You never know when and where you’ll find data that can be useful in judging stocks.
The Action Alerts Plus team have discovered statistics that are relevant for two of its stocks. First, luggage sales soared 129% for the 12 months through February, compared to a 50% drop in 2020, according to NPD Group, a market research company.
NPD also discovered that almost 25% of U.S. consumers plan to travel by air or boat during the next three months, and more than 33% plan to travel by car, train, or other ground transportation.
Those numbers obviously point to stronger travel activity. That’s good news for two stocks that the AAP team favors: Disney (DIS), with its theme parks, and vacation rental platform Airbnb (ABNB).
Are People Traveling?
Of course, the numbers don’t represent “hard data points,” the AAP team wrote. The data certainly provide “positive reinforcement” for bullishness toward the stocks, but “need more backing to be sure,” they said.
“With that in mind, we'll look for confirmation from rental car companies in the coming weeks [and] continue to track the TSA passenger data as well as other travel metrics.”
Morningstar analyst Neil Macker likes Disney, assigning it a wide moat. He puts fair value at $170 for the stock, compared to its recent quote of $142.71.
After Disney released its latest earnings last month, he wrote in a commentary, “Disney kicked off fiscal 2022 on a strong note, as Disney+ added 11.8 million customers in the quarter versus 8.3 million for Netflix (NFLX).”
As for the company overall, “We believe Disney is successfully transforming its business to deal with the ongoing evolution of the media industry,” Macker said.
“The firm’s direct-to-consumer efforts, Disney+, Hotstar, Hulu, and ESPN+ are taking over as the drivers of long-term growth, as the firm transitions to a streaming future.”
