Monday, March 21, 2011

Smucker's -- Their name is on the label

I've enjoyed the nice homey Norman Rockwell-like commercials about the 2 little Smucker boys walking through the orchard preparing themselves to one day take over Grandpa's jam operations.  Well to my surprise the Co-CEO's are the little Smucker boys all grown up with Little Timmy as Chairman and Richard as President.  Grampa's jam operations is J M Smucker (SJM) now a 5 billion dollar operation.


The J.M. Smucker Company (SJM) , headquartered in Orrville, Ohio is the leading marketer of jams, jellies, preserves, and other fruit spreads in the U.S. They are also the leader in dessert toppings, natural peanut butter, and health and natural foods juice products, and market a wide variety of other specialty products throughout the U.S. and in many foreign countries. In the fruit spreads category, they also hold the leadership position in Australia and Canada.

Their product line-up sounds like my pantry. Besides Smucker's jams and jellies, there's Jif, Crisco, Folger's, Pillsbury, Eagle Brand, Hungry Jack and of course Martha White. Does that sound like your pantry too?

Besides taste, there's other reasons to buy this company.

Technical Factors:
  • 100% Barchart technical buy signal
  • Trend Spotter (tm) buy signal
  • 10 new highs and up 7.23% in the last month
  • Relative Strength Index 70.32% and climbing
  • Trades around 72.24 with a 50 day moving average of 65.50
Fundamental Factors:
  • Wall Street brokerages analysts have published 6 buy and 7 hold reports for their clients
  • Sales are expected to increase by 4.20% this year and 5.20% next year
  • Earnings are estimated to increase by 9.70% this year, 6.70% next years and continue by 6.50% for the next 5 years
Investor Sentiment:
  • Good press has made this a popular company
  • CAPS members of Motley Fool vote 427 to 21 that the stock will beat the market
  • The All Stars agree with a vote of 150 to 5
  • Fool notes the last 10 articles by Wall Street columnists have all been positive
A look in both my pantry and yours tells me that this is a company that will be around for a long, long time.  The question  is just how much money can they make?  If it's good enough for your pantry it should be good enough for your portfolio.

Jim Van Meerten is an analyst for  Marketocracy Capital Management.  He shares his knowledge and experience from over 40 years of investing in stocks, mutual funds and ETFs on Barchart.com  in his daily blog -- Barchart Portfolio Blogs.

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