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Lululemon worked up a sweat Thursday, rallying more than 5% after topping quarterly estimates and upping its outlook.
But, another athleisure stock is besting Lululemon and the rest of the competition: Under Armour. The workout gear stock has surged 49% this year, tracking for its best annual performance in five years.
It’s about to sprint even higher, said Craig Johnson, chief market technician at Piper Jaffray.
“This stock has been making a base for more than a year and it has finally just broken out of this base,” Johnson said Wednesday on CNBC’s “Trading Nation. “
“We can kind of measure the height of this base and make a suggested move based upon the chart that would potentially put us back into the mid-$30s so it still seems like a very good risk-reward in here,” he said.
A rally back to the mid-$30s marks 33% upside and would take the stock back to levels not seen since October 2016.
“There still is room for this stock to continue to move higher here and we would be buying this breakout,” Johnson said.
Under Armour is also a buy based on a broader bullish case for the entire industry, said Michael Bapis, managing director of FX strategy at BK Asset Management.
“Athleisure has completely revolutionized all of fashion,” Bapis said during the same “Trading Nation” segment. “This is a growth story. This is going to grow probably 5% over the next few years. It’s a matter of who can capture that growth because there are so many different lines of business within it. It’s footwear, it’s leisure wear, it’s athletic wear, and the list goes on and on.”
On Under Armour, specifically, even though it has had a massive run this year, Bapis said it’s still worth the high price.
“It’s trading at a super-high valuation but you have to consider, it’s a growth space and in growth spaces in high-growth times, valuations really kind of go out the window,” Bapis said. “We’re long this space, we’re long those companies and I think we’re going to continue to grow there.”
Under Armour trades at 63 times forward earnings, an expensive valuation compared with the broader XLY consumer discretionary ETF which trades with a 20 times multiple.
Disclosure: Vios Advisors owns Under Armour.
