3 Auto Parts Stocks to Pay Attention to in 2023 and 1 to Avoid

Amid rising environmental concerns and inflating fuel prices, the recent shift in consumer interest in electric vehicles should bolster the auto parts industry’s growth prospects. Moreover, given the growing market for used cars, the need for auto parts is expected to keep up.

Furthermore, lucrative government initiatives, rapid technological advancements, and a shift of focus on car accessories should propel growth in the coming years. According to Research and Markets, the motor vehicle parts market is projected to grow at 7.9% from 2021 to 2026.

However, aggressive policy tightening by the Fed has increased car loan rates, dampening demand. Moreover, supply chain disruptions and lingering macroeconomic headwinds might harm the auto parts industry.

While fundamentally strong auto parts stocks O’Reilly Automotive, Inc. (ORLY), Bridgestone Corporation (BRDCY), and Garrett Motion Inc. (GTX) could be ideal additions to your portfolio, Luminar Technologies, Inc. (LAZR) might be best avoided considering its bleak fundamentals.

Stocks to Buy:

O’Reilly Automotive, Inc. (ORLY)

ORLY operates as a retailer and supplier of automotive aftermarket parts, tools, supplies, equipment, and accessories. The company also provides new and remanufactured automotive hard parts and maintenance items.

ORLY’s sales increased 9.2% year-over-year to $3.80 billion for the fiscal third quarter that ended September 30, 2022. The company’s gross profit increased 6.4% year-over-year to $1.93 billion. Its net income increased 4.8% from the year-ago period to $585.44 million, while its EPS rose 13.6% from the prior-year quarter to $9.17.

Street expects ORLY’s EPS for the fourth fiscal quarter (ended December 2022) to rise 1.2% year-over-year to $7.73. Its revenue is expected to grow 6.3% year-over-year to $3.50 billion in the same quarter.

Over the past six months, the stock has gained 24.1% to close its last trading session at $810.85. It has gained 11.5% over the past three months.

ORLY’s POWR Ratings reflect this promising outlook. The stock has an overall rating of B, which translates to Buy in our proprietary rating system. The POWR Ratings assess stocks by 118 different factors, each with its own weighting.

It has an A grade in Quality. The stock is ranked #21 out of 62 stocks in the A-rated Auto Parts industry.

Click here to access additional ratings for ORLY for Growth, Value, Momentum, Stability, and Sentiment.

Bridgestone Corporation (BRDCY)

Headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, BRDCY manufactures and sells tires and rubber products. It operates in two segments: Tires and Diversified Products. The company offers tires and tire tubes for passenger cars, trucks, buses, construction and mining vehicles, industrial machinery, agricultural machinery, aircraft, motorcycles, scooters, etc.

BRDCY pays a $0.61 per share dividend annually, which translates to a 3.31% yield on the current share price. Its four-year dividend yield is 3.54%.

During the nine months ended September 30, 2022, BRDCY’s revenue increased 28.4% year-over-year to ¥2.98 trillion ($22.88 billion). The company’s gross profit grew 21.2% from the prior-year period to ¥1.15 trillion ($8.80 billion). Its operating profit rose 11% year-over-year to ¥307.23 billion

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Most new automobile consumers are now having to pay less than sticker value


New York
CNN
 — 

Us citizens can as soon as again purchase automobiles for less than sticker value. But that does not necessarily mean they are locating bargains at their community dealerships.

A yr ago, history tight inventories meant 80% of purchasers had been paying much more than the manufacturers’ proposed retail cost (MSRP), or sticker cost, in accordance to information from Edmunds. For many years, auto customers had been able to negotiate a discounted.

Now, only 36% of potential buyers are having to pay earlier mentioned sticker. Just after having to pay an regular of $700 previously mentioned MSRP in the spring, prospective buyers compensated an normal of $300 considerably less than sticker in December.

That is even now much significantly less than the $2,600 typical that purchasers saved on the sticker rate in 2019, according to Edmunds’ facts — whilst the regular transaction selling price stays at a report superior, in accordance to facts from each Edmunds and Cox Automotive, which equally observe car or truck gross sales, prices and inventories.

That put the ordinary transaction selling price at just under $50,000 in December, up about $10,000, or 26%, from December 2019, just ahead of the pandemic upended the new automobile market.

The car industry’s stock lack, which began in early 2021, was pushed by a lack of sections, most notably personal computer chips. That crunch intended cars and trucks had been becoming offered even before they arrived at dealerships — so if someone did not want to pay out earlier mentioned sticker, there was no scarcity of buyers who would.

The inventory of pieces, and new vehicles, has considering the fact that commenced to strengthen. Automobile supplier plenty are fuller than a 12 months back — Cox estimates the offer of new cars and trucks has enhanced by 800,000, or 83%, from the commence of 2022 — but that’s nevertheless extra than 1 million motor vehicles underneath historic stock concentrations.

Automakers have concentrated on utilizing the enhanced supply of chips and other parts to establish their far more highly-priced — and a lot more profitable — styles, these kinds of as huge SUVs and pickups and very hot new EVs, which come with a large sticker rate of their possess (,as nicely as a wait around record for consumers).

Much less expensive versions, such as compact sedans, are nonetheless in extremely small supply, particularly given that General Motors, Ford and Chrysler guardian Stellantis have much more or a lot less pulled out of all those markets. Asian automakers that continue to make the less expensive motor vehicle designs also have some of the tightest inventories.

“Just try to uncover a Civic,” said Michelle Krebs, senior analyst for Cox.

Even if buyers are spending a lot less than sticker currently, they’re also having less for the cars they’re buying and selling in, as the price of made use of autos has fallen sharply in the past six months.

Devoid of the tighter inventories that drove new motor vehicle

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Dunedin restaurants face pushback over new server pay model

A Dunedin restaurant’s shift away from tips was supposed to be about “data over drama,” but former employees say it’s definitely been both.

The Black Pearl introduced a new pay model for servers. Instead of taking home tips, waiters will receive a flat 20% commission and $1-an-hour wage. Ahead of the change, the restaurant fired some staff, employees told the Tampa Bay Times. Since then, criticism from hospitality workers and patrons pushed the review website Yelp to disable reviews on the restaurant’s page.

Owners Zachary and Christina Feinstein, under the company called The Feinstein Group, said they restructured tipping protocols to offer better pay for support staffers like bussers and food runners. The Feinstein Group implemented the pay structure months ago in their two other Dunedin restaurants: the Living Room and Sonder Social Club.

Instead of guests choosing the tip amount on receipts, every customer will have a 20% service fee added onto the bill. A server keeps 15% while support staff get the remaining 5%, Zachary Feinstein said. Guests can still add a tip on top of the fee, which would only go to servers.

They lowered hourly wages from $8 to $1 an hour for servers to raise kitchen staff pay to at least $15 an hour, Feinstein said.

Under the new structure, servers at the Feinstein Group’s restaurants are no longer considered tipped employees under Florida law. Their wages will primarily come from a percentage of sales, making them commission-based workers, like real estate agents and car salespeople.

But before switching to the new pay model on Aug. 26, the Black Pearl fired two servers and two hosts, the Feinsteins confirmed. They said they made the changes as part of a larger restructuring to make room for new positions like sommeliers. Some were fired for creating a “hostile work environment,” the Feinsteins said.

But Tabitha Crewe and Zachary Benson said they believe they were fired because they had questions about the new pay structure. The Feinsteins denied those claims.

“We knew they were going to implement a commission model and it was never clearly defined what the structure was going to be specific to that restaurant,” said Crewe, who worked as a server at the Black Pearl for about a year and a half. “This isn’t a model that’s implemented in many of the restaurants that I’ve ever worked at, so I had no idea what to expect.”

Crewe said she got a phone call from a manager telling her she was fired because she wasn’t “a right fit anymore,” about a week before the commission structure went into effect.

Some former employees spoke against the model and posted on Reddit and Facebook claiming the owners lacked transparency about how the pay structure would affect them. Crewe and another fired employee protested outside the restaurant Aug. 26. They said $1 an hour is unfair.

The restaurant review site Yelp blocked adding new reviews on the Black Pearl’s page due to “unusual activity” and had an alert

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EV maker Nikola Corp. agrees to pay back $125M to settle SEC prices of defrauding buyers

Nikola Corp. has agreed to shell out $125 million to settle civil fees that it defrauded investors by deceptive them about its products, complex enhancements and professional potential clients, the U.S. securities regulator said on Tuesday.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused the EV maker of violating U.S. securities legislation with various misleading statements made from March to September 2020 about in-property generation capabilities, reservation book and monetary outlook.

The settlement follows civil and prison charges submitted in July versus Nikola’s founder Trevor Milton for employing social media to regularly mislead buyers about the company’s technology and capabilities, reaping “tens of millions of pounds” as a final result of his misconduct. Milton is battling all those costs in court following possessing misplaced a bid to dismiss or go the scenario.

Milton’s misleading statements aimed at inflating share rates started even before Nikola had made a “solitary commercial merchandise or experienced any revenues from truck or hydrogen gasoline income,” the SEC purchase mentioned.

Nikola did not acknowledge or deny the SEC’s conclusions, and has agreed to cooperate with ongoing litigation and investigation, the SEC mentioned. The agency previously disclosed anticipations of the significant penalty in November.

Nikola “is accountable each for Milton’s allegedly misleading statements and for other alleged deceptions, all of which falsely portrayed the true condition of the firm’s business enterprise and technological know-how,” Gurbir Grewal, the SEC’s enforcement director, explained in a statement.

Nikola said in a statement that it will keep on to execute on its technique and extend its producing community. The organization is looking for reimbursement from Milton for “expenditures and damages in connection with the federal government and regulatory investigations,” it mentioned.

Nikola went community by using a exclusive objective acquisition organization (SPAC) in June 2020, a method the SEC has criticized for necessitating considerably less original vetting than the traditional preliminary general public providing method.

This month, the SEC’s chair explained the agency was looking at toughening guidelines all-around how underwriters, boards of directors and sponsors of SPACs framework costs, concern projections and disclose conflicts.

The strategies are aspect of a broader crackdown on the SPAC sector this year. The SEC has also informed major auditors to modify their accounting tactics, and launched a broad enforcement inquiry of Wall Road banks concerned in the discounts.

The programs are section of the SEC’s broader crackdown on the sector this year. The company has also instructed major auditors to change their accounting methods and launched a wide enforcement inquiry of Wall Road financial institutions involved in the promotions.

Nikola shares ended up up .74 % at $9.32 apiece on the Nasdaq Tuesday early morning.

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