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Proprietary Data Insights Top Vice Stock Searches This Month
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In May, The Juice did an installment on vices. We looked at two ETFs that own only vice stocks – companies dealing in drinking, gambling, smoking, chocolate, and other delectable (or not-so-delectable) habits. We also reviewed how inflation has impacted vices over time. Today, we update that story, starting with the ETFs. This is an exercise in Friday fun after a long but slightly encouraging week with the S&P 500 (SPY) and Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) both bouncing back from their September lows. Source: Google Finance Both the AdvisorShares Vice ETF (VICE) and the BAD ETF (BAD) are down 7.1% and 7.7% since we featured but did not recommend them. We fed VICE’s top 10 holdings into our proprietary Trackstar database to reveal the five tickers of the bunch investors search for most. No surprise British American Tobacco (BTI) and Hershey (HSY), a dividend contender with a 12-year streak of dividend increases, top the list. One deals in cigarettes. The other is best known for chocolate. Let’s see what inflation has done to these two popular vices over time. |
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Inflation |
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Friday Fun: How Inflation Has Impacted Our Vices |
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Key Takeaways:
Smoking. It’s bad for you. And continues to get more expensive. Last time we did this, we noted the cost of cigarettes increased 444% between 1997 and 2022. That was about five months ago. Today, cigarettes cost 450% more than they did in 1997. But while the inflation rate on cigarettes was 7.6% in 2021 and stands at 6.3% so far in 2022, the last two years have nothing on 1999, 2009, and 2000. Source: in2013dollars.com We observed a similar situation with imbibing beer, ale, and other malt beverages from the comfort of your home. Source: in2013dollars.com In mid-May, the annual inflation rate in this category was 2.67%. Since then, it’s spiked to 3.8%. But that’s nothing compared to what we saw in the 1970s and 1991 – rates above 10%. The closest we could get to chocolate in the government’s Consumer Price Index data is the sugar and sweets index. Source: in2013dollars.com So far in 2022, sugar and sweets’ annual inflation rate is a hair over 8%. That’s nothing compared to the massive 52.4% increase in 1974. We provided an explanation for the anomaly last time we conducted this fun, though depressing, exercise: A confluence of factors, including price fixing, fueled the increase. However, it appears to have come down to worldwide sugar demand and consumption outstripping production. The trend started in 1971. Within a couple years, sugar prices plummeted and there were calls for the government to bail out U.S. producers by restricting imports and implementing price supports. Indeed. In 1976, the sugar and sweets index plunged 11.4%.
The Bottom Line: Fun because we love to talk about our vices. Depressing because, yes, inflation’s high and everything feels like it costs more than it has in a while. Because everything does! But there’s actually something encouraging to pull from this. Things absolutely have been worse. Way worse. The 1970s and early 1980s were not great times in America. Inflation hit double digits in 1974 (11.04%), 1979 (11.35%), 1980 (13.5%), and 1981 (10.32%). While our current 8.3% inflation rate doesn’t feel good, especially coupled with all the other bad news, at least we’re not in double digits like we once were and like they are right now over in the EU. |
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