Stocking Stuffer: Starbucks Hit All-Time High (SBUX, GMCR, CBOU, PEET)

Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX) has given its shareholders the ultimate gift of all this holiday season.  This stock did not just hit a new 52-week high today.  Starbucks shares hit an all-time high of $45.15.

The deal with Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. (NASDAQ: GMCR) has so far supposedly been to the advantage of Starbucks.  If you have watched the shares fall from the meteoric rise in Green Mountain and compare this drop to the rise of Starbucks it would seem obvious as to who won out in the deal.

Even the threat from smaller players like Caribou Coffee Company, Inc. (NASDAQ: CBOU) and Peet’s Coffee & Tea, Inc. (NASDAQ: PEET) never did mount that full on assault that many thought might occur.

Starbucks has also pledged to grab even more retail shelf space, it has decided to grow its business internationally while only making opportunistic moves in America, and the company has started to reward shareholders with dividends.  Howard Schultz engineered a nearly perfect turnaround.

With shares having gone above the $45.00 mark today, this one is still north of our own internal comfort zone in share prices.  We are apparently too conservative by our prices though because Thomson Reuters has a consensus price target objective of $46.57.  With a consensus fiscal target of $1.83 EPS for the September-2012 year, Starbucks trades at almost 25-times its annual expected earnings.

Starbucks is up over 3% at $45.05 and the high for the day was $45.15.  The prior 52-week trading range is $30.75 to $45.00.

JON C. OGG