The 5th "C" in diamond shopping with Blue Nile (NILE)

If you ever went diamond shopping, I am sure you are well aware of the four "C's"; Carat, Clarity, Color, and Cut.....When shopping for diamond stocks, I would like to introduce a 5th "C" ...Comparative.


If you are in the market for a diamond stock, this is one of the few times where the little blue box (TIF) might be a better buy than Blue Nile (NILE).

Just recently, I had an opportunity to listen to the 2nd Quarter earnings call from Blue Nile (NILE) . With all of the good news out of NILE and looking at the stock performance over the last year (Exhibit #1), I was intrigued to see how this stock stacked up against Tiffany (TIF), the name of all diamond names.

Exhibit #1. 1-year Stock Chart

Market Cap as of 8.10.2007

NILE - $1.35 Billion

TIF - $6.11 Billion

TIF/NILE Ratio of 4.5x

Annual Sales & Income from 2003 - 2006

Referencing Exhibit #2, you will see that NILE revenue is approximately 9.5% of TIF revenue in 2006, improving from 7.6% in 2003. On an Net Income perspective, 2006 for NILE was 5.2% of TIF's income. Please note that the 2003 Net Income for NILE included a significant tax net operating losses carry forward.

Exhibit #2 - Annual Sales & Income

Quarterly Sales Growth

This is where the NILE diamond really shines....NILE's quarterly revenue growth averages a 2.36 multiple over TIF's revenue growth in the last 14 quarters. Some of this is due to the smaller revenue size of NILE, but investors have welcomed the significant growth. Please note that Q2 2007 are the latest TIF analyst estimates.

I hope this article has helped investors put the recent stock appreciation of NILE in perspective.

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Disclosure: Author does not own any shares of TIF or NILE.