With Moody’s Turning Positive On Consumer Durables Stocks, Here Are 5 That Billionaires Are Bullish On

Ratings firm Moody’s recently revised its outlook for the U.S. consumer durables industry to ‘Positive’ from ‘Stable’, citing the impact of “cost savings, modest improvements in select emerging markets, strength in housing market-related spending and low commodity costs.” While the firm acknowledged that a strong U.S. dollar will continue to remain a headwind for multinational giants, it thinks that the industry’s earnings power “will be boosted by companies’ cost-cutting initiatives and acquisitions, low oil costs and the stabilization of some emerging markets.” Apart from the ratings shift, the firm also upped its operating profit growth forecast for the sector to 5%-to-6% over the next 12-to-18 months from its previous forecast of 4%-to-5% growth.

Taking into account Moody’s bullish forecast and the growth that is expected from the industry in the coming quarters, we at Insider Monkey thought of helping our readers find the best consumer durables stocks for their portfolios. To do so, we compiled a list of consumer durables stocks based on their popularity at the end of the second quarter among the over 60 billionaire investors that we track. In this article, we’ll reveal the five stocks that topped our list and will discuss how those stocks have performed so far in 2016.

At Insider Monkey, we track around 750 hedge funds and institutional investors. Through extensive backtests, we have determined that imitating some of the stocks that these investors are collectively bullish on can help retail investors generate double digits of alpha per year. The key is to focus on the small-cap picks of these funds, which are usually less followed by the broader market and allow for larger price inefficiencies (see more details).

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#5 B/E Aerospace Inc (NASDAQ:BEAV)

— Number of Billionaires With Shares (as of June 30): 8

— Total Value of Billionaires’ Holdings (as of June 30): $248.54 million

First up on our list is B/E Aerospace Inc (NASDAQ:BEAV), which was held by eight of the billionaire investors in our database on June 30, up by two quarter-over-quarter, though the aggregate value of their holdings in it declined by $214 million during the second quarter. B/E Aerospace Inc (NASDAQ:BEAV)’s stock has performed well this year, appreciating by almost 18%. However, it is still trading down by almost 50% from the high it made in May 2014. The Florida-based manufacturer of aircraft interiors currently pays a quarterly dividend of $0.21 per share, which translates into an annual dividend yield of 1.66%. For its most recent quarter, the company managed to beat analysts’ estimates of EPS of $0.82 and revenue of $713.1 million with its EPS of $0.84 and revenue of $753 million. Despite the strong quarterly numbers, most analysts continue to remain neutral on the stock, including analysts at Jefferies Group, who reiterated their ‘Hold’ rating on it on August 1.

#4 Graphic Packaging Holding Company (NYSE:GPK)

— Number of Billionaires With Shares (as of June 30): 8

— Total Value of Billionaires’ Holdings (as of June 30): $303.61 million

Though the number of billionaire investors that we track which were long Graphic Packaging Holding Company (NYSE:GPK) increased by just one during the second quarter, the aggregate value of their holdings in the company rose by over 50% during the period. Shares of the paper-based packaging solutions company suffered a large decline last year, but have recovered most of those losses in 2016 and are currently trading up by 9% year-to-date. Graphic Packaging Holding Company (NYSE:GPK) started paying a quarterly dividend of $0.05 per share beginning in the first quarter of 2015, which it hasn’t hiked since. On July 27, a day after the company reported its second quarter financial results, which were in-line with analysts’ expectations, analysts at Citigroup reiterated their ‘Buy’ rating on the stock, while upping their price target on it to $16 from $15.50, which represents potential upside of $14.28.

We’ll check out the three most popular consumer durables stocks among billionaires on the next page.