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Five Beauty Stocks to Buy Despite the Ugliness of War

Five beauty stocks to buy despite the ugliness of war offer a ray of hope for those who desire a chance to grow their money to avoid succumbing to inflation,…

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Five beauty stocks to buy despite the ugliness of war offer a ray of hope for those who desire a chance to grow their money to avoid succumbing to inflation, a recession and continuing fallout of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The five beauty stocks to buy allow people to invest in companies that traditionally remain important to their customers who seek to maintain appearances when negative circumstances disrupt their lives with disturbing effects. These five beauty stocks to buy serve to give users of those products and services enhanced self-esteem, a chance to present themselves attractively and an escape from the harsh reality of turbulent times. 

“Beauty products are among the consumer staples that tend to do well through recessions and inflation,” said Bob Carlson, a pension fund chairman who also leads the Retirement Watch investment newsletter. “Their customers tend to buy the products except in the worst times.”

To that end, BoA Global Research recently reported that beauty and personal care grew 7% year over year (y/y) in 2021. As consumers exited the pandemic, the beauty and personal care category was ready for accelerated growth globally as consumers chose to spend on more high-quality, premium products and had more occasions to use fragrance and makeup, while prioritizing self-care and placing a high value on clean beauty, BofA wrote. 

Five Beauty Stocks to Buy Include Two Targeting Luxury Products

Leading beauty products companies have been giving positive earnings reports and outlooks, while the management of many other companies have shared “pessimistic” forecasts, Carlson counseled. Investors seeking value may want to consider some smaller, niche beauty companies that have had significant stock price declines, despite reporting higher revenues and earnings, he added.

Bob Carlson, head of the Retirement Watch newsletter, meets with Paul Dykewicz.

One such prospect is Olaplex Holdings (NASDAQ: OLPX), which sells high-priced beauty products. The science-backed premium hair care company offers products that structurally repair and protect hair. 

Founded in 2014, Olaplex Holdings is an innovative company that has a long-term goal of extending the application of its proprietary and patented Bis-amino formula into nail and skin care. OLPX sells through three channels: professional and salon network; specialty beauty retailers, such as Sephora; and direct-to-consumer market channels that include its own website as well as Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN).

Olaplex sells 11 formulations, all of which contain the patented bis-amino formula, BofA reported. The company’s products protect and rebuild broken disulfide bonds in the keratin fibers of hair damaged by natural and chemical wear and tear, unlike traditional shampoos and conditioners.

Olaplex’s products all contain the company’s patented bis-amino formulation. Its “robust topline growth” benefits from multiple levers beyond the near-term, supported by impressive consumer engagement and response, according to BofA.

Chart courtesy of www.stockcharts.com

Five Beauty Stocks to Buy Feature Facial Product Company

Another stock to consider is Long Beach, California-based Beauty Health (NASDAQ: SKIN), which also sells high-end products and has not reported a slowdown.

The long-term outlook laid out at the investor and long-term guidance of doubling revenues and tripling profits by 2025 should be “achievable and beatable,” wrote Margaret Kaczor, CFA, an analyst with Chicago-based investment firm William Blair. “We see a growing number of opportunities ahead of the company to help drive sustainable growth.”

They include Beauty Health’s recent launch of a digitally connected device to usher in a HydraFacial Syndeo launch in the United States to enhance the consumer and provider experience. Another opportunity is a new JLo Beauty partnership in the fourth quarter.

Chart courtesy of www.stockcharts.com

Additional Ways to Invest in the Bounty of Beauty

There also are marketing initiatives, William Blair wrote in a recent research note. They should provide “durable growth tails” through 2022 and beyond, the investment firm predicted. The research report indicated Beauty Health management is expected to continue to invest in international expansion, marketing, product development and innovation to help drive consumer and customer awareness.

“We believe that these investments leave Beauty Health well positioned for 2022 and beyond to achieve 20%-plus growth,” Kaczor wrote. “The stock currently trades at 4.3 times our 2023 estimate of $416.8 million. We rate the stock Outperform.”

Beauty products companies can be part of a diversified consumer staples portfolio. The consumer staples companies tend to hold up well in recessions and have pricing power against inflation for many of their products.

A good way to establish a diversified consumer staples portfolio is through an exchange-traded fund (ETF), Carlson counseled. He suggested iShares U.S. Consumer Staples ETF (IYK). 

The ETF’s 52 stocks are led by Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG), Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO), PepsiCo (NASDAQ: PEP), CVS Health (NYSE: CVS), and Mondelez International (NASDAQ: MDLZ). About 64% of the fund is in its 10 largest positions.

Chart courtesy of www.stockcharts.com

Procter & Gamble Picked as One of the Five Consumer Staples Stocks to Buy

Jim Woods, the leader of the Intelligence Report investment newsletter, has an Income Multipliers portfolio in that publication that includes Procter & Gamble, a Cincinnati, Ohio-based company with diversified consumer products that include many devoted to beauty, grooming and cleanliness. Plus, Procter & Gamble offers strong cash flow that allows it to provide its shareholders an alluring dividend yield of 2.4% compared to the paltry payouts of many others.

Paul Dykewicz meets with stock picker Jim Woods, who heads the Intelligence Report newsletter, as well as co-leads Fast Money Alert.

In addition, Procter & Gamble has a rising dividend policy. In fact, the company has boosted its dividend annually for the past 66 years.

Procter & Gamble, founded in 1837, features 22 brands that generate at least $1 billion in sales.


Chart courtesy of www.stockcharts.com

Investing Involves Managing Risks

Potential risks to Procter & Gamble include inflation weighing on its profit margins, weakened sales from emerging markets in China and the effects of a strong U.S. dollar, said Michelle Connell, president and owner of Dallas-based Portia Capital Management.

Another risk is that consumers may use private-label and generic products more than those of Procter & Gamble, Connell continued. Even though the stock is down so far this year, it has a potential upside of 19% within the next 12 months, she added.

“I think PG would be good here,” Connell continued, especially due to its “reasonably priced” cosmetics, beauty and grooming products.  

Former portfolio manager Michelle Connell, CEO, Portia Capital Management

Procter & Gamble seems more stable than EL (Estée Lauder) which is down 35% year to date (YTD), along with COTY, down 27% YTD.

“I don’t like being early on stocks when they have disappointed so much,” Connell advised. “It will take a few quarters.”  

Procter & Gamble has a very strong and diversified consumer product portfolio also is trading at a bit of a discount after dropping 14% since the start of 2022. However, Connell projects that PG has an upside of 20%. 

Coty Catches the Wave to Join Five Beauty Stocks to Buy 

New York-based Coty (NYSE: COTY), founded in 1904, has grown into one of the world’s largest beauty companies with a portfolio of brands across fragrance, color cosmetics, skin and body care. The company ended fiscal year 2022 with sales of $5.3 billion.

The company divides itself into two segments, Prestige, producing 62% of its fiscal year 2022 sales, and Consumer Beauty, amassing 38%. Geographically, Americas account for 41% of 2022 sales, while the EMEA region contributes 47% and Asia Pacific chips in 12%. Overall, Coty’s products are sold in roughly 125 countries and territories.

Approximately 53% of COTY’s fiscal year 2022 revenues came from prestige fragrance, of which about 82% flowed from the company’s top six prestige fragrance brands. COTY holds a 25.9% stake in the Wella hair care company. COTY is a “controlled company” under NYSE rules, since JAB Cosmetics and its affiliates own more than 50% of total voting power.

Chart courtesy of www.stockcharts.com

ELF Emerges as One of Five Beauty Stocks to Buy

Oakland, California-based e.l.f. Beauty (NYSE: ELF) has been on the rise and is showing no sign of slowing. In July 2022, the company began a skincare campaign to build consumer awareness for e.l.f. SKIN. 

The plan involved educating consumers that skincare can be effective and affordable. ELF has been selling skincare since 2015 but created e.l.f. SKIN as the fourth brand in its portfolio to differentiate the product line for its customers and provide greater marketing support for the brand. e.l.f. SKIN includes previously existing products, such as cleansing balms, moisturizers, and acne products, which all retail for $25 or less.

e.l.f. Beauty sells professional-quality makeup and skincare products at affordable prices. Its products are vegan, paraben-free, cruelty-free and focused on clean beauty, BofA wrote. Brushes, primers, concealers, brows, and sponges comprise roughly 50% of ELF’s sales, which each attained double-digit-percentage sales growth in fiscal year 2022.

In FY22, ELF delivered $392 million in net sales, with a 19% adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) margin. Among its sales, 92% are in the color cosmetics category and 11% are generated outside of the United States.

Chart courtesy of www.stockcharts.com

U.S. COVID Cases Near 95.4 Million

COVID-19 cases and deaths affect supply and demand for beauty products and many others. Savvy investors monitor COVID-19 outbreaks and lockdowns that can cause supply chain problems. In the wake of China locking down more than 70 cities fully or partially to preserve its zero-tolerance policy of COVID, 27 people were killed and 20 more were injured when a quarantine bus overturned on a mountain road Sunday night, Sept. 20.

U.S. COVID-19 deaths rose for the eighth consecutive week by 3,000 or more, jumping to 1,054,271, as of Sept. 20, according to Johns Hopkins University. Cases in the United States climbed to 95,776,398. America remains the nation with the most COVID-19 deaths and cases.

Worldwide COVID-19 deaths in the last week slowed to 11,841, down slightly from about 12,000 in the prior week, 14,977 for the previous week and more than 33,000 in the week before that one, totaling 6,529,562, as of Sept. 10, according to Johns Hopkins. Global COVID-19 faded to a gain of less than 3.4 million for the second straight week, down from almost 4 million three weeks ago. The new worldwide case total reached 612,943,981.

Roughly 79.3% of the U.S. population, or 263,415,633, have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, as of Sept. 14, the CDC reported. Fully vaccinated people total 224,636,858, or 67.7%, of the U.S. population, according to the CDC. The United States also has given at least one COVID-19 booster vaccine to 109.2 million people, up 200,000 in each of the last two weeks, compared to roughly 300,000 for the previous two weeks.

The five beauty stocks to buy look ready to beam brightly. Despite high inflation, recession risk after 0.75% rate hikes by the Fed in June and July, as well as a similar rate expected today, Sept. 21, the five beauty stocks to buy could generate glamorous gains.

Paul Dykewicz, www.pauldykewicz.com, is an accomplished, award-winning journalist who has written for Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, USA Today, the Journal of Commerce, Seeking Alpha, Guru Focus and other publications and websites. Paul, who can be followed on Twitter @PaulDykewicz, is the editor of StockInvestor.com and DividendInvestor.com, a writer for both websites and a columnist. He further is editorial director of Eagle Financial Publications in Washington, D.C., where he edits monthly investment newsletters, time-sensitive trading alerts, free e-letters and other investment reports. Paul previously served as business editor of Baltimore’s Daily Record newspaper. Paul also is the author of an inspirational book, “Holy Smokes! Golden Guidance from Notre Dame’s Championship Chaplain,” with a foreword by former national championship-winning football coach Lou Holtz. The book is great as a gift and is endorsed by Joe Montana, Joe Theismann, Ara Parseghian, “Rocket” Ismail, Reggie Brooks, Dick Vitale and many others. Call 202-677-4457 for multiple-book pricing.

 

The post Five Beauty Stocks to Buy Despite the Ugliness of War appeared first on Stock Investor.

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Tesla rival Polestar reveals lineup of its new electric vehicles

The Sweden-based electric vehicle maker completes key testing before launching production of its new SUV.

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19 mins ago

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September 28, 2023

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Tesla's Model Y crossover, the best-selling vehicle globally, is the standard that electric vehicle makers strive to compete with. The Austin, Texas, automaker sold about 267,200 Model Y vehicles in the first three months of the year and continued leading the pack well into the second quarter.

It's no wonder that the Model Y is leading all vehicles in sales as it retails for about $39,390 after tax credits and estimated gas savings. Ford  (F) - Get Free Report hopes to compete with the Model Y about a year from now when it rolls out the new Ford Explorer SUV that is expected to start at $49,150.

Related: Honda unveils surprising electric vehicles to compete with Tesla

Plenty of competition in electric SUV space

Mercedes-Benz (MBG) however, has a Tesla rival model with its EQB all-electric compact sports utility vehicle with an estimated 245 mile range on a charge with 70.5 kWh battery capacity, 0-60 mph acceleration in 8 seconds and the lowest price of its EVs at a $52,750 manufacturers suggested retail price.

Tesla's Model X SUV has a starting price of about $88,490, while the Model X full-size SUV starts at $98,490 with a range of 348 miles. BMW's  (BMWYY) - Get Free Report xDrive50 SUV has a starting price of about $87,000, a range up to 311 miles and accelerates 0-60 miles per hour in 4.4 seconds.

Polestar  (PSNY) - Get Free Report plans to have a lineup of five EVs by 2026. The latest model that will begin production in the first quarter of 2024 is the Polestar 3 electric SUV, which is completing its development. The vehicle just finished two weeks of testing in extreme hot weather of up to 122 degrees in the desert of the United Arab Emirates to fine tune its climate system. The testing was completed in urban cities and the deserts around Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

“The Polestar 3 development and testing program is progressing well, and I expect production to start in Q1 2024. Polestar 3 is at the start of its journey and customers can now visit our retail locations around the world to see its great proportions and sit in its exclusive and innovative interior,” Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath said in a statement.

Polestar 3 prototype is set for production in the first quarter of 2024.

Polestar

Polestar plans 4 new electric vehicles

Polestar 3, which will compete with Tesla's Model X, Model Y, BMW's iX xDrive50 and Mercedes-Benz, has a starting manufacturer's suggested retail price of $83,000, a range up to 300 miles and a charging time of 30 minutes. The company has further plans for the Polestar 4, an SUV coupé that will launch in phases in late 2023 and 2024, as well as a Polestar 5 electric four-door GT and a Polestar 6 electric roadster that the company says "are coming soon." 

The Swedish automaker's lone all-electric model on the market today is the Polestar 2 fastback, which has a manufacturer's suggested retail price of $49,900, a range up to 320 miles and a charging time of 28 minutes. The vehicle accelerates from 0-60 miles per hour in 4.1 seconds. Polestar 2 was unveiled in 2019 and delivered in Europe in July 2020 and the U.S. in December 2020.

Polestar 1, the company's first vehicle, was a plug-in hybrid that went into production in 2019 and was discontinued in late 2021, according to the Polestar website.

The Gothenburg, Sweden, company was established in 1996 and was sold to Geely affiliate Volvo in 2015.

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Fauci And The CIA: A New Explanation Emerges

Fauci And The CIA: A New Explanation Emerges

Authored by Jeffrey A. Tucker via Brownstone Institute,

Jeremy Farrar’s book from August 2021…

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49 mins ago

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September 28, 2023

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Fauci And The CIA: A New Explanation Emerges

Authored by Jeffrey A. Tucker via Brownstone Institute,

Jeremy Farrar’s book from August 2021 is relatively more candid than most accounts of the initial decision to lock down in the US and UK. “It’s hard to come off nocturnal calls about the possibility of a lab leak and go back to bed,” he wrote of the clandestine phone calls he was getting from January 27-31, 2020. They had already alerted the FBI and MI5. 

“I’d never had trouble sleeping before, something that comes from spending a career working as a doctor in critical care and medicine. But the situation with this new virus and the dark question marks over its origins felt emotionally overwhelming. None of us knew what was going to happen but things had already escalated into an international emergency. On top of that, just a few of us – Eddie [Holmes], Kristian [Anderson], Tony [Fauci] and I – were now privy to sensitive information that, if proved to be true, might set off a whole series of events that would be far bigger than any of us. It felt as if a storm was gathering, of forces beyond anything I had experienced and over which none of us had any control.”

At that point in the trajectory of events, intelligence services on both sides of the Atlantic had been put on notice. Anthony Fauci also received confirmation that money from the National Institutes of Health had been channeled to the offending lab in Wuhan, which meant that his career was on the line. Working at a furious pace, the famed “Proximal Origin” paper was produced in record time. It concluded that there was no lab leak. 

In a remarkable series of revelations this week, we’ve learned that the CIA was involved in trying to make payments to those authors (thank you whistleblower), plus it appears that Fauci made visits to the CIA’s headquarters, most likely around the same time. 

Suddenly we get some possible clarity in what has otherwise been a very blurry picture. The anomaly that has heretofore cried out for explanation is how it is that Fauci changed his mind so dramatically and precisely on the merit of lockdowns for the virus. One day he was counseling calm because this was flu-like, and the next day he was drumming up awareness of the coming lockdown. That day was February 27, 2020, the same day that the New York Times joined with alarmist propaganda from its lead virus reporter Donald G. McNeil. 

On February 26, Fauci was writing: “Do not let the fear of the unknown… distort your evaluation of the risk of the pandemic to you relative to the risks that you face every day… do not yield to unreasonable fear.”

The next day, February 27, Fauci wrote actress Morgan Fairchild – likely the most high-profile influencer he knew from the firmament – that “be prepared to mitigate an outbreak in this country by measures that include social distancing, teleworking, temporary closure of schools, etc.”

To be sure, twenty-plus days had passed between the time Fauci alerted intelligence and when he decided to become the voice for lockdowns. We don’t know the exact date of the meetings with the CIA. But generally until now, most of February 2020 has been a blur in terms of the timeline. Something was going on but we hadn’t known just what. 

Let’s distinguish between a proximate and distal cause of the lockdowns.

The proximate cause is the fear of a lab leak and an aping of the Wuhan strategy of keeping everyone in their homes to stop the spread. They might have believed this would work, based on the legend of how SARS-1 was controlled. The CIA had dealings with Wuhan and so did Fauci. They both had an interest in denying the lab leak and stopping the spread. The WHO gave them cover. 

The distal reasons are more complicated. What stands out here is the possibility of a quid pro quo. The CIA pays scientists to say there was no lab leak and otherwise instructs its kept media sources (New York Times) to call the lab leak a conspiracy theory of the far right. Every measure would be deployed to keep Fauci off the hot seat for his funding of the Wuhan lab. But this cooperation would need to come at a price. Fauci would need to participate in a real-life version of the germ games (Event 201 and Crimson Contagion). 

It would be the biggest role of Fauci’s long career. He would need to throw out his principles and medical knowledge of, for example, natural immunity and standard epidemiology concerning the spread of viruses and mitigation strategies. The old pandemic playbook would need to be shredded in favor of lockdown theory as invented in 2005 and then tried in Wuhan. The WHO could be relied upon to say that this strategy worked. 

Fauci would need to be on TV daily to somehow persuade Americans to give up their precious rights and liberties. This would need to go on for a long time, maybe all the way to the election, however implausible this sounds. He would need to push the vaccine for which he had already made a deal with Moderna in late January. 

Above all else, he would need to convince Trump to go along. That was the hardest part. They considered Trump’s weaknesses. He was a germaphobe so that’s good. He hated Chinese imports so it was merely a matter of describing the virus this way. But he also has a well-known weakness for deferring to highly competent and articulate professional women. That’s where the highly reliable Deborah Birx comes in: Fauci would be her wingman to convince Trump to green-light the lockdowns. 

What does the CIA get out of this? The vast intelligence community would have to be put in charge of the pandemic response as the rule maker, the lead agency. Its outposts such as CISA would handle labor-related issues and use its contacts in social media to curate the public mind. This would allow the intelligence community finally to crack down on information flows that had begun 20 years earlier that they had heretofore failed to manage. 

The CIA would hobble and hamstring the US president, whom they hated. And importantly, there was his China problem. He had wrecked relations through his tariff wars. So far as they were concerned, this was treason because he did it all on his own. This man was completely out of control. He needed to be put in his place. To convince the president to destroy the US economy with his own hand would be the ultimate coup de grace for the CIA. 

A lockdown would restart trade with China. It did in fact achieve that. 

How would Fauci and the CIA convince Trump to lock down and restart trade with China? By exploiting these weaknesses and others too: his vulnerability to flattery, his desire for presidential aggrandizement, and his longing for Xi-like powers over all to turn off and then turn on a whole country. Then they would push Trump to buy the much-needed personal protective equipment from China. 

They finally got their way: somewhere between March 10 or possibly as late as March 14, Trump gave the go ahead. The press conference of March 16, especially those magical 70 seconds in which Fauci read the words mandating lockdowns because Birx turned out to be too squeamish, was the great turning point. A few days later, Trump was on the phone with Xi asking for equipment. 

In addition, such a lockdown would greatly please the digital tech industry, which would experience a huge boost in demand, plus large corporations like Amazon and WalMart, which would stay open as their competitors were closed. Finally, it would be a massive subsidy to pharma and especially the mRNA platform technology itself, which would enjoy the credit for ending the pandemic. 

If this whole scenario is true, it means that all along Fauci was merely playing a role, a front man for much deeper interests and priorities in the CIA-led intelligence community. This broad outline makes sense of why Fauci changed his mind on lockdowns, including the timing of the change. There are still many more details to know, but these new fragments of new information take our understanding in a new and more coherent direction. 

Jeffrey A. Tucker is Founder and President of the Brownstone Institute. He is also Senior Economics Columnist for Epoch Times, author of 10 books, including Liberty or Lockdown, and thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press. He speaks widely on topics of economics, technology, social philosophy, and culture.

Tyler Durden Thu, 09/28/2023 - 17:40

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North Korea Enshrines “Permanent” Nuclear Power Status In Constitution

North Korea Enshrines "Permanent" Nuclear Power Status In Constitution

On Thursday North Korean state media quoted leader Kim Jong Un as saying…

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49 mins ago

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September 28, 2023

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North Korea Enshrines "Permanent" Nuclear Power Status In Constitution

On Thursday North Korean state media quoted leader Kim Jong Un as saying more advanced atomic weapons are needed to counter the threat from the United States.

This signals the death knell for Washington's long stated policy goal of denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, given that the remarks came as Kim enshrined the DPRK's status as a permanent nuclear power in its constitution.

North Korea's "nuclear force-building policy has been made permanent as the basic law of the state, which no one is allowed to flout," Kim told the State People's Assembly, according to state-run KCNA.

KCNA via AP

Starting last year he declared the north as an "irreversible" nuclear weapons state, and has in the last couple months ramped up ballistic missile tests in response to intermittent, ongoing joint US military drills with the south. This has already been a record year in terms of the number of Pyongyang's missile tests.

The north's rubber-stamp parliament, which met Tuesday and Wednesday, has approved the nuclear update to the constitution. Kim described that this was necessary as the United States has "maximized its nuclear war threats to our Republic by resuming the large-scale nuclear war joint drills with clear aggressive nature and putting the deployment of its strategic nuclear assets near the Korean peninsula on a permanent basis."

In July, the nuclear-armed USS Kentucky Navy ballistic missile submarine made a port call in South Korea, which marked a first in decades. It has stayed there since, enraging Pyongyang.

Kim in his Thursday address also blasted growing defense cooperation between Washington, Seoul and Tokyo as the "worst actual threat," saying that as a result "it is very important for the DPRK to accelerate the modernization of nuclear weapons in order to hold the definite edge of strategic deterrence."

A similar message was delivered in New York on Tuesday by Kim Song, North Korea's representative at the UN, who said in an address to the UN General Assembly that the region is close to the "brink of a nuclear war". 

"Owing to the reckless and continued hysteria of nuclear showdown on the part of the US and its following forces, the year 2023 has been recorded as an extremely dangerous year that the military security situation in and around the Korean peninsula was driven closer to the brink of a nuclear war," he said.

"Due to [Seoul’s] sycophantic and humiliating policy of depending on outside forces, the Korean peninsula is in a hair-trigger situation with imminent danger of nuclear war," the ambassador continued. He further blasted the US for attempting to erect an "Asian NATO" that will bring a "new Cold War structure to northeast Asia."

Tyler Durden Thu, 09/28/2023 - 17:20

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