Chicken Run: Value Manager’s Dream?
On the surface, chicken stocks like Sanderson Farms(Nasdaq: SAFM), Gold Kist(Nasdaq: GKIS), and Pilgrim’s Pride(NYSE: PPC) are a value manager’s dream. Most of them are not very leveraged, they generate a decent return on capital, and best of all, they trade at single-digit P/E based on last year’s earnings. So, are chicken stocks the value manager’s dream, or are they a value trap in the making? I think the answer is a little bit of both, depending on an investor’s time horizon.