Company name Jack in the Box Inc.
Stock ticker JACK
Live stock price [stckqut]JACK[/stckqut]
P/E compared to competitors Good

MANAGEMENT EXECUTION

Employee productivity Poor
Sales growth Poor
EPS growth Poor
P/E growth Good
EBIT growth Poor

ANALYSIS

Confident Investor Rating Poor
Target stock price (TWCA growth scenario) $25.63
Target stock price (averages with growth) $33.53
Target stock price (averages with no growth) $28.84
Target stock price (manual assumptions) $32.1

The following company description is from Google Finance: http://www.google.com/finance?q=jack

Jack in the Box Inc. operates and franchises more than 2,800 Jack in the Box quick-service restaurants (QSR) and Qdoba Mexican Grill fast-casual restaurants. Jack in the Box is a hamburger chain. As of September 30, 2012, the Jack in the Box system included 2,250 restaurants in 21 states, of which 547 were company-operated and 1,703 were franchise-operated. The Company’s Qdoba Restaurant Corporation is an operator and franchisor of Qdoba Mexican Grill. As of September 30, 2012, the Qdoba system included 627 restaurants in 42 states, as well as the District of Columbia, of which 316 were company-operated and 311 were franchise-operated. During the fiscal year ended September 30, 2012 (fiscal 2012), it re-franchised 97 Jack in the Box restaurants, while Jack in the Box franchisees opened a total of 18 restaurants. During fiscal 2012, it acquired 46 Qdoba franchised restaurants and Qdoba franchisees opened a total of 32 restaurants.

 

Confident Investor comments: At this price and at this time, I do not think that a Confident Investor can confidently invest in this stock.

If you would like to understand how to evaluate companies like I do on this site, please read my book, The Confident Investor.

Obviously, I do not want you to destroy your retirement! However, it is good to think about what you can do incorrectly that will hurt your financial future. By studying the mistakes, you can hopefully avoid them.

Yahoo Finance had a great article on the subject. You should jump over and read the entire article but here are the five ways that were identified.

  1. Too much debt.
  2. Spend your retirement savings on college.
  3. No emergency plan.
  4. No long-term investment strategy.
  5. No retirement plan.

All of these are bad choices. If I had to pick a 6th one it would be to trust that the US government was going to provide for you. This is not a political site and I do not want to get into political arguments. I do encourage you to be pragmatic if you are under the age of 55 and definitely under the age of 40. Assume that Social Security as it exists at this writing will likely change before you need it.