The crux of our argument? Wall Street's perception of Target's financial trajectory is more upbeat than Main Street. When the stock glossed over the company's weak 4Q earnings report, it was because Steinhafel (CEO) issued guidance that he hoped the company would grow into if the Company repaired its reputation after the data breach - not guidance that he knew TGT could meet or beat. We don't think that the Street is giving TGT credit for a) a miss this year, and b) another one in 2015. The reality is that when a customer has a great experience in retail, they tell a friend. When a customer has a bad experience, they tell 20. Just ask JC Penney or Lululemon. Some of these 'fire your customer' events are worse than others, but there's one commonality - they take a very long time to recover.
We think that TGT will be lucky to earn $3.75 this year, and $4.00 in 2015. The current 15x multiple is about as high as TGT has seen in 5-years - clearly the market is not factoring in a miss. We think that multiple compression alone on a weaker EPS number gets to a $48-50 stock, or $12-13 downside. If we're wrong, then we're looking at about $5 upside. That's about 2.5x to one, which we like on sleepy mega-cap shorts in Retail.
KEY TOPICS WILL INCLUDE:
- The biggest risks to current consensus expectations.
- Target's visitation statistics (via one of our proprietary consumer surveys).
- How key competitors are reacting to the opportunity to gain share from Target.
- Target's value proposition compared to the rest of Retail, particularly Wal-Mart.
- Has target.com suffered the same customer attrition fate as Target stores?
- Which categories is Target winning? Where is it losing?
- Historical margin cycles for Target and other major retailers, and where we are in that cycle today.
CALL DETAILS
- Toll Free Number:
- Direct Dial Number:
- Conference Code: 917515#
- Materials: CLICK HERE
