Opinions
Brooke Thackray
Sysco Corp
SYY-N
PAST TOP PICK
May 05, 2015
Stock price when the opinion was issued
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(A Top Pick Oct 9/15. Down 2.01%.) At the time he wanted to be a bit more defensive. October to May is really a cyclical time where you want to take on a lot of risk in your portfolio, but he was just not liking the market action, so was being fairly defensive at the time. On this stock, the average gain between Oct 10 to Dec 31 is about 9%, but this hit resistance at about $41.50. During the period of seasonal strength, it ended up with a marginal gain of about 0.12%.
SYY distributes food through the US, Canada and Europe. It has invested in new supply chain inventory management systems for its customers allowing margins to expand and strong profit growth. It trades at 20x earnings and we like that cash reserves continue growing, while debt is reduced and shares bought back. The dividend is backed by a payout ratio under 50% of cash flow. We recommend setting a stop-loss at $71, looking to achieve $92 -- upside potential of 18%. Yield 2.4%
(Analysts’ price target is $87.91)
(A Top Pick March 23/15. Down 5.83%.) The premise was that this was in a defensive sector. There are talks of a merger and being taken to court, so there is some negativity around the stock. Just too much going on here.