Prediction of Stock: Kellogg Company
Hello, so all my exams and labs are done, now I have time to return to forecasting about stocks. Here is my second prediction.
Intro:
I have been reading some books about forecasting, most notably Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction, and Misbehaving. Those books gave me an idea, find a stock that is currently going up or down drastically, and see if I can use the tools I learned from those books to make a prediction about it's price 6 months from.
Rules:
1: Can only invest a max of $300 in either a long or short position.
2: Can use either a stock purchase or an option.
3: Cannot long and short at the same time.
4: The prediction can only last 6 month, and at the end of the 6 months, the position must be sold regardless of a loss or profit.
5: If the stock if greater than a 10% loss of value, it must be sold.
6: Any stock in the world is open, not only U.S.
7: A explanation of why the stock prediction went wrong, before the stock was bought.
Stock: Kellogg K
Background: The Kellogg company is the provider of many ready to eat meals and products. It's key areas are snacks (pop-tarts, pringles, nutri-grain, etc...) and breakfest cereals ( Froot-loops, Frosted flakes, Kashi, etc...). The company has a market capital of 26.74 Billion dollars. There is an upcoming earnings report that will be released on April 29, 2016, where analyists are expecting to a EPS of 0.91. The last earnings report the EPS was 0.79. Most recently the CFO Todd Penegor left Kellogg to be the new CFO for Wendy's. Ahead of the recent earning release for April 29, 2016 there has been considerable volume trading, with many analysts issuing a buy/hold rating.
Prediction:
The Kellogg company has been losing sales since 2013. The net sales dropped 8.5% from their peak in 2013. This figure rather made me question as to what the CEO & the execs were being compensated. The compensation for the execs and CEO has risen over the past three while sales have been falling. I tried to find a possible reason for this, thinking that maybe operation costs were the reason, due to falling oil prices and cheaper prices of sugar, corn and oilseed. But looking at their last financial statement , I found that that factors combined only would equal a 2-4% offset. In a recent news story Morningstar, even downgraded the bonds of Kellogg to a BBB rating. Which means that now if Kellogg is want to borrow more money, they will do so at a higher rate. Which lead to me look at their debt levels, which have has nearly tripled since 2013 as well.
I will continue to try and figure out, what happened in 2013 that was such a tipping point. For now, I know that there was some management changes, and the mega purchase of Pringles for 2 billion dollars. But I am doubtful that those events would have such a strong impact.
And lastly, the consumer spending was the highest in history last year, but in Feb, consumers shut their wallets tight. So I am not expecting great net sales figures from Kellogg.
Don't fear that Kellogg will go bust overnight, but maybe if they don't change their path, they could in like 20 years.
For now, I am just going to short this stock on the longest possible time, with the cheapest possible strike price. The company will beats it's EPS 0.91, but afterwards there might be some rough spots, so the stock might go down to a 65-70 price.
Why the prediction failed: I failed to research the true events of 2012-2013. And could not see that the CEO and execs are in fact on a turnaround, with a bigger focus on healthier foods. As well, the cheaper price of the commodities, they use to produce their products, along with the recent layoffs, has resulted in a much more efficient company that has allowed them to increase their net revenue by decreasing costs.
Please don't hold back, I am interested in your critic, since it helps everyone become a better predictor.
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