Throughout the pandemic, we have frequently highlighted how Google searches for things like boats, camping, gardening, and many other outdoor activities have been sharply on the rise. Consumer shifts towards outdoor recreational activities from sea to shore have been the benefit of many names. Below we show just over two dozen stocks that are in some form related to things like recreational vehicles, camping, sporting goods retailing, boating, golf, gardening, and the likes. As shown, while they had fallen by nearly 50% during the bear market, off the lows they have surged. 21 of these names have risen by at least 100% and their average gain since 3/23 is more than 200%. We find it fascinating how much these stocks got “thrown out with the bathwater” in the initial stages of the pandemic. With an average decline of 48% during the 2/19-3/23 bear market, investors certainly were not thinking about a big shift towards socially-distanced outdoor activities at the time.
Given the runs they’ve had, they’re generally very elevated. On average, these stocks are 23.81% above their 50-DMAs and 52.9% above their 200-DMAs. Granted, there is a sizeable range in regards to distance from the moving averages. For example, Winnebago (WGO) is less than 1% from its 50-DMA while Big 5 Sporting Goods (BGFV) is over 90% above its 50-DMA. The same goes for the 200-DMA Camping World (CWH), which we highlighted in a post yesterday, is almost 150% above its 200-DMA while Columbia Sportswear (COLM) is actually under its 200-DMA; the only of these stocks that this applies to.
Given the elevated price levels and massive runs, short interest has built up for several of these names. Hibbett Sports (HIBB) is the worst of these with 34.57% of float sort. Camping World (CWH), OneWater Marine (ONEW), and Dick’s Sporting Goods (DKS) also all have readings above 20%. By comparison, the average stock in the S&P 1500 has 6% of float short.
Below, we show all of the charts of these names over the past year and five years. The huge rallies over the past few months are glaring, especially since many of these stocks have been in long term downtrends headed into the COVID pandemic. The strong returns over the past few months have obliterated those downtrends. For others like TSCO, YETI, PII, and MBUU, the longer-term trends have been stronger with uptrends or breakouts of some sideways price action. In the case of PII, an earnings triple play today resulted in the breakout to the upside to a 52-week high. We have created a custom portfolio of all these names to keep track of them in the Trend Analyzer and Chart Scanner tools.
