by Fred Fuld III
It’s time to buy Halloween candy yet for the trick-or-treaters. The candy manufacturers need your help. Other business can also benefit from Halloween holiday, such as the horror movie companies.
The biggest beneficiaries of Halloween are the confectionary makers. One example is Hershey Foods (HSY), one of the largest chocolate and candy companies in the world, with two of its most popular products being Hershey Kisses and Hershey Bars, along with Reese’s. The stock has a trailing price to earnings ratio of 20.4, a forward P/E ratio of 19.2, and pays a dividend yield of 2.7%. The latest quarterly earnings per share were up 13.7% year over year.
Tootsie Roll Industries (TR) has an assortment of candy kids, such as Tootsie Rolls, Tootsie Roll Pops, Caramel Apple Pops, Charms, Blow-Pops, Blue Razz, Zip-A-Dee Pops, Cella’s, Mason Dots, Mason Crows, Junior Mint, Sugar Daddys, and Sugar Babies. The stock has a P/E of 26.3 and a yield of 1.15%. Earnings per share for the latest quarter are down slightly from a year ago.
Mondelez International (MDLZ) is a multinational producer of candy, along with food and beverages. Its brands include Sour Patch, Swedish Fish, Cadbury, and Toblerone. Trailing P/E is 18.5 and the forward P/E is 16.2. The yield is a tasty 2.5%.
Watching scary movies is another popular event on Halloween. Netflix (NFLX), the huge provider of videos in the US, has an extensive selection of scary movies in its collection of titles. The stock trades as 114 times trailing earnings and 72 times forward earnings. It does not pay a dividend.
A major producer of scary movies is Lions Gate Entertainment (LGF.A), which has made such films as American Psycho, Ginger Snaps, Route 666, The Devil’s Rejects, House of the Dead 2, Saw VI, See No Evil, Hostel: Part II, My Bloody Valentine 3D and many others. Lionsgate has a price to earnings ratio of 11.4, and pays a dividend of 1.9%.
Then of course, Amazon (AMZN) has plenty of Halloween costumes
May your Halloween portfolio be a treat and not a trick.
Disclosure: Author didn’t own any of the above at the time the article was written.