Can the Madness Continue for CELH?Celsius Holdings has been trading like a meme stock as of late. News of a deal with Pepsico helped fuel the recent surge in stock price. The question I pose is will this bullish momentum in CELH continue despite a slowing global economy?
Technicals: There are strong signs of bearish divergences on monthly and weekly timeframes, slightly weaker bearish divergence can be observed on the daily as well. Price action recently surpassed all-time highs around the 110 mark. This could be a head-fake/bull trap, given that price has yet to retest the support of 110. On the other hand, MACD on the monthly, weekly, and daily timeframe are all signaling strong bullish momentum. Volume has been strong in the past couple of months of trading but a large part of that is due to Pepsi entering a 550 million dollar stake in Celsius. Possible cup and handle being formed but also could be a double top of sorts. Technicals for CELH are honestly not the worst, however, the bearish divergence on the RSI should come as a concern to Celsius holders and potential investors.
Fundamentals: CELH has a 8.6 billion market cap. Just as some comparisons Lincoln National Corporation is worth around 8.4 billion and BJ's Wholesale Club is worth around 9.8 billion. Celsius has a Trailing P/E of 491 and forward P/E of 303. P/S of 18 and a price to book of 36. Not even Tesla has valuation metrics this inflated. To add to the bearish view, since 05/20/2020 CELH insiders have exclusively sold shares, i.e., 100% of Celsius executives' trades have been sales over the past two-plus years. Dumping a total of 14.6 million shares in that period. Along with this, Revenue growth is decelerating, and gross margins have been slowly declining for several years. As the US heads into an economic slowdown I cannot imagine a scenario where CELH will have meaningful pricing power or any demand inelasticity, as their products are just too new and unproven, and also yet to be adopted by most food and beverage retailers ( yes, I realize the Pepsi involvement will likely help with CELH adoption). CELH is a wildly overvalued company.
Macro: Economies across the world are contracting rather quickly. PMI numbers came out earlier this month showing a slowing in business activity in both developed and emerging countries. Europe is facing the possibility of hyperinflation and the ECB is not signaling a stop anytime soon in Monetary tightening. With those headwinds in mind and many more -like a US housing recession- playing out over the next years, it is incredibly hard for me to see continued price appreciation in Celsius Holdings' stock. '
Prediction: In all honesty I have been dead wrong on this stock before. All though it's not my base case, I do think bullish momentum could carry this one up to as much as 145 a share in the short/med term. Although further appreciation is a possibility I really do not see this company performing well over the coming years. Over the coming years CELH should see a revisit of the 19.1-7.21 range before a bottom is in place.
As always this is not financial advice. Good Luck!
