WOW share price
Founded in 1924, Woolworths is a retail operator in Australia and New Zealand with over 3,000 stores and over 100,000 employees. It is currently the Australia’s largest company in terms of revenue and market share.
Woolworths’ main operations include supermarkets (under the Woolworths brand in Australia and Countdown in New Zealand), retailing through its discount department stores under the Big W brand, and business-to-business (B2B) brands like PFD. Overwhelmingly, it’s 35%+ share of Australian supermarkets is its crown jewel.
Woolworths is a very popular choice for many ASX investors seeking dividend income. It consistently pays a fully franked dividend, usually at a yield of over 3%, and offers a very defensive earnings stream. It’s competitive advantage is probably best summarised as scale (distribution, low costs, etc.) and proximity (most shoppers still shop based on distance to the supermarket).
Since we consider Woolworths Group Ltd to be a blue chip stock, or a mature business, we like to look at things like return on invested capital (ROIC) and revenue growth as signs of sustainability. In FY23, Woolworths Group Ltd had an ROIC of 13.20% and revenue has compounded at 6.6% in recent years. Anything over 10% ROIC is pretty good for a mature-style business, since its cost of capital is likely below that level, so Woolworths Group Ltd crosses this hurdle.
CSL share price
CSL is a global biotechnology company that develops and delivers innovative medicines that save lives, protect public health and help people with life-threatening medical conditions live full lives.
The company is divided into three main business units: CSL Behring, CSL Seqirus and CSL Vifor. Behring, acquired in 2004, manufactures and distributes blood plasma products. Seqirus was formed by a rebranding of BioCSL and the acquired Novartis flu business (bought in 2015) makes flu-related products and performs pandemic-related services for Governments. Finally, Vifor makes products for iron deficiency and nephrology (renal/kidney care).
As previously mentioned, CSL’s plasma collection unit creates life-saving treatments for those will serious illnesses globally. CSL relies on plasma and blood collections to perform its primary businesses; and acquisitions are increasingly part of the CSL business. Investors often use CSL as an indirect play on rising spending on healthcare.
Share price valuation
One way to have a ‘fast read’ of where the WOW share price is, is to study something like dividend yield thru time. Remember, the dividend yield is effectively the ‘cash flow’ to a share holder, but it can be influenced by yearly or bi-yearly fluctuations. Currently, Woolworths Group Ltd shares have a dividend yield of around 3.40%, which compares to its 5-year average of 2.66%. Put simply, WOW shares are trading below their historical average dividend yield.
Since it is a more mature-style business, the CSL share price is offering a historical dividend yield of around 1.31%, which compares to its 5-year average of 1.24%. The Rask websites, especially our Rask Education platform, offer free tutorials explaining Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) and Dividend Discount Models (DDM). Both of these models would be a better way to value the CSL share price.
