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[Read This Before Investing In The Next “Cool” Company]( By Sven Carlin on April 6, 2017 - The investment thesis behind investing in cool businesses is based on stellar growth. As no business can grow forever, sentiment often changes and stock prices plunge. - We’ll discuss, Tesla, Nike, Lululemon, Whole Foods, Under Armour, GoPro, Fitbit, and Microsoft to find the best way to invest in such businesses, because many of them are great businesses. - In the end, it all boils down to earnings. If you’re a long-term investor, focus on the business and its long-term health. Introduction I’m a value investor and as one, I always try to invest with a margin of safety. However, sometimes I get carried away and invest in companies that don’t really meet my investing criteria. The last investing mistake I made—where I invested in something because it was a cool brand, my wife loved shopping there, and it was growing fast—that perfectly relates to the topic of this article, was Whole Foods Market (NASDAQ: [WFM](. I invested in WFM in the summer of 2015. I thought that the price drop was exaggerated as the stock dropped from $56 in February of 2015 to a level of around $40 after accusations of overcharging in [New York City stores](. Figure 1: Book value per share was around $10 but I paid $40. Source: [Yahoo Finance](. The overcharging issue quickly faded as I correctly estimated it would, but what I incorrectly estimated was the growth the company would achieve. I replicated past growth rates into the future and estimated a nice 13% return on investment for the next 10 years. Unfortunately, due to strong competition from direct competitors in the organic retail sector and from old-fashioned retailers introducing more and more organic products, WFM stopped growing, both in revenue and earnings. As I bought WFM at a valuation of 25 which is a good ratio for a growth company growing 10% per year, but extremely high for a stable company, the price soon dropped from the $40 I paid to the current $30. I closed my position as soon as it was obvious to me that the company wouldn’t grow that easily, acknowledged my mistake, and kept one share of WFM to remind me of the error. My error was that I invested on hope instead of facts. I looked at the chart above and hoped that the stock price would return to above $50, or even $60 where the stock had been trading at the beginning of 2015 and in 2013. I was hoping for an acquisition or a miraculous return to growth. Unfortunately, investing on hope in something cool is, and was in my case, extremely risky. I lost 3.5% of my portfolio on this trade. However, even though this investment cost me 3.5% of my portfolio, it fortunately is the biggest investment mistake I have made since 2008, so I’m still well off and it will prevent me from making similar investment mistakes in the future. The one stock of WFM that I keep in my portfolio constantly reminds me of how cool companies can be very attractive investments, but are very risky at the same time. What’s important to focus on is the business and the price we are paying for that business as looking at past stock performance can be extremely deceiving. In the current market environment, there are plenty of companies that have been or are still extremely cool. Let’s start with Nike Inc. (NYSE: [NKE]( Lululemon Athletica Inc. (NASDAQ: [LULU]( Under Armour Inc. (NYSE: [UA]( [UAA]( and Tesla Motors (NASDAQ: [TSLA](. All of these companies have or have had a strong cool factor, stellar growth, and stellar stock price performance. Figure 2: NKE, TSLA, UA, LULU, WFM stock performance. Source: Yahoo Finance. What’s significant is that cool companies like UA, LULU, NKE, and WFM haven’t given positive returns to those who have invested in them in the last year or two. The only cool company still going is TSLA. Let’s see what we can learn from these cases in order to not make a mistake like the one I did with WFM. [Misunderstood Option Strategy Earns Novice Trader $41 Million In Only 3 Years]( Find out how you can use it to immediately generate substantial income when the market opens on Monday... even if you're starting with limited funds. It's safe, reliable, and can be duplicated over and over again to generate income you can use right now if you want. Or you can let it snowball into even more. [Click Here To Learn This Strategy]( [Easy-to-use Signal System Picks Stocks With Uncanny Accuracy]( Here are several stocks our system said to buy: WNC shot up 288% after system said BUY VCI shot up 233% after system said BUY ETM shot up 953% after system said BUY Plus ... get over $398 worth of valuable books, videos, and reports just for trying this system risk-free for the next 30 days! [Click Here To Try It Risk-Free For The Next 30 Days!]( Overestimating Growth The easiest way to rationalize an investment is to plot extremely positive growth rates on current financial numbers. Such positivity can easily make a company like TSLA more valuable than the Ford Motor Company (NYSE: [F](. The current market capitalization of TSLA is $48.6 billion, while Ford’s is $45.4 billion. The market thinks TSLA will continue to grow at its ludicrous pace and increase its sales from the current 76,230 (2016) to above 500,000 vehicles per year as the Model 3 is introduced with additional benefits from energy storage modules and solar roofs. Just for comparison, Ford sold 2,614,697 vehicles in 2016 in the U.S. alone and with a net income of $4.5 billion, while TSLA lost $675 million. Now, even if TSLA manages to sell 7 times more vehicles and its revenue increases 7 times (not likely as the Model 3 will be priced at a lower price than the models S and X), its revenue would come close to $50 billion, or just a third of Ford’s sales. However, a net profit margin of 10% would give equal earnings, and this is what rational investors are betting on, if there are any rational investors investing in TSLA. I don’t know whether TSLA will hit those numbers or not, but what I can discuss is what happens if the estimated growth and profit rates don’t materialize by taking a look at what has happened to WFM, LULU, and UA in the last two years. Figure 3: NKE, UA, LULU, TSLA, WFM all experienced significant revenue growth. Source: [Morningstar](. A look at revenue shows that all stocks except WFM have seen constant revenue growth in the last 5 years. So, if revenue continues to grow, why did the stock prices of UA and LULU plunge while NKE’s stopped growing? A look at earnings will perhaps provide a better explanation. Figure 4: WFM’s and UA’s earnings declined. Source: [Morningstar](. In 2016, UA’s earnings dropped 15%, while WFM’s dropped 11% from 2015. The market reaction was furious as WFM dropped almost 50%, while UA dropped 63% from its 2015 peak. Such drops are huge and show how risky it can be to invest in companies that are cool but are open to competition. Market sentiment and revenue growth can keep hopes up, but many cool companies can’t justify the extreme expectations and eventually falter. Two examples of cool companies that have faltered are GoPro (NASDAQ: [GPRO]( and Fitbit (NYSE: [FIT](. Figure 5: GRPO and FIT have both seen their stock prices plunge more than 90% from their recent highs. Source: [Yahoo Finance](. Loses of 90% are extremely damaging for any investor and almost impossible to repair as a 1000% return is required to amend for the damage. In The End, It All Boils Down To Earnings & How Sustainable They Are Cool companies are attractive because they make us dream. However, these dreams are more often than not shattered by earnings and revenue misses. We live in a free world which means the competition can offer the same or similar products which makes the story turn from the product’s coolness to the management’s capability of running a business, thinking about costs, and focusing on profitable growth. Unfortunately, it’s extremely difficult to analyze such characteristics while the companies grow at double digit rates. Now, when surrounded by market euphoria, a cool investment will rarely make sense as earnings aren’t there to back it up. However, when market euphoria fades, and stock prices drop significantly, like they did in the cases of WFM, LULU, UA, GPRO, and FIT, it might be time to look at the businesses behind the stocks as they might have a margin of safety. Price is what determines the quality of an investment. Therefore, cool companies for long term investments should be bought when nobody looks at them anymore from the ‘cool’ perspective, or before the market has acknowledged their greatness. Buying at peak euphoria is the worst investment you can make. A Cool Investment Can Eventually Become A Value & Perhaps A Great Investment Those companies who manage to keep a small, stable, positively operating business with a loyal customer base eventually become interesting investment plays when the euphoria cools off. My favorite example is Microsoft (NASDAQ: [MSFT]( which was supposed to conquer the world back in 1999, which is a pretty similar story to what was expected from GPRO or FIT or is expected from TSLA now. MSFT had a healthy business model that eventually took over the world, however, investors in 1999 had to wait a long time to breakeven on their initial investment. Figure 6: It took MSFT to 17 years to surpass its 1999 high. Source: [Yahoo Finance](. What turned out to be a good investment was investing in MSFT after the crash, especially after the 2009 crash. Conclusion There are a few things to think about when investing in cool companies: - Ask yourself how many things have to align themselves to justify the valuation. Compared to its peers, TSLA should have had earnings of $5 billion in 2016 to justify the $50 billion market cap. As TSLA will, hopefully, reach profitability somewhere in the future, these earnings will have to be much higher than $5 billion. For that to happen, the electric vehicle market has to grow immensely and the competition has to stay put, which is very unlikely. TSLA is entering a market not much different from those that WFM, GPRO, and FIT are dealing with. The nice thing about investing is that nobody is forcing you to invest in anything and you can always wait for all of your investment criteria to align. - Look at how healthy the business model is and whether it is overstretched. Managements love to assume that past growth rates extend into eternity, and invest accordingly. What’s often forgotten is that it’s much easier to grow from $100 million in revenue to $1 billion than from $1 billion to $10 billion. High investment levels put pressure on margins and lower earnings. - If the business model is healthy, profitable, and stable, it’s a good idea to be patient and wait for a good buying opportunity as everything depends on the price paid. I’ll look again at WFM if it drops below $20 as then it becomes a ‘cool’ company with a margin of safety. - If you still want to gamble, wait for market overreactions. Overreactions to guidance, especially negative guidance, is usually extreme when valuations are overblown, but overreactions offer better entry points than when the company is priced to perfection. I’ll conclude with LULU’s stock chart which looks like a rollercoaster, but buying into fear and selling into euphoria would have given excellent returns even as the stock hasn’t gone anywhere in the last 5 years. Figure 7: LULU’s rollercoaster. Source: [Yahoo Finance](. Disclosure: I own one share of WFM, but have no positions in any of the other stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. [No Comments »]( | Filed under: [Investing Strategy]( [Investiv Daily]( [Stocks]( | Tags: No Tags --------------------------------------------------------------- If you are having trouble reading this email, you may [view the online version]( This email was sent to {EMAIL} by Investiv, LLC 3400 North Ashton Blvd. | Suite 170 | Lehi | UT | 84043 [Forward to a friend]( | [Unsubscribe]( Disclaimers Investing is Inherently Risky There are risks inherent in all investments, which may make such investments unsuitable for certain persons. These include, for example, economic, political, currency exchange, rate fluctuations, and limited availability of information on international securities. You may lose all of your money trading and investing. Do NOT enter any trade without fully understanding the worst-case scenarios of that trade. 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