After a wild month on the meme stock rollercoaster, Bed Bath & Beyond shares have settled down right in time for the retailer’s latest earnings report.
Bed Bath & Beyond (ticker: BBBY) is set to report fiscal first-quarter earnings results before the market opens on Wednesday. The Wall Street consensus estimate for the quarter has adjusted earnings at nine cents per share and sales at $1.87 billion, according to FactSet. Analysts forecast same-store sales growth of 76% year-over-year.
Wedbush Securities analyst Seth Basham thinks sales will meet expectations, but he’ll be looking for updates on how the company’s market share is holding up. He notes that Bed Bath is facing a relatively easy comparison from last year’s pandemic-impacted period. That will change in quarters to come, as the company will lap periods that saw in uptick in at-home spending.
Bed Bath shares were caught in a broader resurgence for meme stocks at the start of June, but have since settled down. That led BofA Global Research analyst Curtis Nagle to bring back a Buy rating for the stock last week. Nagle dropped his rating after shares spiked 62% on June 2 on little news aside from chatter on social media. That’s a hallmark of meme stocks, which are generally highly shorted companies targeted by retail investors on Reddit.
“Since then, [Bed Bath & Beyond] shares are now trading much closer to levels pre-surge, and non-fundamentals drivers such as number of mentions on retail investor online message boards, trading volumes, and short interest have moderated,” Nagle wrote.
Nagle also brought back a $38 price objective. He expects the company to hit earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or Ebitda, of between $850 million and $1 billion by 2023.
Bed Bath’s meme stock status has somewhat obscured efforts by CEO Mark Tritton to turn the company around. Nagle notes that the company’s balance sheet is in a strong place, with about $1.35 billion in cash and negative net debt of $200 million.
He also argues the company is heading into its largest new product rollout in history, as the company rolls out new private label brands. Tritton told Barron’s earlier this year such efforts would play a role in the retailer’s turnaround.
Nagle also points to store closures at underperforming locations and reopening tailwinds from back to school and wedding registry shoppers that should benefit the retailer.
Of course, investors will need to be wary of social media and short seller activity. June wasn’t the first time the stock was caught in meme stock volatility. Bed Bath saw shares surge in January along with GameStop(GME) and AMC Entertainment Holdings(AMC).
Analysts are mixed on the company’s prospects. Of the 21 analysts covering Bed Bath stock, two have Buy ratings, 13 have Neutral ratings, while six have Sell or equivalent ratings, according to FactSet. Their mean price target is $26.43, implying 12.1% downside from recent levels.