In short: Named only as a peer — with O'Reilly, the peer set next to which Advance Auto was plainly "the worst."
20:43If you know a thriving company in that sector, it only has a 3% yield, but this one has an 8% yield. Makes you wonder why the market's letting one have such a high yield and not the other one. — Yeah. — Just real quick on that, I stepped on a total landmine in 2023 with Advance Auto. — So, it's Advance Auto, O'Reilly, and Autozone, and I kept thinking, oh well, now they have a new management team, now this, now that. No.
In short: Down 31% over the past year and reporting tomorrow, likely echoing peers' downbeat message — which Jakab calls "a hopeful pattern": its best same-store-sales years (2009, 2011, 2020, 2021) came when car sales were lousy; it has bought back about three-quarters of its shares since FY2007 and beat the S&P 500 by 161% from the recession start through 2011. Not as cheap as 2008 (a modest premium to its 10-year price/forward-sales average), but time to start kicking the tires.
AutoZone is O'Reilly's closest rival and has done almost as well since the financial crisis. Its stock has fallen 31% in the past year, and it reports results tomorrow, probably with a gloomy message like its competitors'. Counterintuitively, its best years for store sales have come when new-car sales were bad — in 2009, 2011, 2020 and 2021 — because an older fleet needs more parts (cars 4–11 years old are the sweet spot).
AutoZone is an extreme buyer of its own stock, having retired about three-quarters of its shares since 2007; buying back shares when the price is low gives even more benefit. From the 2008 recession through 2011 it beat the S&P 500 by 161%. The economy is healthier now and the stock is not as cheap as it was then, so Jakab's advice is measured: not a bargain yet, but worth kicking the tires.
In short: His canonical "cannibal" from 100 Baggers: "even though the business didn't really grow that much over that period of time, the stock was phenomenal because they were just gobbling up so many shares year after year after year." The point is the power of capital allocation — and that a persistently low valuation is a gift to a buyback machine.
AutoZone sells car parts. It is Mayer's textbook "cannibal" — a company that spends most of its spare cash buying back its own shares, so the shrinking share count keeps handing each remaining owner a larger slice of the same business.
The reason it's a lesson rather than a stock tip: "even though the business didn't really grow that much over that period of time, the stock was phenomenal because they were just gobbling up so many shares year after year after year." A modest business plus relentless buybacks beat a lot of exciting growth stories — which is why he says the real subject is capital allocation: what management does with the cash the business earns.
There's a counter-intuitive corollary the hosts draw out: for a company like this, a persistently low share price is a gift, because every dollar of buyback retires more stock.
26:53— Oh, yeah. It's the whole analysis on cannibals, and they can be great. I remember even from 100 Baggers, it was AutoZone, one of those that just — even though the business didn't really grow that much over that period of time, the stock was phenomenal because they were just gobbling up so many shares year after year after year, and wound up being very good.
In short: Pro pick #1, held since 2020. Resilient consumer staple — a proxy for car age (~13 yrs) and stable miles driven, with flat-to-shrinking store supply, prolific buybacks and zero acquisitions ever. Down ~30% = multiple compression, "a very interesting point."
AutoZone sells car parts to do-it-yourself repairers. Teich has held it since 2020 because demand barely moves with the economy: it tracks how old cars are (the average US car is ~13 years old and off warranty) and how much people drive (very steady). The number of parts retailers is flat-to-shrinking while that demand grows — a good setup. The company is a buyback machine (it has repurchased its entire market value several times over since the 1990s) and has never made an acquisition. The stock is down ~30% mostly on a shrinking valuation rather than falling profits, which he sees as an attractive entry.
54:00So, AutoZone is a really interesting business. So, we've owned it since 2020. And I think when we looked
54:06at, again trying to find certain parts of the consumer market, consumer economy that we thought were resilient, when we
In short: Cited as the exemplar "cannibal": "look at the performance of AutoZone over the last 20 or 30 years… it has consistently been cannibalizing its outstanding stock and buying back stock over time," which "helped propel the shares" and drive market outperformance. An illustration of the serial-buyback compounding he's studying — not a buy call.
AutoZone sells car parts, but Polomny brings it up purely as a textbook "cannibal." A cannibal is a company that spends its cash steadily buying back and cancelling its own shares. Because the profits are then divided among fewer and fewer shares, each remaining share is worth more over time — even if the business itself only grows modestly. AutoZone has done this consistently for 20–30 years, which he says helped drive its stock's long outperformance. He uses it as the illustration of the serial-buyback strategy behind a new name he's adding to his newsletter — it's an example of the method, not a buy recommendation.
32:56And so I kind of like that whole methodology. You can look at, for example, if you want an example of how this could work, look at the performance of AutoZone over the last 20 or 30 years. That company has consistently been cannibalizing its outstanding stock and buying back stock over time and it has really contributed to help — it's a good business okay to begin with but notwithstanding that the constant buybacks have helped propel the shares over the years and contributed to market outperformance.
In short: Peer benchmark — cited (with O'Reilly) as the high-margin comparison: AZO/ORLY run 14–18%+ operating margins vs AAP's 2–4%, the gap AAP must close for the re-rating. Not a call on AZO itself.
In short: Named among December's worst performers, with an inverted reading rather than a rating: "A lower stock price is actually a good thing for Autozone. Why? It's a Cannibal Stock. This way, the company can buy back shares at more attractive valuation levels." No thesis or valuation offered.
AutoZone shows up only in the list of the month's worst performers, and Slegers uses it to make one point: for a company that spends most of its cash buying back its own shares — a "cannibal stock" — a falling share price is genuinely good news, because every dollar of buyback retires more shares. Continuing holders end up owning a larger slice of the same business. No valuation or recommendation is given.
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Verbatim excerpts from the public transcripts (auto-pulled at each mention's timestamp, lightly cleaned). Timestamps link into the video; "source page" opens that commentator's full analysis at this row. Click a mention's header line to expand it (one open at a time). For personal study — not investment advice.