Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX) stock has spiked 21.5% month-over-month as of early afternoon trading on November 9. Shares are now up 19% in 2018 so far.
Starbucks had bragging rights on the tech-heavy NASDAQ as most of its peers suffered steep declines in the month of October.
Starbucks stock got off to a bad start in the early summer as the coffee company showed slow growth in North American stores. This has been a common theme over the past two years. The company released its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings on November 1.
Sales in the United States and the Americas experienced 4% growth in the final quarter which beat consensus estimates that projected growth below 3%. This represented the strongest same-store sales growth in the U.S. in five quarters.
Starbucks’ revenue rose to a record $6.3 billion in Q4 2018, up from the $5.7 billion reported in the prior year.
These numbers are promising for investors who were looking for Starbucks to break out of its slump. It has still posted growth over the past two years, but not at the level analysts had hoped for. Starbucks also offers a modest dividend yield of 1.8%.
The Q4 2018 report is good news heading into the historically busy holiday season for Starbucks. A strong U.S. economy has bolstered services industries in 2018.
Still, there are storm clouds on the horizon as far as baseline fundamentals are concerned. Kudos to those who held on to Starbucks ahead of these earnings, but it looks more like a hold after reaching an all-time high.
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