Starbucks Corporation (SBUX): Can Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. (GMCR) Keep It Up?

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Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. (NASDAQ:GMCR) was one of last week’s biggest winners, soaring 12% and hitting a fresh 52-week high on Friday.

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. (NASDAQ:GMCR)

The company behind the Keurig single-cup coffee brewer has done an admirable job of defying the skeptics who figured that Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. (NASDAQ:GMCR) was done after its K-Cup patents expired last September.

It didn’t happen.

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. (NASDAQ:GMCR)’s move higher last week was fueled largely by its addition to the Nasdaq 100 market gauge on Thursday morning. You probably couldn’t tell that by eyeing the stock chart. The company that revolutionized the way that tens of millions of people consume premium coffee rose four out of five trading days last week. The one day that it dipped — Thursday — just happened to be the day that it went into the widely tracked index. However, ever since the news was released at the end of the prior week, it’s easy to see investors scrambling to buy in ahead of the move.

It’s not Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. (NASDAQ:GMCR)’s first time in the club. It was added to the Nasdaq 100 two years ago, only to get booted toward the end of last year as its stock began to slip on weakening sales, accounting questions, and the patent situation.

Then again, appreciating to the point where it’s now back in the index isn’t the real story. How did Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. (NASDAQ:GMCR) get here?

Well, growth will silence any skeptics, and that’s exactly what Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. (NASDAQ:GMCR) has done.

Skeptics who figured that Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX) would crush Green Mountain with its own machine or begin making off-patent K-Cups fell short on both counts. Verismo hasn’t slowed Keurig, and Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX) actually expanded and extended its partnership with Keurig instead of moving away from the platform.

Another factor in the redemptive return of Green Mountain to the Nasdaq 100 is that it has done nothing but beat Wall Street’s profit targets over the past year.

Quarter EPS est. EPS Surprise
Q4 2012 $0.48 $0.64 33%
Q1 2013 $0.65 $0.76 17%
Q2 2013 $0.74 $0.93 26%
Q3 2013 $0.77 $0.82 7%

Source: Yahoo! Finance.

Then we get to the buzz being generated ahead of the company’s first ever Investor Day slated for two weeks from now.

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