Ferrari Stock is as Pricey as Its Cars. Have Investors Lost Their Minds?

Miami Herald

2 days ago

Close your eyes and pretend that I can give you any car you want. If I could just give you any car in the world, right now, what would you ask for? Was the first car to pop into your head something from Maranello? A Ferrari, perhaps? It probably was for many of you. After all, it's one of the most important and well-known luxury brands in the world. Sadly, while most of us can't afford to own a Ferrari, there is a piece of Ferrari that all of us can buy. And that's ownership in Ferrari itself. That's right, we can buy the stock!
Ferrari has been a publicly traded company since late 2015. During that time, its shares have increased from a low of $29.27 to a recent high of more than $500. I'll admit to having watched the stock for years but have never pulled the trigger to buy it. I'd be driving a Ferrari if I had.
The thing is, at $460, Ferrari stock trades like a luxury good, with a price-to-earnings multiple of more than 45! For the past 12 months, the company earned $8.81 a share. That means that when you buy a share of Ferrari today, you're paying more than 45 times one year's earnings for that share. To say it another way, if the company were to buy the shares back from you, it would take them 45 years to earn enough money to do so. You could buy other car companies for much less. Mercedes trades at just 5.5 times its prior 12-month earnings. GM trades at 7 times and Ford at just 8.35 times.
Of course, those are relatively inexpensive compared with Tesla, whose shares trade for a whopping 174 times its trailing 12 months' earnings. Here's a table that I pulled from Schwab to showcase this difference:
Compared with the other car companies, investors definitely see something in Ferrari. They love the stock! The Question of the Week, then, is why would investors want to buy Ferrari shares when it has such a high price-to-earnings ratio? Are Ferrari shares a luxury good?
On June 15th, Ferrari won the most prestigious and challenging 24-hour endurance racing event: the 24 Hours of LeMans. That's a big deal for a couple of reasons. First, it's one of those great stories of triumph over adversity that we all love. Ferrari dominated sports car racing from its founding in 1947 through 1965. Led by Enzo Ferrari, the company won Le Mans six years in a row, from 1960 through 1965. Then Ford came on the scene. If you've seen Ford vs. Ferrari, you know that Ford won in 1966; in fact, Dearborn took home all the trophies through the 1960s. Then Porsche dominated.
Since Ford knocked Ferrari off its endurance racing pedestal in 1966, the Maranello, Italy, company didn't win at Le Mans again until two years ago. And then it won again last year. And this year. They're back! Adding to the drama, one of the drivers, Robert Kubica, had been tapped to drive a Ferrari in F1 competition back in 2012, but suffered a devastating crash that derailed his career at the top level of motorsports.
Kubica worked his way back, transitioning to endurance cars, which perform like F1 cars but are designed to race for up to 24 hours at a time. In 2024, Ferrari tapped Kubica to join its endurance racing team. His car failed to finish in that race but was victorious this past weekend. These two comeback stories not only showcase how hard it is to succeed in motorsports but also how sweet the victory is. So, is Ferrari's stock as sweet as Ferrari's motorsports victory at Le Mans this year?
Here's the thing about Ferrari. It's not just a car company. It's a lifestyle brand. Sure, the core of its business is selling cars, but its cars are not transportation. So, Ferrari should not trade like a regular car company. You could say the same about Tesla, which trades on car sales but also on the reputation of CEO Elon Musk and assumptions about the electric-vehicle company's growth in AI and robotics.
Surely, however, Ferrari should trade like a regular stock? The S&P 500 has a PE of approximately 28, which is relatively high historically. Even Alphabet has a PE below 20. And Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has a PE below 13! So why would Ferrari trade for such a high price relative to its earnings? Well, Ferrari has three qualities that separate it from the competition: a wide moat, strong margins, and leading growth.
When Morningstar analysts evaluate a company, they look to see whether the company has a competitive advantage over its peers. They call this a moat, and companies like Ferrari are said to have wide moats because they have strong brand recognition, high pricing power, and strong customer loyalty. Racing is a part of that moat, and when Ferrari wins, its customer loyalty increases. In fact, racing is literally part of Ferrari's marketing plan. As the old saying goes, win on Sunday, sell on Monday.
Ferrari, with its high pricing power and multiyear customer waiting lists, is able to charge premium prices for its products. The profit that the company makes on each car is higher than that of other car companies, including premium manufacturers like Porsche.
Ferrari has shown consistently stable earnings growth of around 18% annually over the past five years, according to data shown on my Schwab research portal. Analysts expect that to continue for the next five years, too. Even Tesla isn't expected to grow that quickly.
So here's the thing. Ferrari does deserve to trade with a much higher valuation than other car companies. Its wide moat means that other companies can't easily compete for Ferrari's customers, the company's customer loyalty means that Ferrari can charge a higher price for its cars and be more profitable, and those customers have money to spend and have enabled Ferrari to grow at a pace that's nearly as fast as its race cars.
You can see this in the price/earnings growth multiple (aka PEG) in the table above. Ferrari trades with a PEG multiple of a little over 4. This multiple takes the PE and divides it by growth. By comparison, Tesla has a PEG of more than 7. Ferrari is a much better value than Tesla. I like this multiple because it tells a better story than just the PE. It allows growth companies to have a higher PE because they deserve it - well, they deserve it if they can continue to grow.
Does this mean you should buy Ferrari shares? You'll have to do your own research. I said that the company deserves to trade at a higher valuation than other car companies, but it's still anything but cheap.
This article was reprinted from a series on our sister publication, TheStreet, called Filthy Rich Animal. Filthy Rich Animal is a weekly newsletter that provides jargon-free insights to help new investors become... well, filthy rich animals! It's free to subscribe, and we hope you like it. If you'd like content sent directly to your email inbox, subscribe here.
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