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Compounder ideas please


petec

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I think that's a nice summary of Softbank, and yeah it might fit the bill.

 

Yes, and it also reminds me to kick the tyres on Sberbank again.

 

I suspect most 15% returns will come from outside the US, given how expensive that market is in relative terms.

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But I do know that trees don't grow to the sky.  ;)

 

True, but here's another way to think about it. Given the FCF, and the operating leverage, Microsoft could probably deliver a total return of 15% with revenue growth of 8-9%. But let's call it 10%. That means revenue of $325bn in 10 years. If global GDP grows at 3% in dollars, or about 1% real, which would not be a great result, then MSFT revenues will need to be about 0.28% of global GDP.

 

It has already reached 0.15%. Perhaps there is some unbreachable ceiling between 0.15% and 0.28% but the fact that MSFT is currently growing revenues at 15% suggests it is not close to it.

 

Yes, however when companies get too big and too powerful, people tend to get angry. A good exercise would be to see what other companies have had a large % of total market cap and see how they did once they go to the 7% or so threshold. I don't know the answer to that but it would be interesting. I would imagine Standard Oil hit that mark. Maybe GM at one time?

 

Hence my point about regulation. I take some comfort in the fact that Microsoft is primarily a business-facing enterprise, not consumer-facing, and I can find no evidence that it has abused its pricing power over the years. In fact what it has done is make its products better and better.

 

Whether being 7% of the S&P is a relevant thing I have no idea. MSFT is already 4.4%. What's the threshold for concern? And I can think of companies that have remained 7% of their local indices for years (Itau, for example) without ever having issues. Plus, it's a global company, and it won't be be anything like 7% of global market cap.

 

Standard Oil wasn't listed, and the issue was that it had a virtual monopoly. If Microsoft didn't have competition I would worry but it clearly does in every product.

 

I don't know the threshold of concern. I do know that 7% of the market is pretty rare though. If politicians are already talking about breaking up technologies companies, they'll be a lot of pressure if things double from here.

 

Over the past 15 years, MSFT has gained a little less than 13% annually. Over the past 10 years it's about 18.5%.

 

The market cap dropped from over $300 billion in 2007 to $245 billion in Oct 2009. So the 10 years is starting a depressed level and a much, much smaller company.

 

I have no opinion whether or not MSFT will beat the S&P 500 but I have more faith to say it won't hit the 15% mark (unless things go really crazy here).

 

 

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You're asking a difficult question.

 

Start by narrowing it down:

What companies will be around in 10 years?

Then figure out which markets have room to grow for 10 years.

 

Forget the 15% number, if you can get those 2 points correct, the rest will take care of itself.

 

Aren't most of the S&P 500 going to be around?  I bet that 50% of them will still be in the index.  On average, there is a 4.4% change to the index each year according to this article

https://www.businessinsider.com/sp-500-index-constituent-turnover-2015-6

 

Yes but that cuts your universe down 50%.

 

And over 20 years it cuts it down almost 100%.

 

You can simplify the question and ask, "what companies will be around in 20 years" and not even worry about growth - the rest simply won't exist.

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Over the past 15 years, MSFT has gained a little less than 13% annually.

 

14.7% total return. If it does that again I'm rounding up!  ;)

 

Where are you seeing that? I'm looking at morningstar which is supposed to be total return.

 

https://www.morningstar.com/stocks/xnas/msft/trailing-returns

 

Bloomberg.

 

Fancy. I don't have one of those. ;)

 

Nor would I if it had to pay for it  :o

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I think the future lies with companies that don't have a GAAP P/E.

 

While companies with a P/E such as AAPL and MSFT have tagged along with expanding P/Es over the last 3 years, an ever-rising P/E is uncomfortable. The future for those without a GAAP P/E is limitless.

 

Any company with cash compensation should have activists intervening and moving them to all-stock compensation. That would make the "non-GAAP" profits boom.

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You're asking a difficult question.

 

Start by narrowing it down:

What companies will be around in 10 years?

Then figure out which markets have room to grow for 10 years.

 

Forget the 15% number, if you can get those 2 points correct, the rest will take care of itself.

 

Aren't most of the S&P 500 going to be around?  I bet that 50% of them will still be in the index.  On average, there is a 4.4% change to the index each year according to this article

https://www.businessinsider.com/sp-500-index-constituent-turnover-2015-6

 

Yes but that cuts your universe down 50%.

 

And over 20 years it cuts it down almost 100%.

 

You can simplify the question and ask, "what companies will be around in 20 years" and not even worry about growth - the rest simply won't exist.

 

Relatively interesting visual view of S&P 500 over time.

 

https://blog.qad.com/2019/10/sp-500-companies-over-time/

 

 

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15%/year for 10 years is about two doubles, or 4x current investment.

 

I think Premium Brands Holdings Corporation (TSX: PBH) and Savaria (TSX: SIS) can reach those levels in the next 10 years. Both are roll-up companies, and should be able to continue to acquire businesses in fragmented industries over the next 10 years to achieve returns at about that rate.

 

I also think companies that have a history of hitting those numbers will continue to do so into the future. I like Novo Nordisk and Fastenal. Both have minimal long term debt, massive ROA, and good capital allocation histories. Timely share buybacks and sustainable dividend policies should continue into the future.

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I like the Softbank idea, though it's not really my style of investing i.e. I struggle with the governance of both Softbank and Alibaba.

 

To throw another contrarian idea out, how about some commodity companies?

 

When you say Microsoft, it makes me think that a great time to invest in it was in 2003-4, when everybody was still scarred by the tech bubble.  It was a brave call then.

 

Commodity companies were roaring in the 00s until 2007, but now are generally reviled.

 

My suspicion is that to make great returns, you want to make a brave call.

 

I think that Microsoft, BAM etc. are outstanding companies, but right now, so does everybody else, so I think returns could be disappointing over the next 10 years.

 

Having said that, I tend to favour the 'Fundsmith-esque' quality compounders.

 

Thanks for making me think about this.  This is what makes investing so interesting - it feels like we are starting to approach a new Nifty Fifty era i.e. that however good a company is, there comes a point when if a) it's very expensive and b) EVERYONE owns it, then it won't produce great returns for a while. 

 

However, the tricky part is 1) getting the timing right and 2) working out which 'unpopular' companies will reverse.  Maybe it's a case of looking at the best quality, hated Value stocks.  Of course, that's a speciality of many people on this board!

 

 

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I like the Softbank idea, though it's not really my style of investing i.e. I struggle with the governance of both Softbank and Alibaba.

 

To throw another contrarian idea out, how about some commodity companies?

 

When you say Microsoft, it makes me think that a great time to invest in it was in 2003-4, when everybody was still scarred by the tech bubble.  It was a brave call then.

 

Commodity companies were roaring in the 00s until 2007, but now are generally reviled.

 

My suspicion is that to make great returns, you want to make a brave call.

 

I think that Microsoft, BAM etc. are outstanding companies, but right now, so does everybody else, so I think returns could be disappointing over the next 10 years.

 

Having said that, I tend to favour the 'Fundsmith-esque' quality compounders.

 

Thanks for making me think about this.  This is what makes investing so interesting - it feels like we are starting to approach a new Nifty Fifty era i.e. that however good a company is, there comes a point when if a) it's very expensive and b) EVERYONE owns it, then it won't produce great returns for a while. 

 

However, the tricky part is 1) getting the timing right and 2) working out which 'unpopular' companies will reverse.  Maybe it's a case of looking at the best quality, hated Value stocks.  Of course, that's a speciality of many people on this board!

 

+5

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I would echo others sentiment that it could be more fruitful to look at the hated and potentially misperceived than the already successful with a huge TAM and wonderful management.

 

For example, in 2011, you could buy Lockheed Martin for 7-8x earnings (I know because I did*). The bear case simple then "sequestration/decrease in defense spending as we came off the wars, huge pension deficit, F-35 delays". The bull case was simple too: pension is 80-90% covered in cost plus contracts, the f-35 is a like a katrillion dollars of future revenue, US will still buy a lot of defense stuff, it's buying back 10% / year.

 

Fast forward to today (8 years, not quite 10 years). Revenue has gone from $47 billion to $58 billion (not huge growth but no decline). Net income has increased from $2.7 billion to $6 billion (more or less doubled). Earnings per share has gone from $8-->$21 (buybacks!) and the multiple has gone from 8x to 18.6x.

 

Over the past 8 years, Lockheed Martin without really growing much, without really requiring any crazy insight beyond (they are buying back shares, it yields 5.5%, and it's the biggest defense contractor responsible for the biggest defense project ever) made 26% / year and 576% with dividend re-invested.

 

Now Salesforce.com has returned 25.5% a year in that time frame too, but at least to me, it was a different (and potentially easier) analysis that Lockheed Martin was cheap in 2011 than Salesforce was. In other words, it may be more accessible to the layman, to make a prediction that lockheed will be around and profitable and earnings won't go down toooo much (they ended up going up) than Salesforce will multiply its sales by 7x and its EBITDA by 25x over the next 7 years, so even if I'm paying 7x sales and 100x EBITDA, I'll make money (which is what happened).

 

All that said I don't have many ideas that are hated and priced to potentially deliver 4x returns and definitely not in the US.

 

Very big picture, if I had to pick somewhere to look, it would be Asia and emerging markets (it's not a coincidence my previous recco's are discounted holdco's of fast growing asian tech companies), not US based beloved compounders.

 

Buy something that is cheap, has gotten hurt by currency and/or multiple compression, that has long term tailwinds. I wrote up Jardine Strategic recently. Just to take something I haven't really done a lot of work on, Jardine Cycle and Carriage for example, has compounded at 18% / year since 2000. Its 5 year return is -3.3% / year. It trades at a reasonable multiple (12-15x). It owns lots of businesses which will benefit from ASEAN's growth. It'll probably be earning more in 10 years than today and people may like non-USD and EM more so than today. you don't have to go too wacky with the growth and multiple to get to 15% / year.

 

All the EM guys I speak to say that Ayala Corp is the best governed company in the Phillipines. I don't know much about it, but tangible book/share has gone from 190-->506 since 2012. the stock has made 2% a year in dollar terms for the past 5 years. it appears to trade for 12x earnings and has a $9 billion market cap.

 

Or to go a completely different direction, again in a very contrarian way just for shits and gigs. What can be more hated than European banks. Let's take Credit Agricole. 0.58x book, <10x earnings, 5.5% yield. Can you get to a 15% / year owning freaking credit agricole. Maybe. I mean it has 28% deposit share of a large economy. it owns Amundi which is Europe's largest asset manager. they say they're going to make 5 billion euro in 2022, so 7x out year earnings. I have no idea if that happens, just saying that if europe doesn't end up completely blowing up or if the environment changes (10 years is a long time) maybe you make 4x. maybe they'll make 7 billion in 2029 and it trades for 15x (that'd be a 3x) and share count reduction / divvies get you the rest of the way.

 

 

 

*I also sold waaaaay too early at $140-$150 IIRC

 

 

 

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I like the Softbank idea, though it's not really my style of investing i.e. I struggle with the governance of both Softbank and Alibaba.

 

To throw another contrarian idea out, how about some commodity companies?

 

When you say Microsoft, it makes me think that a great time to invest in it was in 2003-4, when everybody was still scarred by the tech bubble.  It was a brave call then.

 

Commodity companies were roaring in the 00s until 2007, but now are generally reviled.

 

My suspicion is that to make great returns, you want to make a brave call.

 

I think that Microsoft, BAM etc. are outstanding companies, but right now, so does everybody else, so I think returns could be disappointing over the next 10 years.

 

Having said that, I tend to favour the 'Fundsmith-esque' quality compounders.

 

Thanks for making me think about this.  This is what makes investing so interesting - it feels like we are starting to approach a new Nifty Fifty era i.e. that however good a company is, there comes a point when if a) it's very expensive and b) EVERYONE owns it, then it won't produce great returns for a while. 

 

However, the tricky part is 1) getting the timing right and 2) working out which 'unpopular' companies will reverse.  Maybe it's a case of looking at the best quality, hated Value stocks.  Of course, that's a speciality of many people on this board!

 

I think some of those CPG type companies might be a good hunting ground.  Everyone thinks that because advertising is (for now) much more diffuse and cheaper, which allows for disruptors who don't need scale, but really that could be viewed as a product of dumb vc money/lose monetary conditions.  I wonder if maybe power laws will take over for attention eventually for these online channels (just like the audio, analog and digital video ones before) and rates will rise and scale and actually generating cash will matter again...

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Thanks - more good thoughts here.

 

The Ayalas are definitely one of the handful of Philippine families with high levels of corporate governance.  As you may know, you mention the holdco, but there's a bunch of other listed ones too (e.g. bank, water co etc.).

 

I saw the thing on Jardines, which is interesting - I found it too complicated and couldn't figure out the Keswick history (I get the impression some members of the family have been more impressive than others).  Jardine C&C is definitely interesting - auto has been grim.  I know it a bit because they have a subsidiary that invests in Vietnam (I research this a little).

 

Similarly some of the best small-cap Asia value funds are super beaten up at the moment, whereas you look at their track records from 2003-13 and they killed it.  It feels like their day must come again, but it's painful waiting at the moment.

 

I think it's harder than ever perhaps to identify the unpopular stuff as this cycle has gone on so much longer than usual that our brains have been wired to quality growth compounders in certain industries, and it's hard to remember the people who succeeded with a previous style before, and even harder to know if they'd still be able to do it if things switched again.

 

Thanks to all for this contrarian thinking - I used to be more attuned to it, but I've been gradually been drawn to groupthink out of jealousy at missing out on the returns of the past 10 years.

 

Finally, I don't know the figures well, but instinctively I'd back FPT in Vietnam for the next 10-15 years.  Unfortunately foreigners can only buy it at a huge premium (due to Foreign Ownership Limits).  It's a phone/broadband company that has moved into IT services.  It seems to be a quality operating, growing, and not expensive, but DYOR - I get this from a bunch of Vietnam reports I've read.

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I don't want to hijack the thread with my "look to emerging markets" bluster, but to the extent anyone beleives in mean reversion...

 

Stolen from a friend on LinkedIn

 

1988-1993: EM 545%, US: 129%

 

1993-1998: EM: -38%, US: 191%

 

1999-2007: EM: +420%, US:+38%

 

2008-today: EM: 11%, US: 160%

 

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I would echo others sentiment that it could be more fruitful to look at the hated and potentially misperceived than the already successful with a huge TAM and wonderful management.

 

For example, in 2011, you could buy Lockheed Martin for 7-8x earnings (I know because I did*). The bear case simple then "sequestration/decrease in defense spending as we came off the wars, huge pension deficit, F-35 delays". The bull case was simple too: pension is 80-90% covered in cost plus contracts, the f-35 is a like a katrillion dollars of future revenue, US will still buy a lot of defense stuff, it's buying back 10% / year.

 

Fast forward to today (8 years, not quite 10 years). Revenue has gone from $47 billion to $58 billion (not huge growth but no decline). Net income has increased from $2.7 billion to $6 billion (more or less doubled). Earnings per share has gone from $8-->$21 (buybacks!) and the multiple has gone from 8x to 18.6x.

 

Over the past 8 years, Lockheed Martin without really growing much, without really requiring any crazy insight beyond (they are buying back shares, it yields 5.5%, and it's the biggest defense contractor responsible for the biggest defense project ever) made 26% / year and 576% with dividend re-invested.

 

Now Salesforce.com has returned 25.5% a year in that time frame too, but at least to me, it was a different (and potentially easier) analysis that Lockheed Martin was cheap in 2011 than Salesforce was. In other words, it may be more accessible to the layman, to make a prediction that lockheed will be around and profitable and earnings won't go down toooo much (they ended up going up) than Salesforce will multiply its sales by 7x and its EBITDA by 25x over the next 7 years, so even if I'm paying 7x sales and 100x EBITDA, I'll make money (which is what happened).

 

All that said I don't have many ideas that are hated and priced to potentially deliver 4x returns and definitely not in the US.

 

Very big picture, if I had to pick somewhere to look, it would be Asia and emerging markets (it's not a coincidence my previous recco's are discounted holdco's of fast growing asian tech companies), not US based beloved compounders.

 

Buy something that is cheap, has gotten hurt by currency and/or multiple compression, that has long term tailwinds. I wrote up Jardine Strategic recently. Just to take something I haven't really done a lot of work on, Jardine Cycle and Carriage for example, has compounded at 18% / year since 2000. Its 5 year return is -3.3% / year. It trades at a reasonable multiple (12-15x). It owns lots of businesses which will benefit from ASEAN's growth. It'll probably be earning more in 10 years than today and people may like non-USD and EM more so than today. you don't have to go too wacky with the growth and multiple to get to 15% / year.

 

All the EM guys I speak to say that Ayala Corp is the best governed company in the Phillipines. I don't know much about it, but tangible book/share has gone from 190-->506 since 2012. the stock has made 2% a year in dollar terms for the past 5 years. it appears to trade for 12x earnings and has a $9 billion market cap.

 

Or to go a completely different direction, again in a very contrarian way just for shits and gigs. What can be more hated than European banks. Let's take Credit Agricole. 0.58x book, <10x earnings, 5.5% yield. Can you get to a 15% / year owning freaking credit agricole. Maybe. I mean it has 28% deposit share of a large economy. it owns Amundi which is Europe's largest asset manager. they say they're going to make 5 billion euro in 2022, so 7x out year earnings. I have no idea if that happens, just saying that if europe doesn't end up completely blowing up or if the environment changes (10 years is a long time) maybe you make 4x. maybe they'll make 7 billion in 2029 and it trades for 15x (that'd be a 3x) and share count reduction / divvies get you the rest of the way.

 

 

 

*I also sold waaaaay too early at $140-$150 IIRC

 

I really like the mental model of a good (or at least decent) business that is undergoing market dislocation of some kind as a potential compounder. Less has to go right, and multiple expansion can improve things materially.

 

One that might fit that narrative right now is Ulta Beauty. Growing, strong economics, but concerns about everyone switching to ecommerce and missed earnings have brought the stock down quite a bit.

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Some more companies that might be good compounders with no or high PE’s

 

FTNT - tailwinds in the network security space, market growing nicely. Company is also taking share. Founder owned

 

EPAM - will grow 20% pa for some time to come. Founder owned

 

SPLK,ESTC - Growing end markets , will grow for some time to come. Founder owned

 

WDAY - Although HCM market maybe slowing , they are getting into enterprise financial management SAAS . It’s a huge market and growing. Aneel Bhusri and Dave duffield have done a great job so far and are conservative with guidance.

 

NOW - same as above , growing end market but valuations are high, even adjusting for growth and margins

 

TTD - They have customer. concentration risks but have long runway

 

SQ/SHOP and WIX to a lesser extent - Long runways

 

DG - Best of breed dollar store, will be around for a long time to come

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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TPL - self liquidating land trust

 

I'll derail this a bit, but dont you worry that the self liquidating narrative is gone? Adding dozens of employees, acquiring assets, and now potentially converting to a C corp doesnt seem like self liquidating to me. The trustees do suck a big giant eggplant emoji, but otherwise, this was hardly broken and I cant help but be a little pissed at all the players involved here for trying to "fix" it.

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I keep it simple and just mention one compound that is surprisingly affordable - CMCSA. Stock trades at 8.3x Y2020 EBITDA and an ~8% FCF yield is the CS analyst is correct.

According to the 2018 shareholder meeting presentation, they have compounded ~17% annually. It don’t see why they can’t do low double digit returns for quite some time going forward.

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I would echo others sentiment that it could be more fruitful to look at the hated and potentially misperceived than the already successful with a huge TAM and wonderful management.

 

For example, in 2011, you could buy Lockheed Martin for 7-8x earnings (I know because I did*). The bear case simple then "sequestration/decrease in defense spending as we came off the wars, huge pension deficit, F-35 delays". The bull case was simple too: pension is 80-90% covered in cost plus contracts, the f-35 is a like a katrillion dollars of future revenue, US will still buy a lot of defense stuff, it's buying back 10% / year.

 

Fast forward to today (8 years, not quite 10 years). Revenue has gone from $47 billion to $58 billion (not huge growth but no decline). Net income has increased from $2.7 billion to $6 billion (more or less doubled). Earnings per share has gone from $8-->$21 (buybacks!) and the multiple has gone from 8x to 18.6x.

 

Over the past 8 years, Lockheed Martin without really growing much, without really requiring any crazy insight beyond (they are buying back shares, it yields 5.5%, and it's the biggest defense contractor responsible for the biggest defense project ever) made 26% / year and 576% with dividend re-invested.

 

Now Salesforce.com has returned 25.5% a year in that time frame too, but at least to me, it was a different (and potentially easier) analysis that Lockheed Martin was cheap in 2011 than Salesforce was. In other words, it may be more accessible to the layman, to make a prediction that lockheed will be around and profitable and earnings won't go down toooo much (they ended up going up) than Salesforce will multiply its sales by 7x and its EBITDA by 25x over the next 7 years, so even if I'm paying 7x sales and 100x EBITDA, I'll make money (which is what happened).

 

All that said I don't have many ideas that are hated and priced to potentially deliver 4x returns and definitely not in the US.

 

Very big picture, if I had to pick somewhere to look, it would be Asia and emerging markets (it's not a coincidence my previous recco's are discounted holdco's of fast growing asian tech companies), not US based beloved compounders.

 

Buy something that is cheap, has gotten hurt by currency and/or multiple compression, that has long term tailwinds. I wrote up Jardine Strategic recently. Just to take something I haven't really done a lot of work on, Jardine Cycle and Carriage for example, has compounded at 18% / year since 2000. Its 5 year return is -3.3% / year. It trades at a reasonable multiple (12-15x). It owns lots of businesses which will benefit from ASEAN's growth. It'll probably be earning more in 10 years than today and people may like non-USD and EM more so than today. you don't have to go too wacky with the growth and multiple to get to 15% / year.

 

All the EM guys I speak to say that Ayala Corp is the best governed company in the Phillipines. I don't know much about it, but tangible book/share has gone from 190-->506 since 2012. the stock has made 2% a year in dollar terms for the past 5 years. it appears to trade for 12x earnings and has a $9 billion market cap.

 

Or to go a completely different direction, again in a very contrarian way just for shits and gigs. What can be more hated than European banks. Let's take Credit Agricole. 0.58x book, <10x earnings, 5.5% yield. Can you get to a 15% / year owning freaking credit agricole. Maybe. I mean it has 28% deposit share of a large economy. it owns Amundi which is Europe's largest asset manager. they say they're going to make 5 billion euro in 2022, so 7x out year earnings. I have no idea if that happens, just saying that if europe doesn't end up completely blowing up or if the environment changes (10 years is a long time) maybe you make 4x. maybe they'll make 7 billion in 2029 and it trades for 15x (that'd be a 3x) and share count reduction / divvies get you the rest of the way.

 

 

 

*I also sold waaaaay too early at $140-$150 IIRC

 

I really like the mental model of a good (or at least decent) business that is undergoing market dislocation of some kind as a potential compounder. Less has to go right, and multiple expansion can improve things materially.

 

One that might fit that narrative right now is Ulta Beauty. Growing, strong economics, but concerns about everyone switching to ecommerce and missed earnings have brought the stock down quite a bit.

 

Morningstar has a very good write up on ULTA.

 

ULTA hasn't been this low since June of 2016

Last time I got interested in retail I visited

some mall stores & got over it.

 

Ulta only has around 10% of stores in malls.

ULTA.thumb.png.aa184344f4c2b3a538e739aceb821354.png

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