United Natural Foods’ stock (NYSE: UNFI), a distributor and retailer of natural and organic products in the United States, has increased 9% in the last five trading days (one week). In comparison, the broader S&P500 index grew 6% over the same period. The company performed well in its fiscal first quarter and also reaffirmed its full-year 2022 (year ending July 2022) guidance. The company saw its fiscal Q1 revenue grow 5% year-over-year (y-o-y), driven by inflation and new business from both existing and new customers, including the benefit of cross-selling, partially offset by supply chain challenges and expected modest market contraction. To add to this, UNFI’s adjusted EPS for the quarter totaled $0.97 per share compared to $0.51 last year. While there was no specific news on the company, UNFI stock has been volatile in the past month on the concerns of rising rates and the broader market sell-off.
For the full year of 2022, the company expects GAAP earnings per share of between $3.60 and $3.90 per share on sales of $27.8 billion to $28.3 billion. In addition, its adjusted earnings per share are forecast to land in the range of $3.90 to $4.20. It should be noted that UNFI deals exclusively in organic foods, as compared to other distributors which deal mostly in non-organic foods. The demand for natural foods is a long-term trend that isn’t going away soon, which gives UNFI a leg up over its peers. However, UNFI has a sizable debt of $2.4 billion on its balance sheet (higher than its market cap of $2.2 billion) and much of its operating profits go toward interest expense. Therefore, a rise in interest rates in the future could make it more expensive for the company to refinance its debt in the coming years.
Now, is UNFI stock poised to grow further in the short term? Based on our machine learning analysis of trends in the stock price over the last ten years, there is a high 66% chance of a rise in UNFI stock over the next month (twenty-one trading days). See our analysis on UNFI’s Stock Chance Of Rise for more details.
If you are considering UNFI stock as an investment option over a longer time frame, you can explore our forecast for UNFI’s Valuation dashboard. We estimate the company’s valuation to be around $63 per share which is almost 58% higher than the current market price.
Calculation of ‘Event Probability’ and ‘Chance of rising’ using last 10 year data
It is helpful to see how its peers stack up. UNFI Peers shows how United Natural Foods compares against peers on metrics that matter. You will find other useful comparisons for companies across industries at Peer Comparisons.
What if you’re looking for a more balanced portfolio instead? Here’s a high-quality portfolio that’s beaten the market consistently since the end of 2016.
| Returns | Feb 2022 MTD [1] |
2022 YTD [1] |
2017-22 Total [2] |
| UNFI Return | 3% | -19% | -16% |
| S&P 500 Return | 2% | -4% | 105% |
| Trefis MS Portfolio Return | 1% | -9% | 260% |
[1] Month-to-date and year-to-date as of 2/3/2022
[2] Cumulative total returns since the end of 2016
Invest with Trefis Market Beating Portfolios
See all Trefis Price Estimates
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
www.nasdaq.com