Currency woes depress Tupperware

Article Excerpt

TUPPERWARE BRANDS CORP. $34 (New York symbol TUP; Income Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 51.1 million; Market cap: $1.7 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.8; Dividend yield: 8.0%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.tupperwarebrands.com) makes consumer goods such as plastic food and beverage containers, and cosmetics and fragrances. It sells these products through 3.1 million independent dealers; that keeps its distribution costs down. The stock is down about 50% in the past year. That’s largely due to the negative impact of the rising U.S. dollar. Tupperware gets around 90% of its sales and earnings from international markets, and a higher dollar hurts their contribution to the company’s overall results. Meantime, Tupperware will continue to cut jobs and improve efficiency. Despite those savings, the company now expects to earn between $4.25 and $4.35 a share in 2018, which is below the consensus estimate of $4.50. However, earnings will probably improve to $4.75 a share in 2019. The stock trades at just 7.2 times that forecast. The $2.72 dividend still seems safe,…