Friday, September 12, 2008

Chipotle (CMG) Succumbs to Pooring of America

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It took a while but finally Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) has lost enough customers to McDonalds (MCD) and Burger King (BKC) for it to really begin to effect them. The move downstream in sector after sector across America continues. Strange, considering how with gasoline down 50 cents, the American consumer is "back". Again, I'm sorry to pepper the blog with reality when its far better to buy retail stocks in glee as the $15/week bonus from lower gasoline makes our malls flood with consumers.
  • Shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. sank to a nearly two-year low Friday after the burrito chain said the weakening economy has led to declining sales and profit. Shares dropped $13.57, or 19.1 percent, to $57.58 in heavy morning trading. The stock has not traded that low since January of 2007.
  • Before the market opened, the company said it now expects to report third quarter profit lower than a year ago, when Chipotle earned 62 cents per share. The new estimate was far below what analysts have been expecting from the company. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect net income of 72 cents per share.
  • Chipotle said both the overall economic environment in which consumers are cutting back on spending and higher food costs led to its outlook. Food prices have jumped far above year-ago levels, putting pressure on most restaurant companies.
  • To combat the higher prices, Chipotle said it may raise its prices in the fourth quarter. (which will draw in more customers ... err)
I outlined this call in [Jul 24: Chipotle Mexican Grill - The Bear Gets Them All Eventually] Yet another "short" we could not benefit from due to the nature of the Marketocracy.com account

[Sept 19 2007 - Tough Times Ahead for Restaurants?]

I continue to believe this is a stock market full of NYC traders on 6 figure incomes who do not understand what is going on in the real economy, as they rely on government reports. That's just me. This is why they are "surprised" by such comments and constantly driving stocks up on the "consumer is back" trade.

The Pooring of America continues. At $4 gas. At $3.50 gas. Or $3.00 gas. [Do the Bottom 80% of Americans Stand a Chance?] But we don't need no stinkin consumers to drive this stock market up.

I continue to watch sadly as all these short opportunities fall by the wayside. This would be a 50% gain just from that double top in May. :()

No position


5 comments:

nxgstock said...

Mark,

You need to shore up this fund, and soon! You're slashing thru all the resistance on the Rising Tide Growth Fund chart. Next stop is all the way down to $9.30ish. If you can patch it back together at that point you will possibly be able to work off of a double bottom. Wild how this stuff works, almost spooky! Hang in there, it will get better at some point!

market folly said...

quick question since you'll obviously be more familiar with it than i am... what % of a mutual fund portfolio can be short through regulations or whatnot?

say if you were running a real fund right now what percentage of the portfolio would be short and how many names would you be short? rough estimates obviously

TraderMark said...

nx,
I broke my triple bottom this week - that sucked

I am unclear how I am doing this badly in a week I am 1/3rd cash

market, I could go 100% short there are "Prudent bear" type of funds

But I'd rather run like a long-short hedge fund so I won't be 100% short of course, plus 99.9% of people don't go looking for short mutual funds.

But it would of made for a doozy of a good year with just a few home runs - i.e. Freddie, some restaurants, retail in the fall, obviously a few other financials. This is not the market to be restricted.

You just have to explain it in your prospectus so people realize the risk factors i.e. the fund can go to 100% cash, the fund can go to XX% short.

I'm not sure what % I'll end up going to because I don't want to be classified as a short mutual fund. If its 49.9% or whatnot per SEC I'll put "could go to 49.9% short"

hrs0944 said...

can a mutual fund employ options?
if so how would being long a put options be classed? a long or a short?

TraderMark said...

I assume short as its a put

you can be long/short calls/puts or own an equal amount of puts against a long common position for example

You cannot sell puts or calls and derive income as that is considered leverage

basically a mutual fund cannot do leverage in any way shape or form, and aside from heavy SEC regulation/scrutiny the lack of leverage and different investor bases are the key differences between the two.

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