Article Excerpt:
TWST: Please give us an overview of your coverage.Mr. Hovorka: We follow the leisure industry, which includes everything from cruise lines, motor sports companies, the NASCAR track companies, product companies such as Harley-Davidson (HDI) and Polaris (PII), ATVs, motorcycle manufacturers, boat companies. We also follow on a couple licensing companies, namely Marvel (MVL) and 4Kids Entertainment (KDE).
TWST: Taking kind of a top-down look, how has business been in general
for these guys?
Mr. Hovorka: Each industry segment has its own supply/demand
relationships and we don't always see a common thread among them. That
being said, we have seen a trend in which higher-end products are
stronger than the lower-end. It has been most prominent in the boat
industry, but we have also seen it elsewhere, such as cruise lines. If
you look at boats, for instance, small boats, let's say 18 to 22 feet,
for the most part are generally weak. When you get to the larger boats,
business is stronger and, quite frankly, the larger you get, the
stronger the business is. Among the very large boats, in some cases,
there are wait lists. So that's the difference that we are seeing.
Looking across products, ATVs have been a little bit weaker than
motorcycles, particularly large cruisers. If you look at the
demographics of the person who is buying a Harley-Davidson or Honda Gold
Wing versus the customer who is buying an ATV, they are a bit more
affluent than the ATV customer, and that may be impacted by factors such
as higher gas prices to a lesser degree. That's the kind of divergence
that we are seeing.
Tickers included in this excerpt: ACAT, CCL, HDI, ISCA, KDE, MVL, PII, RCL, STNR
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