[ad_1]
By Paul R. La Monica, CNN Business
Amazon, Walmart, and Target have stepped up their games in the grocery business. It may come as a surprise, then, that shares of traditional supermarket chain Kroger have risen nearly 50% this year and are trading at an all time high.
Kroger, like other grocery retailers, has been a major beneficiary of the Covid-19 work-from-home economy for the past year and a half. The supermarket giant, in addition to its eponymous chain, also owns Dillons, Fred Meyer, Harris Teeter, Ralphs and many other regional grocers.
But Kroger faces many challenges besides big competitors like Amazon, Walmart, and Target, including Albertsons, which owns Safeway, as well as European discount giants Aldi and Ahold Delhaize, the parent company of Stop & Shop.
There’s also the prospect of more competition from Instacart, the online grocery buying company that is set to go public soon. Kroger is an Instacart partner. But it also has a deal with rival Target-owned Shipt as well as its own delivery service.
Kroger might be too expensive for investor shopping carts
That’s why some analysts fear that Kroger’s stock price may start to look as unappetizing as an overripe banana.
Sales growth should be stable this fiscal year and next. Analysts are also forecasting a drop in earnings per share this year and a slight drop next year.
The big grocery boom may come to an end as more vaccinated American consumers look to venture out into the world and eat in restaurants – despite fears of the Delta variant.
“The strength of current sales doesn’t necessarily mean the strength of future sales,” Morgan Stanley analyst Simeon Gutman said in a report released after Kroger’s last earnings release in late June.
Gutman added that Kroger “is no longer taking inordinate market share and in fact has essentially ceded all of the share it gained earlier in the pandemic.”
Analysts are skeptical… but don’t bet against Buffett?
Considering how far the stock has traveled, analysts believe there are better opportunities with other supermarket stocks.
“Given what appears to be a reasonable estimate, we see little benefit,” Scott Mushkin, analyst at R5 Capital, said of Kroger in a report released earlier this year. Mushkin said organic supermarket chain Sprouts Farmers Market seems like a better buy.
In fact, most analysts expect the Kroger share price to fall. According to estimates compiled by Refinitiv, the consensus target price for Kroger shares is just under $ 39, about 17% below its current price of around $ 47.
Only six Wall Street analysts have rated Kroger’s stock as a “buy”, while six others recommend it as a “sell.” The seventeen other analysts who follow Kroger have a lukewarm “grip” on the title.
Still, Kroger has a very large investor supporting the increasingly bullish company: Warren Buffett. Omaha’s Berkshire Hathaway Oracle is now the second-largest investor in Kroger, behind mutual fund giant Vanguard.
Berkshire Hathaway owns nearly 62 million Kroger shares, a stake of over 8% in the company. And Buffett’s company increased its stake in Kroger during the second quarter, picking up more than 10 million shares.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2021 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.
[ad_2]
Source link