The current uncertain macroeconomic backdrop has made investors hesitant to invest in the market. A number of factors, including the Russia-Ukraine war, labor challenges, supply-demand imbalance, inflationary pressures, and the Fed’s hawkish stance on interest rates, have swayed investor sentiment to a great extent.
As a result, the S&P 500 (SPX) plunged more than 14% year-to-date.
Under such circumstances, the need for TipRanks’ insightful tools seems appropriate. Using data from SEMrush Holdings (SEMR), the world’s biggest website usage monitoring service, TipRanks’ Website Traffic Tool provides an estimate of consumers’ visits to the company’s websites and its correlation with the stock price.
Rising website traffic for a company gives a perception of consumers being possibly optimistic about the company, and vice-versa.
Let’s look at two stocks with rising website trends and strong prospects.
Victoria’s Secret & Co. (VSCO)
Victoria’s Secret, a specialty retailer of women’s intimate, personal care, and beauty products, provides products through stores and online internationally.
With a market capitalization of $3.38 billion, the company is the largest lingerie retailer in the U.S. Yet, the company has struggled since 2016 with changing customers’ preferences and corporate leadership issues.
Interestingly, with its brand revolution and remarkable execution, the company appears to have steered through the uncertain macroeconomic environment.
Recently, Victoria’s Secret reported better-than-expected results for the first quarter of Fiscal 2022 and provided a decent outlook for the year. Net sales and earnings both surpassed analysts’ expectations.
Looking forward, Victoria’s Secret CEO Martin Waters commented, “We are well prepared to continue to address macro challenges through merchandise and marketing that delights our customers, new business initiatives designed to expand our customer base and grow sales, and disciplined financial management.”
Following the first-quarter earnings release, B.Riley Financial analyst Susan Anderson maintained a Buy rating on Victoria’s Secret but lowered the price target to $63 from $77. Anderson’s price target implies 55.79% upside potential over the next 12 months.
Anderson believes that the continual launch of new products, global expansion, and rising popularity of newly rollout tween brand Happy Nation are “meaningful growth levers” for the retailer.
The five-star analyst opined that the stock “presents significant upside opportunity” at the current level.
On TipRanks, we could notice a website traffic uptrend on the website traffic tool. In April 2022, total visits to Victoria’s Secret website showed an increasing trend, on a global basis, representing a 22.39% jump on a year-over-year basis. Also, year-to-date website growth, compared to year-to-date website growth in the previous year, came in at 49.68%.
This, in turn, indicates that the company might report strong results in the second quarter.
Overall, the rest of the Street is cautiously optimistic about the stock, with a Moderate Buy consensus rating based on seven Buys and three Holds. The average Victoria’s Secret price target of $59.30 implies 46.64% upside potential. Shares have lost 4.85% over the past year.
The Procter & Gamble Company (PG)
With a market capitalization of $348.67 billion, Procter & Gamble is the most-valued company globally in the consumer staples sector. It offers a portfolio of quality and well-known branded personal care and home products.
The continued growth and popularity of the company’s existing brands and products, along with innovative products and brands, illustrates the company’s resilient business model.
In addition, Procter & Gamble has a long track record of paying dividends, with consecutive increases. The dividend amount has grown from $0.601 per share in 2013 to the current rate of $0.913 per share. The stock offers investors a dividend yield of 2.41%, which is well ahead of the sector average of 1.514%.
Since the current macroeconomic backdrop favors defensive stocks, Procter & Gamble could be a strong bet, given its current price performance (up 9.05% over the past year) and strong fundamentals.
Recently, Deutsche Bank analyst Stephen Powers maintained a bullish stance on PG but lowered the price target to $171 (17.67% upside potential) from $177.
According to Powers, the consumer goods sector outperformed strongly over the last six months despite the continued challenging and uncertain macro environment. However, considering the sector is “at a critical juncture,” the analyst perceives a “break” across the consumer products space in the U.S.
The rest of the Street is cautiously optimistic about the stock, with a Moderate Buy consensus rating based on 10 Buys and six Holds. The average Procter & Gamble price forecast of $168.73 implies 16.11% upside potential.
We also noticed an upward trend in website clicks on the online traffic tool. In April 2022, total visits on the company’s websites showed an increasing trend, on a global basis, representing a surge of 46.32% year-over-year, indicating strong results to be reported. Also, year-to-date website growth, compared to year-to-date website growth in the previous year, came in at a whopping 128.08%.
Ending Words
In the current volatile markets, investors are apprehensive about making investment decisions. Website trends help in forecasting the popularity of stocks, which could help in making prudent investments to some extent. Based on long-term prospects, both Victoria’s Secret and Procter & Gamble are trending higher in terms of visited websites.
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