We are helping to promote the new service called TickerGraph.
TickerGraph is a site that relates a company’s customers and suppliers instantly so that you can see the full extent of impact from events like earnings, new product releases, M&A news, etc. instantly in one spot.
Over the next two weeks as the product comes live in a “beta” form anyone can access the service for a free test drive using the following log in credentials:
Username: alpha
Password: alpha
Yes, small caps please on the log in. So check it out at www.tickergraph.com
If you have any questions on this service I can help you out. Just e-mail casey@tickermine.com.
1 year ago
We are working to bring an important new product to market with our new partner TickerGraph - www.tickergraph.com. The site is the destination for an application that will bring context and show investors in a graphical format all the connections among companies. We believe this product in conjunction with the very powerful insight provided by TickerMine’s primary data research will provide significant intelligence advantages to investors using both services.
Keep an eye out for TickerGraph coming live soon. Also for those iPhone users, look for an early beta release to be available in the app store.
1 year ago
TickerMine’s practice of repeating surveys is beginning to produce interesting insights into many industries but particularly the auto market and buyer trends and habits.
While high oil has been well documented and the impacts on truck sales focused on because of their profit contributions to the auto manufacturers, we believe a trend has been missed.
TickerMine has conducted six surveys on Toyota dealerships in 2008. Camry’s and Corolla’s have been the top sellers in the the first five. Fuel efficient cars to be sure and the first step away from trucks and SUV’s. However for the first time in September we found that the Prius Hybrid is the top seller according to 30% of dealers we spoke with.
Prius is Best-Seller at 30% of Toyota Dealerships
Posted at 09/23/08 23:09 PM
Toyota dealerships across the U.S. reported that the Prius is their best-selling vehicle, according to TickerMine’s latest poll. The hybrid vehicle was a best-seller for 30% of dealerships surveyed. The Camry was the next highest seller (27%), followed by the Corolla (18%). Forty-two percent of dealerships are offering special deals on trucks, given the falloff in sales due to high gas prices. In most cases these deals consist of 0% or low APR or cash rebates. Fifty-five percent of dealerships polled are offering free satellite radio from XM Satellite or Sirius Satellite. Fifty-two percent say sales have gone up in the last month.
The move to mass purchasing of hybrid is a dramatic shift in u.s. auto buyers preferences. TickerMine will continue to track this trend, but we see the shift as being a 12-month cycle of “no trucks” - “small cars” - “hybrids/electrics / CNG’s”. We believe that the final three months of 2008 could be the phase for dramatic adoption of hybrid’s and other alternative fuel vehicles.
1 year ago
Everyone can now see the companies we have covered in our research for Tickermine here.
This will give eveyone a chance to see “what’s inside” before signing up for our ever more interesting set of historical and new indusry data.
-Casey
1 year ago
We’ve become a bit of a coffee company lately. We’ve posted a few reports on Starbucks, Caribou Coffee and Peet’s. We’re getting pretty well versed in the blends and beans.
Our latest report on Peet’s suggests the regular roasts are not knocking their socks off on the West Coast (Peet’s is a Berzerkly based company).
The House Blend Sells Poorly at Peet’s Coffee
Tickermine revisited Peet’s Coffee stores this week. 23 stores were approached and respondents were asked which coffee drinks are selling best? Which coffee drinks does the respondent order themselves? And which percentage of sales were plain coffee alone vs. specialty drinks? We found that Lattes remain the best selling drinks, according to 39% of those interviewed. The Arabian Mocha Java drink was cited by 17% and the same amount mentioned Freddos. Only 9% cited House blend coffee as their best seller. 52% of those polled said that 10 to 20% of their customers order plain coffee. 22 per cent said that less than 10% of their customers order plain coffee drinks, while 26% said greater than 20% of their customers do this. And 49% reported that they themselves order plain drip coffee. 39% say they order a specialty drink and 13%, surprisingly, reported they won’t touch the stuff with a pole.
Converseley we found pretty good things seemed to be happening at Caribou, although the company contacted us and did not seem to like our report. Despite their complaints we note that CBOU is up 100% off a pretty good 2Q (versus expectations) and we’re probably the only ones picking up good trends at CBOU since they have no analyst coverage.
23% of Caribou Coffee Locations See at Least 65% of Customers More Than 4X Per Week
According to TickerMine’s recent poll, lattes are the best selling coffee drink for Caribou Coffee. Thirty-five percent of locations polled named the milky drink their top order. Coffee of the day (16%), mochas (13%) and cappuccino (10%) are also popular. Thirty-two percent of Caribou Coffees say they sell regular drip coffee, rather than specialty drinks, 10 to 15% of the time. Twenty-six percent said they sell drip coffee 15 to 20% percent of the time. Another 26% said they sell drip coffee five to ten percent of the time; 16% said drip coffee makes up more than 20% of their orders. Fifty-five percent of employees participating in the poll drink mostly specialty drinks; 26% order drip coffee. A full 19% of employees interviewed do not drink coffee at all. Caribou Coffee has a large number of regular customers: 23% of locations polled said 65 to 80% of their customers come in more than four times per week. Another 35% of locations said 26 to 50% of their customers come in more than four times a week. Only 35% of Caribou Coffees have raised their prices in the last two months.
We covered Starbucks in a previous post and the gist is, lower drip coffee sales, more specialty drink sales and some store closings all add up to some improvement in SBUX, at least that’s what the unbiased field data is telling us.
2 years ago
Harley Davidson (HOG) is one of our earliest companies under coverage at TickerMine. When we began collecting data for TickerMine Harley was one of our first starting back in November of 2007.
The data from HOG dealers was tepid through June of this year when the mood suddenly improved a bit. The upswing in mood and outlook from HOG dealers continues to improve as seen in our most recent HOG survey:
75% of Harley Stores Report a Spike in Sales this Past Month
Harley Davidson was surveyed this week. We asked 28 respondents at various stores around the country which motorcycle sells best? Are they sold out of any models? How is business compared with last year and have they seen a spike in sales in recent months? 32% reported that the Sportster was the bestselling motorcycle. 14% said it was the Dyna and 11% said it was the Road King. While 82% said they weren’t sold out of any models, 18% said they were. Also, promising was that 64% reported that business was up from a year ago. 18% said business was just the same and the same ratios said it had dropped. Also surprising was that 75% said sales had jumped in the past month. Only 25% said they had slumped.
While Harley remains down significantly from year ago levels, the stock is making higher highs and lower lows here in the summer months. The company also did better than expected in 2Q when compared to investors expectations. Based on our data is looks like 3Q is on track to surprise to upside as well.
2 years ago
TickerMine is observing an interesting trend in our Starbucks research. It appears that despite the buzz about Pike’s Peak coffee that sales of drip coffee are actually slowing.
Here is our report from June 26th:
Starbucks Drip Coffee Sales Slow
43% of employees in a recent Starbucks survey stated that 30%-50% of their customers come in more than four times per week. Sales of plain drip coffee are weak, with 55% stating that drip coffee accounts for less than 10% of their sales, up from 34% in April. 75% of customers stated that they order a specialty drink rather than drip coffee, up from 71% in April.
One of our partners, wrote to us in response to this piece:
“To counter the perennial issue of burnt coffee, Howard Schultz rolled out Pike’s Peak, a milder roast. If drip coffee is falling from a sales mix standpoint, that gives clues as its performance and also margin: the drip coffees have a much lower gross margin per drink versus a espresso/mixed drink beverage. SBUX is claiming its drip coffees are up in the WSJ article.”
Starbucks crummy drip coffee could actually be leading to better gross margins which might be amplified by recent cost cutting efforts as well.
2 years ago
TickerMine surveyed 50 Macco auto body shops across the U.S and 50 oil and transmission stations like Jiffy Lube and Pep Boys. The well documented fall in new car sales in might suggest that business would be increasing for the auto maintenance and repair market.
TickerMine found that 50% of Maaco locations contacted reporting that business was down over the past few months, while 44% business had remained steady. Only 6% reported an increase in business levels. 56% of respondents reported that customers were now more likely to pay for major body work at a Maaco location as customers were trying to maintain resale values for their vehicles and wanted to forestall purchasing a new vehicle as long as possible. In another tip to the economic difficulties facing Maaco clients, it appears that more customers are opting to use insurance for repairs, despite the hit they are likely to take on future insurance premiums which rise as claims are made for damage to cars.
At the big oil change locations like Jiffy Lube, Pep Boys and PitStop TickerMine found that while business had slowed somewhat the incidence of minor repairs appears to be increasing. 62% of respondents reported seeing an increasing in minor repairs as consumers look to keep their cars running as well and for as long as possible without incurring major expenses. 76% of oil change locations reported seeing increased usage of coupons or promotions for oil changes and other routine maintenance services. This statistic is supported by our Maaco survey where 66% of those respondents were seeing increased usage of coupons and promotions.
While business appears to be steady or slowing for the automotive care and repair service stations our surveys suggest that as cars are stretched further into their useful lives that the flow of drivers seeking minor repairs and even major repairs to postpone the purchase of a new vehicle is likely to increase. TickerMine will be repeating this survey in July and August to track the changes in car owner behavior as the summer and economic malaise continue.
2 years ago
Sometimes good data doesn’t lead to a valuable outcome. We saw an example of that this past week at TickerMine. We posted a story on LuLu Lemon Athletica Inc. (LULU) that showed very strong average sales, lots of repeat customers and modest discounting. We thought the story pointed to a positive quarterly report for the company. In fact LULU did post 10% more revneues than analysts expected. However, as LULU expands the company sees lower EPS for the remainder of the year. The net result? Stock down.
LULU is probably a long term winner in the athletic clothing space. Near term the right data did not lead to the right outcome.
2 years ago
There is an interesting blurb on a marketwatch blog here. The blog highlights three retail ETF’s and the earnings results of some of its components. The key point was Sears got killed while some other names are doing good. The net result is a middling performance for the ETF versus the strong names in the sector. The ETF’s were up today about 1%-1.5%. Good names, like LULU on our post below, and others like JAS were up 3%+ today.
ETF’s are attractive because investors have given up and say “I can’t” pick individual companies, maybe I can pick sectors.” The problem with picking sectors is that in normal markets where the whole market is not simply straight up or down you need to identify specific names. TickerMine’s data helps investors do that.
We see the ETF craze tapping our fairly soon as this fact begins to dawn on folks that those who use real data (e.g. TickerMine) get good performance and those who use sector ETF’s simply own all the good and bad stocks in a sector.
2 years ago
