WGO earnings coming - short sellers?

[Kevin D Pem]

If they were smart, they would take this time to fix all of the bugs, before people buy them.

A friend of mine had considered buying one, but when he heard my experience with two, which - btw, was quite good , compared to some - and all of the maintenance required, he decided it wasn’t for him.

Your assessment may have worked a few years back! Now with signs that the economy is soft. The dilemma is more, how will they even survive at all with the really bad reputation they built for themselves! Time will tell, but in my opinion we are at the top just starting at the Rollercoasters peak!

 

[Texas Clodhopper]

With the state of the economy and the general downturn in rving, I wonder if any RV parks will adjust their rates. We will leave the Texas heat in early July and travel for at least 3 months. We have decided we will not make any reservations this year. Between Harvest Hosts and BLM sites, we feel confident we will always find a place to stay.

I've noticed I'm getting emails from several places we visited last year offering significant discounts on extended stays. I would be curious what others are seeing the summer of 24 looks like.

 

[Neal]

I'm hoping to see a "correction" with campground pricing as well but don't think we'll see it until next year. I think right now everyone is piggy backing on raising prices as if it's acceptable for everyone to do simply because others are doing it. Until they realize business is suffering, then we will see some incentives I hope. It has gotten a bit out of control, it's hard to swallow the fact RVing is like paying for a hotel every night of your journey (pricewise) or what seems like it. My goal as well will be minimal planning, roaming, and minimizing costs along the journey.

 

[Texas Clodhopper]

I like that..."correction".

 

[RTRanger]

When a stock that you believe in goes down, that is a buying opportunity. But when a stock goes down that you don’t have faith in, you need to think about bailing.

Awhile ago Thor was buying every RV company they could, I would think they have a good bit of debt that is now costing more than they planned.

I also think the Covid RV bubble is deflating rapidly. So many people rushed out and paid too much for an RV and have used them very little. I would bet used RV prices have a long way to drop in the coming years which hurts the price of a new RV.

I think we also see RV park usage is dropping too. The prices that some of these parks are asking is way, way too high for me to even consider. Face it, a lot of us RV’ers are cheap at heart and are interested in bargains.

There is a percentage of people who have, and will continue to RV. But there is currently a lot of people who bought in, and it doesn’t fit into their lifestyle. So in returning to “normal” the RV industry is going to feel some pain.

I don’t own any stock in any portion of the RV industry. I am one of those “ of little faith”.

 

[MemoriesByTheMile]

A few years ago we we making plans a year in advance in order to find places.
Now it appears we can find availability almost anywhere at the last moment.
Also finding some campgrounds in rural places, for overnight stays, that are $25 to $30 per night.
It seems to me that some campground prices are just beginning to come down.

 

[newmarokie]

BIL just bought a 2018 31' Solstice fiver. It went on the market in September for 34k. He bought for 22k.

 

[Neal]

https://rvbusiness.com/winnebago-industries-q2-results-in-line-with-expectations/

 

[Texas Clodhopper]

The bold print in this paragraph tells a lot about the product quality they are putting out.

"Gross profit was $105.3 million, a decrease of 28.3% compared to $146.8 million for the fiscal 2023 period. Gross profit margin decreased 190 basis points in the quarter to 15.0% as a result of deleverage and higher warranty experience compared to prior year."

 

[Neal]

The bold print in this paragraph tells a lot about the product quality they are putting out.

"Gross profit was $105.3 million, a decrease of 28.3% compared to $146.8 million for the fiscal 2023 period. Gross profit margin decreased 190 basis points in the quarter to 15.0% as a result of deleverage and higher warranty experience compared to prior year."

Well, the first step in getting things turned around is identifying them. I'm glad they are aware and disclosing the quality is costing them the most. Maybe it's a good thing they're public so we can all see that what we know they know. Maybe Casey can turn this around, time will tell.

My challenge to Casey: If you believe in your product, offer a two year warranty instead of the one year warranty and let's measure the quality of your production and 3rd party vendor choices.

Prices are insane, a two year warranty would help swallow, partially, some of these current prices. It could end up costing Newmar nothing if built right, or if they can't get quality under control it could be costly. By challenging yourself against these costs in a two year warranty offering you will be forced to improve. You are betting against yourself. If you win, we win.