>I haven't dug deeply into their financials or anything.
should be mutually exclusive, don't you think? If you haven't looked at their financials or anything, how do you know whether it is a good investment or not? You can't just look at 'macro-trends' and determine if individual companies are a buy or not.
e.g. since 1970s, cigarette industry has been in a steady volume decline. Guess which stock has been (by far) the best performing stock during since that period? Yep, Philip Morris (which recently split into Altria and Philip Morris)
I'm not an expert, but by all accounts the financials for them are somewhat grim: http://www.forbes.com/sites/benkepes/2014/03/24/boxs-ipo-rev... They're spending more in sales than they're making back in revenue (nevermind profit). Building a company around spending $2 to make $1 isn't good for the long term (ask Groupon how that worked out for them).
> since 1970s, cigarette industry has been in a steady volume decline
In the US - not globally. The tobacco market is growing and sales are increasing on a worldwide basis. As developed countries stop smoking, developing countries start - and developing countries often have far larger populations.
>I haven't dug deeply into their financials or anything.
should be mutually exclusive, don't you think? If you haven't looked at their financials or anything, how do you know whether it is a good investment or not? You can't just look at 'macro-trends' and determine if individual companies are a buy or not.
e.g. since 1970s, cigarette industry has been in a steady volume decline. Guess which stock has been (by far) the best performing stock during since that period? Yep, Philip Morris (which recently split into Altria and Philip Morris)