Monster Beverage Shares Are Sliding Wednesday: What's Going On?

Monster Beverage Corp MNST shares are trading lower by some 4.14% to $97.55 Wednesday morning after the company reported worse-than-expected fourth-quarter results and declared a 2-for-1 stock split.

What Happened: Monster Beverage reported quarterly earnings of 57 cents per share, which missed the analyst consensus estimate of 63 cents. The company also reported quarterly sales of $1.51 billion which missed the analyst consensus estimate of $1.60 billion by 5.6%. This sales figure is however a 6% percent increase over sales of $1.43 billion in the same period last year.

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Monster Beverage says operating expenses for the 2022 fourth quarter were $390.0 million, compared with $354.7 million in the 2021 fourth quarter.

The company says this increase in operating expenses was primarily due to increased warehousing and other logistical expenses, increased payroll expenses and increased general and administrative expenses.

As of December 31, Monster Beverage had $1.31 billion in cash and cash equivalents, $1.36 billion in short-term investments and $61.4 million in long-term investments.

Analyst Rating Updates: Following the earnings print, MNST received a number of analyst rating updates including:

• BMO Capital analyst Andrew Strelzik maintained with a Market Perform and raised the price target from $97 to $105.
• Citigroup analyst Filippo Falorni maintained with a Buy and lowered the price target from $121 to $118.
• Morgan Stanley analyst Dara Mohsenian maintained with an Overweight and lowered the price target from $117 to $115.

What Else: Vice Chairman and Co-CEO Hilton H. Schlosberg said: "We are pleased to report another quarter of continued revenue growth. The energy drink category continues to expand globally. The results from our overseas operations were again overshadowed by the strength of the United States dollar in the quarter."

"Gross profit margin percentages increased on a sequential quarterly basis as a result of our pricing actions, as well as certain of our supply chain challenges moderating," Schlosberg stated.

According to data from Benzinga Pro, MNST has a 52-week high of $105.45 and a 52-week low of $71.78.