Roger
Business Owner, Former Assistant Research Professor
Kura Oncology's 15% one-day jump is pure ticker confusion, making it the cleanest fade on the tape if puts are liquid. Trump's Q1 disclosure showed $1-5M in "Kura," meaning Kura Sushi USA, but retail bought Kura Oncology, an unrelated clinical-stage cancer biotech now at a $917M market cap. The intended buy may even have been Fujikura, a Japanese fiber-optic supplier. Options activity is extreme for a thinly traded stock, with a 0.007 put/call ratio and no fundamental anchor. x.comÂ
The Cheesecake Factory at 25 times next-twelve-month earnings looks attractive as a short. Restaurant valuations can be highly cyclical, though past fast-casual names reached 55 times earnings with 20% growth. x.com x.comÂ
Kura Sushi is one of the better restaurant names, and the dip looks like a good buy, in line with Trump's apparent view. The Cupertino location near Apple's headquarters always had an hour-long line, and new locations have opened around Berkeley and elsewhere. x.com x.comÂ
Wendy's is on a path to bankruptcy because cutting product quality while raising prices is a near-certain recipe for failure. Those choices were likely forced rather than greedy: as the big cycle turned down, the only options left were bad or worse, with no way out. Many more companies will face the same. x.comÂ
Restaurant stocks, including Chipotle and Wingstop, are uninvestable right now, with too many better places for money. Most have slowing growth, rising costs and poor margins. Wingstop's growth and margins look better than most, but it is still not a buy. x.com x.comÂ
Kura Sushi could follow semiconductors higher now that President Trump is reportedly long the stock, since his semiconductor buying preceded their explosion. Per @aleabitoreddit, Trump took a large stake, close to 0.8% of the roughly $600m company if he bought $5M. x.comÂ
Shake Shack remains a long-term position despite cutting its guidance, citing uncertainty and competition. The second-quarter result was not surprising, but the lift needed in the second half looks hard to achieve. x.comÂ
Cheesecake Factory will die over the next 5-10 years despite looking cheap. The food is terrible and the prices outrageous, and with the job market getting hit, people won't waste money at restaurants like this; it has 2008 recession vibes. x.comÂ
US restaurant stocks face probably the worst operating environment outside the global financial crisis as pressures pile up one after another. Labor and input costs are high, lower- and part of middle-income consumers are running out of money, GLP-1 drugs are curbing appetite and Gen Z is avoiding alcohol. x.comÂ
Cava's growth is not sustainable because quality tends to fall as scale goes up, as happened at Chipotle. A post the author replies to adds that Cava's suburban expansion is not making money, same-store sales are down and more than 100 new bowl competitors are eating into it in what it calls a slop-bowl bubble. x.comÂ