This article presents an overview of Jim Cramer Talks About 5 Consumer Stocks As Americans Push Back on High Prices. For a detailed overview of such stocks read our article, Jim Cramer Talks About 10 Consumer Stocks As Americans Push Back on High Prices.
5. Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (NYSE:CMG)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 56
Jim Cramer in a latest program praised Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (NYSE:CMG) since Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (NYSE:CMG) was able to increase prices without facing any major effects on its sales. That’s because, according to Cramer, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc.’s (NYSE:CMG) customers “think it’s worth it…something you hardly ever see.”
Last month, Cramer said Chipotle was one of those “self-help” stocks that keep growing despite the broader economic situation.
“When we’re looking for reasons to buy a stock in this environment, we want companies that generate constant self-help. Chipotle does it by improving throughput — how many people that they can serve, say, every 15 minutes,” Cramer had said.
Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (NYSE:CMG) shares have gained about 44% so far this year.
Rowan Street Capital stated the following regarding Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (NYSE:CMG) in its first quarter 2024 investor letter:
“The best investment ideas are simple. We have previously written about Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (NYSE:CMG). It turned out that this was our best investment idea since starting the fund. The stock is up 10x since we first invested at the end of 2017 (~47% annualized). Sounds absolutely incredible, except that your managers sold CMG back in 2018 (thinking that the stock had gotten ahead of itself), and proudly booked an 85% profit in 6 months, patting ourselves in the back. Interestingly, when we wrote about this in our 2019 letter, describing our big mistake to sell, the stock still went up +270% since that letter, delivering an impressive 30% annual return. This is an incredibly important point! You do not get many Chipotles in your investing career. Companies like these are super rare and the opportunity to buy them at an attractive price (which we got in 2017) is even rarer. Booking a quick profit, paying the capital gains tax and thinking that you will find another CMG to invest your proceeds into is usually delusional.
Along with our personal investment case of CMG, let us compare that to the experience that Bill Ackman had with the same investment. He is a famous hedge fund manager that we greatly admire, who has achieved an incredible track record in the past 20 years running Pershing Square. Bill Ackman has owned the restaurant stock since the third quarter of 2016 at an initial cost basis of about $411 per share (our cost basis was $289). Originally, Mr. Ackman bought 2.88 million shares. He was wise to hold on to CMG stock and it still is the top position in his fund (18% weight). But, if you follow his 13F filings, which are the public filings disclosing large investment manager’s holdings of publicly traded securities, he kept trimming his position as the stock went up. We calculated that if he just sat on his original 2.88 million shares and didn’t sell a share, his position would be worth $8.8 billion today. This would represent ~50% of his entire firms’ assets under management (AUM). But he only has $1.8 billion invested in CMG as of Q1 2024. As Charlie Munger said: ““The first rule of compounding is to never interrupt it unnecessarily.”…” (Click here to read the full text)