Nathan’s hosts Hot Dog Eating Contest
July 4, 2008 by Tisa Silver
Filed under Investing
Since 1916, Nathan’s has hosted an annual Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest at its Coney Island flagship store.
This year, participants had ten minutes to eat as many Nathan’s hot dogs as possible. The traditional competition ended with a 59 hot dog tie between Joey Chestnut and Takero Kabayshi. The two went into a five dog eat-off in which Joey Chestnut emerged victorious.
I am a fan of Nathan’s hot dogs and after seeing the competition’s results I decided to look at the company’s stock.
Nathan’s stock is down about 16 percent in the past year (versus a 17 percent drop for the S&P 500) but in their most recent fiscal year (ended March 30) the company reported increases in sales revenue and income of 10 and 18 percent, respectively.
Financials appear to be solid, but for some reason this stock doesn’t get nearly as much press as the annual hot dog eating competition. One possible reason is a very small market cap of about $91.3 million.
The hot dogs are definitely worth a try…and perhaps the stock is worth a good look, too. Happy 4th of July!
Perhaps Nathans should have a feed the homeless day. They could see how many people they could feed their nutritious hot dogs to. I bet they would receive some positive press, waste less hot dogs and maybe drive up their stock prices. This may sound far fetched, but I know a lot of people that are turned off by these obnoxious wasting of food contests. Puts me in mind of Nascar wasting one of our most precious resources.
I like what John said about a Feed the Homeless Day. However, Nathan’s does not only serve hot dogs, so I feel they should have other foods and staples available at this venue. I agree that Nathan’s dogs are pretty scrumptious. I, too watched the competition and try to every year. It amazes me how much someone can eat. I wonder how sick they are of the dogs after this competiton is over.
It would be interesting to see if Nathans stock prices historically peak at the beginning of the 3rd quater in a given year as a result of increased sales in hotdogs due to July 4th. For this year I checked and Nathan’s gained about $1.84 or 14% from to April to June.
Hardly any debt and their cash flow nearly doubled year over year for the second quarter. However they have practically no analyst coverage. Hey in a recession Im cooking my own food and dogs sound mighty good to me so i wouldnt be surprised to see a strong second half leading into 09 from these guys
Aside from fast-food restaurants Nathan’s also sells there famous brand hot dogs at grocery stores for those looking to save there money and do the cooking themselves (they taste better barbecued anyways). I’ve never really looked into any fast food restaurants for investing opportunities before but if In-n-Out Burger (a regional fast food place in California) goes public one day it will be one hot ticket.
Just a thought, but I would love to see some analysis of Nathan’s stock performance relative to the industry average. I also agree with the above comment, on a historical tech. analysis to see if Nathan’s stock price increases durring summer months, due to increased sales.
It makes me wonder if there’s some sort of seasonality to the stock, since the company becomes more popular in the summer when the eating contest comes around. It would make sense if the company looks solid on paper that more people would buy into it around this time of year and raise the price of the stock.
This baseball season is going to be the last played in Yankee stadium as many of you know. and Nathan’s holds the contract to serve a record breaking number of fans, their hot dogs. No doubt reaching the highest amount of dogs sold in the stadium. The second half of the year should be very positive for Nathan’s.
It seems like there is more interest each year in the Hot Dog eating contest as it is now televised on ESPN. Looking at the increasing numbers it looks by being the sponsor is helping Nathan’s value a great deal. It would be interesting to see on the day of the contest if their stock value increased.
I have never liked hot dogs and watching that hot dog eating contest only turned me off more. I think I may have found another anomaly. It would appear that when Joey Chestnut wins the Nathans Hot Dog Eating Contest the economy is doomed meanwhile when Takero Kabayshi wins the economy has been strong. Next July 4th cannot come soon enough and I’ll be rooting for Takero Kabayshi.
Hot Dogs should be a traded commodity! Looking at the current fluctuations in gold and silver over the years, the risk that Mother Nature plays on our crops, I figure beating on pigs seems to be a safe bet. Americans seem to love Hot Dogs, and as the economy continues to decline the price an ease of hot dogs make them even more attractive. America loves hot dogs so much, that the Travel Channel last week dedicated an entire episode to Hot Dogs.
However, I guess the idea of eating hot dogs sounds better than investing in hot dogs. I feel a lot of companies in the food industry should follow the example of the Mars snack brand company. With 40,500 employees and 20 billion in Revenue their proving that it’s okay to remain private.