Wednesday Morning Thread

Gator's Chart of the Day: CBRL

Cracker Barrel isn't a fast mover but there is an insider who really likes it.  Sardar Biglari (Chairman and CEO) has been buying regularly and frequently.  Beginning January 5th he has filed 33 separate Form 4's with the SEC representing 1,618,278 shares purchased.  His average buy is just over 49,000 shares.  He's been buying every month this year.  He now owns 3,803,165 shares having made his latest purchase on May 8th.  On May 2nd CBRL reached its all-time closing high of 58.74.

Earnings have been growing well over 11%/yr for the last 5 years yet the forward P/E is a reasonable 12.2 and 9.6% of the float is short.  That works out to 8 days trading to cover the short interest.  The company does have debt and almost all is long term.  The debt/equity ratio is 1.72 but they have consistently paid a dividend (currently yielding 2.79%) and the long term debt has been coming down steadily over the last 3 years from 779M to the current level of 540M.

If you want a steady grower (up 14%+ so far this year) with management on your side this looks like a good one.