Heely's Rolls Into a Faddish Footware Market

As you may have noticed, 2006 has been the year of the consumer IPO. Familiar and popular consumer brands have debuted on the public market to much fanfare. Names like Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG), Crocs (CROX), Mastercard (MA), and UnderArmour (UARM) have all made investors a lot of money. Of that group, Crocs is really the only one that I looked at and said to myself, "Boy, that will be a great short when the fad dies and the stock's momentum dies down."

Well, that is until we learned that a roller shoe company called Heely's (HLYS) is going public at $21 per share today, putting the firm's value at more than half a billion dollars. Shoes with wheels on them? Wall Street can't be serious.

I am not saying the company isn't selling a lot of shoes right now, and retail investors are going to bid the stock up a lot just like they did with Crocs as soon as it starts trading. That said, I can't believe this company is going public. It must say something about the overly bullish stock market environment we find ourselves in right now.

CROX: 1-yr chart

While I won't be buying any Heely's shares, I hope they go through the roof. Maybe the company's market value even hits a billion dollars or two when it's all said and done. What an excellent short candidate that would make it.

Comments

[steve rifkin:]

i thought the same thing. good call chad.
but how do we know if something is a fad or will last?

2006 Dec 11 02:10 PM

[Chad Brand:]

I think a lot of people get burned on the short side because they short things like this right away as soon as they get overvalued. However, if the momentum is still upwards, you can get your head handed to you. I would wait until the thing stabilizes for a while and make sure the earnings estimates aren't too low before shorting. Waiting it out for more clarity might mean you don't short at the exact top, but even if it drops a bit and then you get involved after your level of confidence in the timing is better, there will still be plenty of downside to profit from.

2006 Dec 20 10:12 AM