Mr. Market is still having major digestive issues with the stocks of the world’s largest food and beverage companies.
Shares of PepsiCo (PEP), Coca-Cola (KO), Conagra Brands (CAG), and Campbell Soup (CPB) have shed an average of 13.5% in the past six months, according to numbers crunched by Yahoo Finance. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 are each down about 1% over the same time span.
Blame the proliferation of injectable weight loss drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy potentially stunting demand for food. Formally known as GLP-1 drugs, Wall Street has latched onto this world-is-ending thesis for these large-cap dividend dandies.
“Although only around 1% of U.S. adults have current prescriptions for Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro, the recent acceleration in demand for these drugs for weight loss is raising profound questions about what this could mean for the future of healthcare and food and beverage consumption,” pointed out veteran Bernstein analyst Alexia Howard in an exhaustive new piece of research this week.
To be sure, the base for this acceleration in obesity drug users has been established — hence the uproar in the markets for these often savory stocks.
Data from IMS/IQVIA suggests around 10.6 million shots of obesity drug doses were officially sanctioned by Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly in the US in May 2023, Howard noted in her research.
Dividing this figure by 4.5 weeks in a month suggests that the user base was around 2.4 million adults in May, Howard said. That equates to 0.8% of the total US population and around 0.9% of the US adult population on the injectables.
While understandable on the surface, one could label the furor in these supermarket stocks as unusual. And by extension, the sell-off may be overdone, and investors could be wise in getting out a shopping list of possible buys.
Consider what there is to like from a fundamental basis.
First, these are household name stocks that historically produce steady sales, earnings, and cash flow due to their leadership positions in products such as frozen food and soda. Investors have long enjoyed their consistency, even if growth rates have never been super hot (outside of the pandemic when demand for packaged food went bonkers).
There is nothing to indicate — at least for now — that Big Food is going to lose this financial consistency because of weight loss drug injections gaining steam.
“We can’t detect any impact on our numbers right now,” PepsiCo vice chairman and CFO Hugh Johnston told Yahoo Finance Live (video above). “We just don’t see any impact at all.”
The comments came on the back of another better-than-expected quarter from the producer of soda and Frito-Lay snacks.
The usually cautious PepsiCo management team also struck a bullish tone on its initial 2024 outlook. That’s despite conceivably more of the US population using obesity drugs next year.
The CEO of Modelo and Corona maker Constellation Brands (STZ) was more blunt on the topic.
“We do a lot of consumer research,” Bill Newlands said on Yahoo Finance Live. “We’ve never had a consumer bring that topic up [buying less beer because of weight loss drugs] with us.”
Howard’s own research hints that the longer-term outlook for Big Food remains intact.
“At present, it appears that the overall impact on calories consumed is likely to be fairly muted,” Howard explained. “If over the next 5 years, the percentage of U.S. adults using these drugs for the long term scales to 10%, we would see only a 2.5% reduction in calories consumed over this timeframe, for an annual headwind of around 0.5% per year. Of course, this could be higher if tolerability and willingness to trial these drugs scales up meaningfully further and faster than this.”
Meanwhile, the sell-off in food stocks has pushed up their dividend yields and pushed down valuations closer to historical lows.
The aforementioned names are all currently sporting meaty dividend yields above 3%, with Conagra Brands offering a more salivating 5.3%.
And then in times of geopolitical stress — as is currently the case — it’s still valid to view the names as safe harbors in the storm that typically erupts in broader markets. People still need to eat, and the likes of PepsiCo are there to serve them and keep its cash flow-generating machine humming.
All in all, there is a lot to view favorably.
Some on the Street do acknowledge that food stocks could be “value traps” here: seemingly attractive picks valuation-wise, but ones that could get cheaper as fundamentals weaken (thanks, in this case, to obesity drugs).
But the reality is the large food companies have proven their resilience over many decades of new healthier lifestyle trends. Ingredients in packaged food have evolved — think quinoa in a frozen dinner instead of starchier white rice, or a stevia-based flavored seltzer instead of full-sugar cola.
Best believe these mammoth food companies will adapt and overcome. The same could go for their stock prices.
Brian Sozzi is Yahoo Finance’s Executive Editor. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn. Tips on deals, mergers, activist situations, or anything else? Email brian.sozzi@yahoofinance.com.
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