Monster’s Valuation Hinges On A Better U.S. Job Market

Monster (NYSE:MWW) stock price declined by 15% to $5 over the past month after the company released disappointing earnings for FY 2012. Revenues from continuing operations dropped 10% y-o-y to $890 million. The decline reflects continued weakness in European and Asian job markets. The company also announced progress in implementation of its corporate restructuring plans. It completed the sale of ChinaHR business and included Latin America and Turkey in discontinued operations. The ChinaHR business was sold to Saongroup for an undisclosed amount, even as it retained a 10% share in the combined China entity.

As a result of the company exiting several international markets, Career Services North America is now the major contributor to our $7 price estimate for the company. We expect the reduced uncertainty around the debt ceiling and budget negotiations will produce a lower risk environment as the year progresses and result in an improvement in the overall employment scenario. We believe this would result in an increase in bookings and help the North America business turnaround the decline in sales. 

See our complete analysis for Monster

Flat Job Market Of 2012 To Grow In 2013

The U.S. added 153,000 jobs on average per month or 1.8 million jobs in 2012. This figure is similar to the one for 2011. With the Federal Reserve looking to keep interest rates ultra-low till unemployment rate falls to about 6.5%, we expect the growth to pick pace in 2013. ^[1] For the unemployment rate to drop to 6.5% from the current levels of 7.8% immediately, it would require approximately 2 million jobs, or roughly what has been created annually for the past two years. ^[2] But the difference becomes more imposing if population growth is factored in. CNN Money estimates that 3.2 million jobs need to be added in 2013 for the U.S. unemployment rate to be at ~6.5% in January 2014. Hence, we expect the growth to be spread over the next couple of years.

The mitigation of policy uncertainties could translate into a spurt in hiring activities in 2013 as the companies that had held back on hiring last year start recruiting. The first signs of an improvement were witnessed in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’s January Employment Situation Summary. The bureau reported an increase by 157,000 in total non-farm payroll employment. Though the number isn’t large and as a result did not impact the unemployment rate, the distribution of the growth in various sectors looks promising. Particularly interesting was the growth witnessed in retail trade and wholesale trade sectors even after the end of holiday season. We will look for any interesting trends in the release of February’s Employment Situation Summary on 8th of this month.

An improvement in employment scenario presents upside for both Monster and its competitors. We expect that Monster’s semantic search and cloud based services will differentiate it from social media alternatives such as LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD) and Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) and help it capture a larger share of the job listings resulting from the improving employment scenario.

An improving U.S. economy supports our $7.20 estimate for Monster, which is 45% above the current market price.

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1. Fed To Keep Rates Near Zero Until Unemployment Drops Below 6.5 Percent, The Huffington Post, December 2012 [↩]
2. How to get to 6.5% unemployment, CNN Money, January 2012 [↩]