We recently compiled a list of the 10 Best Car Repair Stocks to Buy Now. In this article, we are going to take a look at where AutoNation, Inc. (NYSE:AN) stands against the other car repair stocks.

Price Wars in the Automotive Space

Every consumer in the market today has numerous options when it comes to cars. With the rise of electric and hybrid vehicles, this variety has only grown exponentially, resulting in many automotive sector players feeling the need to compete with each other on pricing alongside other things. Price competition has always been an indicator of a healthy market environment, as it offers the everyday consumer the ability to make an informed decision about the product that they want to buy, so this may not necessarily be a bad development. However, considering the fact that the automotive sector has been facing headwinds in the form of lower demand, particularly in light of higher inflation over the past couple of years, this additional burden of having to compete on pricing to attract more customers can result in many automotive providers facing losses.

According to Bill Russo, the founder and CEO of Automobility Limited, the price wars have penetrated the EV space with great zeal, particularly because EVs are among the priciest vehicles in the market today. Russo has stated that the weakness in demand for vehicles that we’re seeing so far in 2024 has the potential to plague the industry going forward and will continue to put pressure on pricing. With this backdrop, many investors may be wondering where to go with their money if they want to invest in the automotive space. The answer to that question is quite simple – automotive repair.

Where to Invest in the Automotive Space?

As new cars become too expensive to consider buying, your typical consumer is likely to head toward used cars, which typically require more repair and maintenance than a brand-new vehicle. Because of this trend, automotive companies that are dabbling in dealing with and repairing used vehicles may be poised to become new automotive stock investor favorites. According to Carvana CEO Ernie Garcia’s interview on CNBC’s “Power Lunch” this June, the used car market is reasonably stable this year, and used car prices are also down at present, which can be an added incentive for consumers to gravitate towards used vehicles.

Another exciting space within automotive is China, which has been rapidly growing its presence within the automotive industry with cheaper and more efficient vehicles. Going back to our discussion on price wars, we see that Chinese automakers are actually doing surprisingly well in providing low-cost EVs especially, which has led to experts such as Michael Dunne, founder and CEO of Dunne Insights, dubbing China the “world’s center of automotive manufacturing,” in an August interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia.” Dunne noted that China can produce cars more cheaply than anyone else in the world and that it has built more EVs than every other player, which has enabled it to export cars to more than 100 markets worldwide.

Considering this rapid growth, investors looking to pick up some automotive players could do well by considering companies that have longstanding partnerships with Chinese manufacturers, or by directly picking up Chinese car makers for their portfolio. The list we’ve compiled below has several companies that fit the first of these descriptions, alongside several other automotive players in the repair space.

Our Methodology 

We used a stock screener to identify stocks in the automotive parts and repair businesses. We then shortlisted the stocks based on the number of hedge funds holding stakes in them, from the lowest to the highest number, by using Insider Monkey’s hedge fund data for the second quarter.

Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points. (see more details here).

AutoNation, Inc. (NYSE:AN)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 38

AutoNation, Inc. (NYSE:AN) is an automotive company that primarily offers new and used vehicles, parts, automotive repair and maintenance services, and wholesale parts and collision services. It is based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

AutoNation, Inc. (NYSE:AN) is well-known for its history of stock buybacks, a strategy that helps the company juice up its EPS quarter by quarter and ensures that it returns maximum value to its loyal shareholders. Between 2021 and 2022, the company bought back about $4 billion of its stock, and it has retained this strategy to date since it announced a share buyback authorization of $1 billion in its first-quarter earnings call.

Another factor that attracts investors to AutoNation, Inc. (NYSE:AN) is its resilience in times of crisis. During the CDK outage, the company managed to manually process about 60,000 repair orders, which immensely benefited its financial growth and performance for the second quarter.

AutoNation, Inc. (NYSE:AN) has also continued on a steady growth trajectory this year. By the second quarter, it had opened four new AN USA stores to meet rising used car demand in the US.

We saw 38 hedge funds long AutoNation, Inc. (NYSE:AN) in the second quarter, with a total stake value of $616.3 million.

Alluvium Asset Management mentioned AutoNation, Inc. (NYSE:AN) in its second-quarter 2024 investor letter:

“AutoNation, Inc. (NYSE:AN) (down 3.7%) operates around 350 dealer franchises across the US, as well as collision centres and used vehicle stores. When compared to Group 1, it sells more units at a slightly higher price and margin, and derives around 50% more revenue. But its strategy is different, with nationwide branding and centralised operations. Although we prefer the Group 1 model, the economics of Autonation look attractive to us. And by introducing this into the portfolio we could thereby invest more than 5% of assets in this sector without necessitating the sale of other attractive large positions. And so after selling a little Group 1 and buying Autonation we ended the quarter with 4.1% and 1.9% positions respectively.”

Overall AN ranks 4th on our list of the best car repair stocks to buy. While we acknowledge the potential of AN as an investment, we believe that AI stocks hold promise for delivering high returns and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than AN but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.