Why Coca-Cola Consolidated Stock Popped Today

Motley Fool
07-25
  • Coca-Cola Consolidated reported smaller volumes but bigger sales -- and profits -- last night.
  • Earnings per share actually grew 16% year over year.
  • Coca-Cola Consolidated stock is priced for strong growth.

Shares of Coca-Cola Consolidated (COKE 5.88%), America's largest independently owned bottler of Coca-Cola (and 35%-owned by The Coca-Cola Company itself, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence), jumped 9% through 9:55 a.m. ET this morning after the company reported earnings last night.

Image source: Getty Images.

Coca-Cola Consolidated Q2 earnings

Despite shipping slightly lower volumes of soda (down 1%), the Coca-Cola bottler reported sales growth of 3%, a 4% increase in gross profit, and a 5% increase in operating profit for the second quarter of 2025. This implies that both prices and profit margins increased.

Coca-Cola Consolidated earned a 14.7% operating profit margin in the quarter, and turned $1.9 billion in sales into $2.15 per share in net profit -- up 16% year over year.

Is Coca-Cola Consolidated stock a buy?

Management didn't give hard guidance in its report, but noted that cash flow in the first half of the year was about $406 million, and the company expects capital spending to be about $300 million for the year. This would appear to imply Coca-Cola Consolidated might do as much as $500 million in positive free cash flow this year.

Relative to the stock's near-$10 billion market capitalization, that makes the math on this one quite easy: Coca-Cola Consolidated stock sells for a price-to-free-cash-flow ratio of about 20. Between the 0.9% dividend yield and the 16% growth rate in profits, that sounds about right to me -- so long as Coca-Cola Consolidated can keep growing at 16%.

Personally, I'd be surprised if that happens, though. Coke's recent announcement that it will begin selling soda sweetened with cane sugar might spark a surge in experimental buying in the short term. Longer-term, though, 16% growth for a mature beverages company seems like a stretch to me.

I'd be a seller of Coca-Cola Consolidated stock.

免責聲明:投資有風險,本文並非投資建議,以上內容不應被視為任何金融產品的購買或出售要約、建議或邀請,作者或其他用戶的任何相關討論、評論或帖子也不應被視為此類內容。本文僅供一般參考,不考慮您的個人投資目標、財務狀況或需求。TTM對信息的準確性和完整性不承擔任何責任或保證,投資者應自行研究並在投資前尋求專業建議。

熱議股票

  1. 1
     
     
     
     
  2. 2
     
     
     
     
  3. 3
     
     
     
     
  4. 4
     
     
     
     
  5. 5
     
     
     
     
  6. 6
     
     
     
     
  7. 7
     
     
     
     
  8. 8
     
     
     
     
  9. 9
     
     
     
     
  10. 10