Why Yeti Deserves a Red Flag
It may very well be a victim of its own success as competition hits from all angles.
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I’m old enough to remember when Yeti Holdings YETI 0.00%↑ was a favorite of short-sellers for quite awhile following its 2018 IPO.
The short thesis was pretty simple: Yeti’s products were so good and so easily copied in an already competitive market – for a product with little need of replacement – that it faced imminent market saturation.
But as this chart shows, Yeti investors had the last laugh, thanks to a steady flow of new products, product extensions, different color iterations and, of course, Covid.

Like so many other companies, especially those dealing with outdoor goods, Yeti was a direct benefactor of the sudden surge in outdoor recreational activities.
One writer at SeekingAlpha summed it up best when, in 2021, he wrote..
YETI… has emerged as one of the most exciting consumer brands over the past decade with a growing following of loyal customers through a reputation of quality.
And it was… until as the stock shows, it wasn’t.
That gets us to where we are today, and why even after having tumbled and bumbled – and despite being off everybody’s radar – Yeti remains risky. Or put another way: There are likely considerably better stocks to own.

Before I Explain Why…
Here are snippets of the pros and cons of Yeti, summarized (with my edits and modifications) by my friends at Tenzing Memo – an AI-driven, professionally-geared market intelligence tool that is proving to be an exceptional source for quickly getting up to speed on a company…
Pros: YETI has built a premium outdoor lifestyle brand with a devoted following, successfully expanding from its core cooler business into drinkware, bags, and cookware. The company's strategic shift to direct-to-consumer sales (now 60% of revenue) has driven higher margins, while international expansion is showing impressive 30%+ growth rates. With strong pricing power, a healthy balance sheet showing $280M in cash, and plans to have 50% of drinkware production outside China by 2025 to mitigate tariff risks, YETI is well-positioned to continue its growth trajectory. The recent acquisitions of Mystery Ranch and Butter Pat Industries open up new TAM opportunities worth over $10 billion in premium bags and cookware, while the stock trades at a reasonable 16x P/E multiple despite these growth prospects.
Hold on - there’s another side to this story…