The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company (NYSE:SMG)

agro & fertilizers should do well with rising hard commodities prices-- and I like their organic fertilizer portion of their portfolio

1. High Quality Company
2. Name recognition
3. I did a science fair project in the 2nd grade -- when it comes to growing Shamrocks, Miracle Grow does the best job BY FAR.
4. All these qualities lets SMG charge more -- more profit.
5. Baby boomers entering retirement want to get their lawn care on. I bet they will buy some Miracle Grow for their Tomato Plants.

Buy to Hold

The grass will always grow greener with this stock!

9/18/11 Options Predictor Rank #66. P/C Ratio 0.164 and Call Sizzle 3.327.

They always are raising prices, and no one wants weeds in their yard.

growth + dividend

ok not really growth... but you do grow things with it. I look for about a 20% run over the rest of the year.

good product. great brand. demographic tail wind. commited management with significant stock holding.

medical marijuana

Passes my stable dividends screen

I'm feeling good about Scotts Miracle-Grow Co. (SMG) once again for a turnaround, summertime economy, especially on this recent down-tic. Currently seeing only a paltry 1.1% dividend at this current level, but I'd ride this one through the October/November time frame for a likely decent short-term gain.

I want to shoot SMG with an SMG.

Maneaty days BUY

GOOD STOCK

Saturated market, low dividend, high P/E relative to market (even with realistically non-zero earnings estimates), bad trend on revenues and earnings, heavily dependent on household and residential sector...

In short, this stock is uncompetitive compared to the market of all available places to put your money. It doesn't matter if they are a leader in their sector.

good products

There are several fundamental issues facing this company that have the "glass is half full" crowd pushing SMG up close to 50% from its lows. For example, investors ran the company's stock up more than 10% when an announcement was made in November regarding SMG's plan to offer a private label alternative. Granted, this move will likely take market share from SMG's competitors, but it may well also take share from it's own high margin premier product. The company claims that it will successfully raise prices in 2009 even as it sees a drop in sales with a net positive impact. The company also is significantly leveraged, but says it should remain in compliance with its loan covenants. While commodity prices have come down, the company acknowledges that it hedged a material amount of it's 2009 commodity costs at prices well above today's spot prices.

The glass half full community looks ahead to lower commodity costs for SMG, higher prices for its branded product, and improvement in production utilization through the introduction of private label production.

When all is said and done, SMG, while excelling in name brand respect and recognition, is in a cyclical business that faces numerous obstacles. Aside from its current problems with government regulators, a dismal economy, and possible shifts in sentiment in drought prone states such as California, where water use versus lawn care issues may cause sales erosion in many of SMG's products I wouldn't be surprised to see the company's borrowing costs on the rise. At current prices, I believe SMG is significantly over valued.

Victory gardens etc etc.

Bumping resistance. Short the pop.

As prices of raw materials for just about all their products increases (fertilizer, grass seed, etc.) customers will begin (or should I say already have) to search for cheaper alternatives (which are readily available at just about every outlet) In addition as raw materials increase Scotts will attempt to lower the margins that retailers make selling their products which make those retailers look for cheaper alternatives with better margins. It's a lose/lose scenario that is destined to chew into their bottom line both now and in the future. Look for huge earnings misses in 1st/2nd quarters of 2009 and possibly the 4th quarter of 2008