Is It Finally Safe to Buy Chipotle?

Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. (NYSE: CMG) has been battered and bruised. Its E. coli and food-borne illnesses reached a major level as far as how bad it hurt Chipotle’s store traffic and sales, and its shareholders have paid a huge price. Still, this remains a top pick among millennials, and many investors have been wondering when Chipotle shares would be discounted enough to finally buy the stock.

It turns out that the time buy shares may have arrived. The firm did not call an extreme bottom and it did not leave out the possibility that things could come up again, but CLSA raised Chipotle’s stock to a Buy rating from an Outperform rating.

After closing at $428.28 the prior day, CLSA’s price target of $435.00 left more than $100 in upside. Even after a 7% rally of almost $30 per share to $457.00, that still implied more than $80 in upside. Chipotle’s consensus price target is now down closer to $505.00 and its 52-week high from 2015 was $758.61 if you go back before the outbreaks came up.

What might stand out here is that CLSA tried to jump in on Chipotle back in December when the stock was higher and before the flow of bad news had taken hold. It was also before the big sell-off and investigation news. CLSA’s original target was up at $645.00, so it is not exactly as bullish as it was back then. The December rationale said:

We think the recent share price move offers an opportunity to build a position in a high-growth restaurant company at a discounted price.

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CLSA is looking for clarity ahead. This is not a notion that clarity has come full circle yet, but that there have not been any new reports of outbreaks. The firm is also looking for some coming clarity on margins, as well as what happens at the comparable store sales.

One point that CLSA did make was that it expects for Chipotle to gradually recover through 2016. That can come with some bumps, but the analyst there believes that Chipotle can move back to where its directional moves were heading pre-outbreak in 2017.

An additional driving force was a management presentation at an ICR Conference where management was free to speak about its efforts and steps being taken since its wave of illnesses arose. This impressed some of the audience as the casual dining chain revealed a major public relations and marketing campaign that is set to kick off in the coming month.

Even Jim Cramer loosely talked up Chipotle, noting that the company has not lost credibility. His view is that Chipotle will be fine in the long run.