Information Provided By:
Fly News Breaks for January 9, 2020
SBUX, WEN, CMG
Jan 9, 2020 | 07:34 EDT
Oppenheimer analyst Brian Bittner upgraded Chipotle (CMG) to Perform from Underperform, telling investors that he was "proved wrong" in 2019 by its accelerating same-store sales trends and he is moving on "from an awful call." While he previously under-appreciated the financial impacts from digital/delivery strategies, he now sees a more credible path back to peak unit-economics, which could drive 2021 EPS to $30 per share, making the stock's valuation "more digestible." In the same note outlining his view on the year, Bittner identified Wendy's (WEN) and Starbucks (SBUX) as his top picks in the restaurant space in 2020.