While the blue-chip chipmaker and the world’s most influential semiconductor giant, Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA), has been on the mind of most investors since late 2022 thanks to its crucial role in the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, it is not the best-performing major stock of the last 12 months.
In fact, though many of the current best-performers of the year have been involved with the driving of the AI renaissance – such as, for example, Super Micro Computer (NASDAQ: SMCI), which awed traders with its 2024 rise from less than $300 to approximately $900 – one of the biggest growers of recent months comes from an entirely different sector.
ANF’s staggering comeback
Abercrombie & Fitch (NYSE: ANF) started its century-long journey in New York late in the 1800s. It has since seen many trials and tribulations, including bankruptcy and a pivot from servicing wealthy businessmen and the nobility on their Arctic expeditions to teenagers.
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The contemporary clothing company found itself under pressure and with a need to reinvent itself yet again in the 2010s when the competition from other – some might say, more customer-friendly – fast fashion brands began to strangle it.
ANF, as it turned out, rose to the challenge. Not only did it change some of its in-store practices, alter the design of the clothes, and start catering to an older audience, but the firm also heavily invested in its e-commerce platform.
The result of the changes has been a dominance of the e-commerce side of the business, a reinvigoration of the physical locations themselves, and a string of earnings reports that saw Abercrombie & Fitch handily beat expectations, sometimes logging an earnings-per-share (EPS) more than 500% greater than was forecast.
Nonetheless, perhaps the most impressive part of Abercrombie & Fitch’s turnaround has been its stock market performance.
ANF stock price chart
Though ANF shares plunged in mid-2022, they started recovering – as a result of the multi-year effort to transform the business – late in the year and are as much as 826.98% in the green since.
The exceptionally strong performance continued throughout the last 12 months as the firm recorded a 380.99% rally within the 52 weeks, prompting many to wonder what was going on by February 2024.
Though this year, the year has been slower, Abercrombie & Fitch managed a 65.09% climb since January 2, and ANF price today stands at $151.
Finally, analysts have also been generally bullish on Abercrombie & Fitch, with the two recent major revisions – coming from UBS Group (NYSE: UBS) and Telsey Advisory Group – both being upward changes. Nonetheless, it is noteworthy that the forecasts remain cautious, as exemplified by the fact that UBS’ recent price target change still places 12-month estimates for ANF at $155 – only slightly above their press time price.
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