Look for these aggressive picks to rebound

Article Excerpt

China is now easing its latest round of COVID-19 lockdowns. That should help fast-food operators Starbucks and Yum China rebound, particularly as their strong brands and expanding digital platforms remain popular with younger customers. STARBUCKS CORP. $83 remains a buy for aggressive investors. The company (Nasdaq symbol SBUX; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 1.15 billion; Market cap: $95.5 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 3.0; Dividend yield: 2.4%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.starbucks.com) is a leading seller and roaster of specialty coffee. It has 34,630 outlets spread across 84 countries. The stock is down 30% since the start of 2022, largely due to the lockdowns in China (that country supplies roughly 10% of its total sales). In Starbucks’ fiscal 2022 second quarter, ended April 3, 2022, its same-store sales in China fell 23% from a year earlier. That offset improvements in North America (up 12%) and international (including China) locations (up 8%). At the end of the quarter, one-third of its outlets in China remained closed. However,…