The performance of publicly held electrical manufacturers, distributors and contractors through mid-June is a bit of a mixed-bag, but considering how turbulent the stock market has been year-to-date (YTD), the overall results aren’t awful.
More than 20 companies are beating the historical market averages by a wide margin. Of the 47 stocks EM tracks, 21 companies beat both the S&P 500 Average (up +15.2% YTD) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+11.9% YTD) since the beginning of the year, and 24 companies lagged both these indices.
Eight stocks double up the indices – Orion Energy Systems (+314.9%); Mersen (+43.8%); Emcor (+41.1%); Belden (+39.3%); Signify (+33.9%); GE (+32%): Legrand (+31.4%); and Schneider Electric (+31.4%). The market-beating stocks represent a broad of range product types and small and large manufacturers, distributors and contractors (see chart on page 2). Eleven of the 47 stocks have lost value since 2019’s first day of trading on Jan. 2, and six stocks are suffering double-digit declines so far this year: Revolution Lighting Technologies (-48.6%); Osram (-30.3%); EnerSys (-18.9%); Zumtobel (-18%); 3M (-11.2%); and Energy Focus (-11.1%).
As all veteran stock pickers know, Wall Street is quite fickle, and stellar stocks sometimes struggle to maintain a surge in share prices. Several top-performing electrical stocks over the past five years are now off their impressive highs including Acuity Brands (up +15.5% this year but down -51.7% from its Aug. 2016 high of $275.16); W.W. Grainger (down -23.7% from its Sept. 2018 mark of $347.41); WESCO (off -57.4% from a stock price of $83.99 in Aug. 2014); and Littelfuse (off -26.2% from its June 2018 high of $228.18).
