I'd like to put my "train of thought" out there on WD-40 (WDFC) to show the conclusion I came to for myself.
My first instinct is that it's cool WD-40 is on the exchange, it is a gearhead stock. So emotionally I'm attached to it already, which is not always a good thing when objectively looking at investments. So to detach myself, I pretend that it's something more boring, like air freshener. That helps me remove the rose-colored glasses
Share Price
**5-year chart, it looks pretty darn impressive since '09, return of 278%.
**10-year, it looks pretty flat since '03 but is a spitting image of KO, which is one of my "standard" comparison stocks. So that's a good sign.
**20-year, it looks pretty good and solid, until you compare it head-to-head with our large cap "steady eddies". You can see that the share price is only up ~300% over 20 years...which honestly is unimpressive.
Dividends
Current dividend is 2%. However, the dividend payouts fluctuate throughout the years and used to be up over 4%. So it doesn't quite have the impressiveness of a company that has been increasing is dividend forever.
Company
Given the recent 5 year price surge, what has the company been doing in the last 5 years that it wasn't doing in the other 30+ years?
This article seems to provide a pretty good summary of what the air freshener company is doing now. They have several subsidiary brands that are expanding into more household-consumer products, and are focusing more internationally. What I like about this is that the WD-40 brand name resonates VERY well in the male demographic. Given that men do more of the household shopping and cleaning these days, I can see that guys would like to load up on more "masculine" products for the household and under-the-sink.
Conclusion
It looks like the company has recently been going in a new direction. The new direction seems to have some love on wall street. Perhaps the 5 year gains are only the beginning for this small-cap stock to become a huge global brand. I don't know that, but there are signs that WD-40 is leveraging its existing strengths and using them to grow.
I think I will dig a little deeper on WD-40. I want to know more specifics about what has changed in the last 5 years. New management? How much brand recognition they have globally?
I'll give myself a week more to learn, then pull the trigger (or not).
I'm all ears on what others see!