Monster Beverage Corporation (NASDAQ:MNST)
Monster Beverage Corporation (MNST), a global beverage company yesterday reported their fourth quarter and full year 2016 financial results. Monster reported fourth quarter adjusted earnings of $0.35 per share which beat analyst expectations of $0.30 per share. Monster reported fourth quarter revenues of $753.8 million which beat analyst expectations of $723.9 million.
Monster Beverage Corporation CEO’s Comments
Rodney C. Sacks, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said: “We are pleased to report continued progress on the strategic alignment of our distribution system with Coca-Cola bottlers, both domestically and internationally. In the United States, we continue to see improvements in the quality of our distribution, particularly in the food service channel, and we transitioned distribution of Monster Energy® drinks to the Coca-Cola bottlers in Wisconsin early in January 2017. We transitioned distribution of Monster Energy® drinks to the Coca-Cola bottlers in Brazil, Costa Rica and Panama, as well as in certain other countries during the 2016 fourth quarter. In China, we continued with launches in Shanghai, Hunan Province, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Zhanjiang and Hainan in the quarter. Further launches are planned throughout 2017 in China. We also launched Monster Energy® drinks in Nigeria early in 2017 and are planning further launches of Monster Energy® drinks in other countries in 2017, including a relaunch in India. We launched Mutant®, our new Super Soda drinks, in certain convenience store chains in late September 2016 and continue to see encouraging early results. We are planning for additional distribution of Mutant® in 2017. Our 2016 fourth quarter results were impacted by distributor terminations and the strength of the United States dollar.” Globe Newswire
MNST Technical Analysis
MNST opened trading yesterday at $41.41 which was down from the previous day’s trading close of $41.44. Shares closed trading yesterday at $42.01 and spiked up after market to $47.91, equivalent to a 14% increase from the closing price. Taking a look at the daily chart we can see that the last time MNST traded above these levels we have to go all the way back to November 2nd 2016, when it traded at highs of $48.10.
Taking a closer look at the daily chart we can see that before the spike up MNST had been in an overall downward trend dating back to January 5th, when it traded at $46.19. MNST has a float of 424.64 million shares and traded 1.57 times the normal daily trading volume on Wednesday.
For trading purposes, I would like to see MNST open trading on Thursday above $46.00 and if it does I would be looking to take a long position at the bell. My stop loss would be $0.35 from my entry position fearing anything more than that and the stock would start to fill in the gap up.
Company Profile
Monster Beverage Corporation, through its subsidiaries, develops, markets, sells, and distributes energy drink beverages and its concentrates in the United States and internationally. It operates through three segments: Finished Products, Concentrate, and Other.
The company provides carbonated energy, and non-carbonated dairy based coffee and energy drinks to full service beverage distributors, retail grocery and specialty chains, wholesalers, club stores, drug chains, mass merchandisers, convenience chains, health food distributors, food service customers, and the military; and concentrates and/or beverage bases to authorized bottling and canning operations.
Monster Beverage Corporation sells its products under the Monster Energy, Nalu, Monster Rehab, NOS, Monster Energy Extra Strength Nitrous Technology, Full Throttle, Java Monster, Burn, Muscle Monster, Mother, Mega Monster Energy, Ultra, Punch Monster, Play and Power Play, Juice Monster, Gladiator, M3, Relentless, Übermonster, Samurai, BU, and BPM brands.
The company was formerly known as Hansen Natural Corporation and changed its name to Monster Beverage Corporation in January 2012. Monster Beverage Corporation was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in Corona, California.