William Blair analyst Sharon Zackfia finds it difficult to assess the impact of Mark Crumpacker, Chipotle's chief creative and development officer, being put on leave amid drug allegations. The company's management team is "fairly lean," and the absence of Crumpacker is occurring in tandem with the launch of Chiptopia on July 1, a three-month program that is designed to increase customer frequency, Zackfia tells investors in a research note. She sees the risk to Chiptopia as likely limited, however, since the program has already been conceptualized and will launch imminently. Zackfia continues to believe that Chipotle's traffic trends slowly improved throughout Q2. She keeps an Outperform rating on the shares.
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For 2024, management is anticipating the following: Full year comparable restaurant sales growth in the mid to high-single digit range; 285 to 315 new restaurant openings with over 80% having a Chipotlane. An estimated underlying effective full year tax rate between 25% and 27% before discrete items.
Reports Q1 revenue $2.7B, consensus $2.67B. Comparable restaurant sales increased 7.0%. "We had another outstanding quarter driven by our improvement in throughput and successful marketing initiatives, including Braised Beef Barbacoa and Chicken Al Pastor, which drove strong sales and transactions. The results we are seeing from our focus on developing exceptional people, preparing delicious food and fast throughput gives me confidence that we can achieve our long-term target of more than doubling our business in North America and expanding internationally," said Brian Niccol, Chairman and CEO, Chipotle.
Pre-earnings options volume in Chipotle is 1.5x normal with puts leading calls 9:7. Implied volatility suggests the market is anticipating a move near 5.3%, or $154.14, after results are released. Median move over the past eight quarters is 7.0%.