Copart, Inc. Stock News

Key Points in This Article: Warren Buffett prioritizes stocks with wide moats, ensuring durable competitive advantages and long-term profitability.

Copart's dominant duopoly, land ownership, and early online adoption create a durable moat and outstanding ROE, justifying its premium valuation. Valuation is reasonable relative to capital-light duopolies; Copart trades near historic low multiple, with massive cash reserves and no debt. International expansion is highly profitable, self-funding, and leverages Copart's global network, offering ...

Title Express is reducing inventory levels and in-yard times, which will improve Copart's margins and returns on capital. The increasing cash balance generates a 4.4% yield, and I expect buybacks to accelerate if the stock falls below $40 per share. Copart's stock is trading below its fair value of $55 per share, and I forecast an 11.3% CAGR over the next decade.

The word "monopoly" has a negative reputation in the investment and economic communities, as it is often linked to abusive pricing and unfair advantages that many other businesses and investors might not face. However, monopolies (or near-monopolies for that matter) can also mean outsized returns for investors who can spot them.

Top performance contributors for the first quarter include Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Booking Holdings and Alphabet. Top performance detractors for the fourth quarter include UnitedHealth, Copart, Apple, Tractor Supply Company and O'Reilly Automotive. Meta Platforms was once again a leading contributor to performance for the quarter – and our best portfolio p...

Copart is operating in a practical duopoly in the US and is engaged in international expansion. The business has a protective moat in the form of owned and permitted land for yards and a deep membership of buyers on its auction website. The stock has dropped from an ATH of around $63 earlier this year to $47 today, compressing multiples back to levels where buybacks have been executed in the past.

Copart's fundamentals remain outstanding, with high profitability, debt-free status, and superior growth prospects despite a recent 17% stock price drop. The market's negative reaction is overblown, driven by accounting changes in international revenue and temporary headwinds, not by core business deterioration. Transition to a higher-margin, scalable service model and rising total loss frequen...

And just like that, the S&P 500 index is nearing all-time highs again.