Brick-and-mortar retailers may be feeling the heat from Amazon, but CNBC’s Jim Cramer is keen on one chain that’s been thriving despite the online giant’s domination: Best Buy.
“Five years ago, it looked like this electronics retailer was roadkill, and it was regularly dismissed as merely being a showroom for Amazon. Remember that? You’d go into Best Buy, you’d look at the televisions, computers [or] speakers, then you’d order them off the web for a lot less money. Then Hubert Joly took over as CEO in September of 2012, and ever since then, Best Buy has come roaring back, with the stock nearly quadrupling over five short years,” the “Mad Money” host said.
The stock has been so strong that Cramer was surprised when Best Buy shares fell nearly 12 percent after its latest earnings report. Investors fled the stock after management issued some cautious commentary on the conference call, a reaction Cramer saw as overblown.
“Of course, Best Buy has already started bouncing back, but the stock is still down $5 from its highs and it’s got a lot of big catalysts coming up in the next few weeks. That’s why I think it’s not too late to buy the stock of BBY,” Cramer said.
Best Buy has gone through a major turnaround under its new CEO, improving the customer experience, expanding its digital presence, cutting costs and boosting the dividend.
But Cramer still felt the need to address the stock’s plunge after earnings.
On Best Buy’s conference call, management warned that analysts shouldn’t get used to the retailer’s 5.4 percent same-store sales number it posted in the second quarter.
Then, the company’s chief financial officer, Corie Barry, used one of retail’s biggest red-flag words, “competitive,” or some variation, multiple times to describe gaming hardware sales, new product launches and fourth-quarter performance.
But Cramer said the CFO’s commentary spooked analysts more than it should have.
“All that caution — ‘competitive,’ ‘promotional,’ ‘competitive,’ ‘promotional,’ ‘competitive’ — it freaked people out, and investors sold the stock willy-nilly as they were worried that Best Buy was going to get slammed at the end of the year. Honestly, though, I think this was much ado about nothing,” Cramer said. “We already knew that electronics, and gaming hardware in particular, was a competitive space. We already knew the holiday season can get really promotional. None of it was revelatory. The truth is, Best Buy’s been competing and thriving for years now.”
And with Best Buy’s stock in the middle of its first major pullback since January 2015, Cramer said that the timing couldn’t be better for investors to get into the stock.
Moreover, Best Buy is looking ahead to several catalysts, from its Investor Day on Tuesday to Apple’s new iPhone hitting stores later this fall to an impending $2.2 billion share buyback.
“Here’s the bottom line: when a high-quality stock gets marked down for the wrong reasons, you need to back up the truck. Make no mistake, Best Buy is high-quality, and while it’s already started bouncing, I think BBY could have a lot more room to run,” Cramer said.
Disclosure: Cramer’s charitable trust owns shares of Apple.
Questions for Cramer?
Call Cramer: 1-800-743-CNBCWant to take a deep dive into Cramer’s world? Hit him up!
Mad Money Twitter – Jim Cramer Twitter – Facebook – Instagram – VineQuestions, comments, suggestions for the “Mad Money” website? madcap@cnbc.com
Source: Investment Cnbc
Cramer explains why it's not too late to buy into Best Buy