Ells Co-CEO Montgomery Moran |
| Return on Equity (average, past 3 years) | 22% |
| Cash/Debt | $456.3 million / $3.7 million |
| Competitors |
Panda Restaurant Qdoba Restaurant Taco Bell |
Sources: S&P Capital IQ and Motley Fool CAPS.
On CAPS, 16% of the 2,994 members who have rated Chipotle believe the stock will underperform the S&P 500 going forward.
A couple of months ago, one of those bears, jwilbanks, touched on the headwinds working against Chipotle:
The world is deleveraging, the consumer is tapped out, and this is a niche business that sells $8 burritos that is beyond the budget of most families. Who eats there besides young people? Their faithful followers will eventually tire of paying for a premium priced product that is mostly beans and rice and short on meat. Not to mention that it's a high fixed cost business with limited growth potential while priced for 30% [compound annual growth] for the next 10 years. ... All it will take is one bad headline from Europe, QE3, or a slight earnings miss and watch it implode like Netflix.
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