Clorox stock: buy or sell?
Updated on:
September 20th, 2019
2
The Clorox Company manufactures and markets consumer and professional products worldwide. It operates through four segments: Cleaning, Household, Lifestyle, and International.
Should I buy Clorox stock?
Trading stocks requires experience and discipline, and your buying and selling decisions must come following a methodology. Trading strategies are meant for helping you in the decision process of what stocks to choose and when is the best moment to buy them. At Stocks2.com, we use very simple but trusted and powerful trend following trading strategies. Simple things usually work the best.Currently, Clorox stock doesn't match any of these trading strategies, so our recommendation is not to buy.
| Buy setup | Elegible |
|---|---|
| New all-time high | No |
| New 52 week high | No |
| Price crossing up 200d MA | No |
| 100d MA crossing up 200d MA | No |
Is Clorox stock a buy?
Everyday, hundreds of stock ratings are published by financial analysts to indicate a particular stock's attractiveness.
At Stocks2.com, we gathered 13 ratings published for CLX stock in the last 30 days. The general sentiment of these ratings is bearish for CLX stock, with 4 negative ratings.| Date | Analyst / Broker | Previous rating | Current rating |
| 2019-8-2 | UBS Group | n/a | Sell |
| 2019-8-2 | Royal Bank of Canada | n/a | Sector Perform |
| 2019-8-2 | Morgan Stanley | n/a | Underweight |
| 2019-7-12 | Wells Fargo & Co | n/a | Hold |
| 2019-5-23 | Citigroup | n/a | Hold |
| 2019-5-2 | Wells Fargo & Co | Market Perform | Market Perform |
| 2019-5-2 | Deutsche Bank | Sell | Hold |
| 2019-5-2 | Citigroup | Neutral | Neutral |
| 2019-5-2 | Bank of America | Neutral | Neutral |
| 2019-4-8 | JPMorgan Chase & Co. | Neutral | Underweight |
| 2019-3-6 | Credit Suisse Group | n/a | Underperform |
| 2019-2-6 | Barclays | n/a | Hold |
| 2019-2-5 | BMO Capital Markets | n/a | Outperform |
Clorox stock analysis
Daily outlook
Shares of Clorox declined an awful -1.58% and closed at $151.78.
Shares of Clorox declined an awful -1.58% and closed at $151.78. Since SMA100d and SMA200d crossed up on Aug/30, CLX price slid a -4.69%. CLX marked a lower low and a lower high in the short term, defining a downward trend. Climbing above $161.03 would break this short term down trend and open possibilities for reversing this situation. On July, CLX hit a new all time high, pushing higher than on July tops. Check different trading setups that use ATHs as triggers.
Weekly outlook
Clorox shares slipped -4.50% this week, ending at $151.78. Late July CLX plummed a spooky -5.33% in just one week.
Clorox stock is trading in the range of its last top and last bottom. Loosing would mean breaking the current uptrend. Breakdowns under last bottom are selling point signals for some trading strategies. Not so far away is the last price record Clorox marked late July. This week, Clorox stock lost the significant level of the 40-weeks moving average. Trading stocks that are under the 40-weeks (that is, 200-days) moving average mark is not recommended by many experts, as it indicates that the stock has not enough institutional support. Since late August when SMA20w and SMA40w crossed up, CLX price slipped $-4.15 per share (-2.66%).
Clorox stock price history
Clorox stock historical price chart
CLX stock reached all-time highs on July with a price of $166.32.
Clorox stock price target is $150.30
Nobody can reliably foresee how stock prices may evolve in the future. However, many stock price predictions are published every day by banks, financial institutions and independent analysts. We do not recommend to follow these stock price predictions without a critical thinking from your side, as their accuracy is usually low. For the last 30 days we found 12 price targets for CLX stock:| Date | Analyst / Broker | Action | Previous target | Current target | Diff |
| 2019-8-2 | UBS Group | Raises Target | $110.00 | $128.00 | 16.4% |
| 2019-8-2 | Royal Bank of Canada | Raises Target | n/a | $161.00 | - |
| 2019-8-2 | Morgan Stanley | Raises Target | $141.00 | $144.00 | 2.1% |
| 2019-7-12 | Wells Fargo & Co | Reiterates | n/a | $153.00 | - |
| 2019-5-23 | Citigroup | Set Price Target | n/a | $156.00 | - |
| 2019-5-2 | Wells Fargo & Co | Lowers Target | $157.00 | $153.00 | -2.5% |
| 2019-5-2 | Deutsche Bank | Upgrades | n/a | $139.00 | - |
| 2019-5-2 | Citigroup | Lowers Target | $171.00 | $160.00 | -6.4% |
| 2019-5-2 | Bank of America | Reiterates | $165.00 | $154.00 | -6.7% |
| 2019-4-8 | JPMorgan Chase & Co. | Downgrades | $159.00 | $139.00 | -12.6% |
| 2019-2-6 | Barclays | Reiterates | n/a | $142.00 | - |
| 2019-2-5 | BMO Capital Markets | Raises Target | $6.40 | $175.00 | 2634.4% |
| (in average) | $129.90 | $150.30 | 16.0% |
Financials and fundamental analysis
Earnings date and Earnings per Share
Since April, when Clorox posted its last earnings report, it . As soon as we get its actual EPS from the earnings report, we will update this report.| Quarter | Reporting date | Estimated EPS | Actual EPS | Surprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-Q2 | - | n/a | 1.53 | n/a |
| 2017-Q3 | 2017-11-01 | 1.42 | 1.46 | 2.8% |
| 2017-Q4 | 2018-02-02 | 1.23 | 1.77 | 43.9% |
| 2018-Q1 | 2018-05-02 | 1.3 | 1.37 | 5.4% |
| 2018-Q2 | 2018-08-02 | 1.58 | 1.66 | 5.1% |
| 2018-Q3 | 2018-10-31 | 1.59 | 1.62 | 1.9% |
| 2018-Q4 | 2019-02-04 | 1.32 | 1.4 | 6.1% |
| 2019-Q1 | 2019-04-30 | 1.46 | n/a | n/a |
| 2019-Q2 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| 2019-Q3 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
Annual financial results
In 2018, Clorox annual turnover stepped up a slightly good 2.53% to $6,124.00 M USD from $5,973.00 marked in 2017. Similarly, its income margin (compared to sales) grew to 13.44%, that is $823.00 million. Clorox presents anual results in June, and to evaluate its evolution since then, we estimate annual sales and income figures by adding results from the last 4 quarters. This is called TTM (or Twelve Trailing Months). So, Clorox TTM sales up to March 2019 were $6,278.00 and income $796.00 million dollars. When comparing this TTM figures with the last reported annuality, we can review Clorox business evolution since June 2018: Annual turnover up to March, compared to lastest yearly report, appreciated a slightly fine 2.51%. However, profit margin (net income/revenues) remained steady at 13.44%.| Year | Sales | YoY | Income/(margin) | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | $5,620 M | - | $574 M10.2% | - |
| 2014 | $5,510 M | -1.96% | $579 M10.5% | 0.87% |
| 2015 | $5,655 M | 2.63% | $580 M10.3% | 0.17% |
| 2016 | $5,761 M | 1.87% | $648 M11.2% | 11.72% |
| 2017 | $5,973 M | 3.68% | $701 M11.7% | 8.18% |
| 2018 | $6,124 M | 2.53% | $823 M13.4% | 17.40% |
| TTM | $6,278 M | 2.51% | $796 M12.7% | -3.28% |
Quarterly financial results
Clorox posted $1,551.00 million in revenues for 2019-Q1, a 5.30% improvement compared to previous quarter. Reported quarter income marked $187.00 million with a profit margin of 12.06%. Profit margin remained constant a -0.30% compared to previous quarter when profit margin was 12.36%. When comparing sales to same quarter last year, Clorox sales marked a tiny gain and gained a 2.24%.| Quarter | Sales1 | QoQ2 | Income1/(margin) | QoQ2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-Q2 | $1,650 M | - | $202 M12.2% | - |
| 2017-Q3 | $1,500 M | -9.09% | $192 M12.8% | -4.95% |
| 2017-Q4 | $1,416 M | -5.60% | $233 M16.5% | 21.35% |
| 2018-Q1 | $1,517 M | 7.13% | $181 M11.9% | -22.32% |
| 2018-Q2 | $1,691 M | 11.47% | $217 M12.8% | 19.89% |
| 2018-Q3 | $1,563 M | -7.57% | $210 M13.4% | -3.23% |
| 2018-Q4 | $1,473 M | -5.76% | $182 M12.4% | -13.33% |
| 2019-Q1 | $1,551 M | 5.30% | $187 M12.1% | 2.75% |
Clorox ownership
When you are planning to buy shares of a stock, it's always worth to review its ownership structure.Management staff in all public traded companies that hold equity is required to report every transaction to the SEC. For Clorox, 0.11% of all outstanding shares are owned by its staff.
In case of Clorox stock, 79.48% of its shares are held by institutions (mutual funds, pension funds, big banks and other large financial institutions). Bearish positions for CLX stock account 0.00%, no big difference from last month.
For a better context understanding, the next table shows ownership data compared to other related companies:
| CLX | CHD | OBCI | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Market cap | $19.1 B | $18.0 B | $31.9 M |
| Total shares | 125.7 M | 247.1 M | 9.4 M |
| Float shares | 125.3 M | 246.5 M | 3.5 M |
| - Institutional holdings (%) | 79.5% | 88.4% | 3.6% |
| - Insider holdings (%) | 0.1% | 0.2% | 61.9% |
| Shares in short selling | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
Clorox summary
| Friday, September 20th, 2019 | |
|---|---|
| Open | $154.61 |
| Close | $151.78 |
| Day range | $151.40 - $154.61 |
| Previous close | $154.21 |
| Session gain | -1.58% |
| Average true range | $3.31 |
| 50d mov avg | $159.12 |
| 100d mov avg | $155.12 |
| 200d mov avg | $154.30 |
| Daily pattern | lb06a |
| Weekly pattern | lt06a |
Clorox performance
Performance as an absolute value is never valid if it's not benchmarked against competitors or related stocks in the industry. We compared Clorox against Church & Dwight and Ocean Bio-Chem in the following table:| Stock | 3m | 6m | 12m |
|---|---|---|---|
| CLXClorox | -1.40% | -2.79% | 2.10% |
| CHDChurch & Dwight | -3.86% | 9.15% | 22.83% |
| OBCIOcean Bio-Chem | 1.49% | -8.36% | -19.62% |
Clorox competitors
Creating a list of competitors for Clorox it's difficult. We selected 2 public companies that are related to and can be considered as competitors of Clorox:Latest Clorox stock news
- InvestorPlace3 Big Stock Charts for Monday: Davita, Clorox and Expedia GroupMay 20, 2019
- InvestorPlaceThe Clorox Company Earnings: Why CLX Stock Is Sliding Lower TodayMay 1, 2019
- Seeking AlphaDividend Pros: The Clorox CompanyFebruary 25, 2019
- Seeking AlphaClorox As A Defensive Stock Looks Solid And Accordingly PricedJanuary 17, 2019
- InvestorPlaceDon’t Buy the Headlines or Clorox Stock at All Right NowNovember 30, 2018