Thor Industries down 39% since January 2018:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/thor-shares-tumble-rv-maker-210832161.html

Go buy that next camper you dreamed of........Lots of inventory....

It would be a golden opportunity to be in the Storage rental business for sure!

There's been record rv sales for the last couple years so it stands to reason that at some point everyone that wants one has bought one thus ends record sales.
Thor being the biggest it'll show up 1st. If the rest of the rv manufacturers are also down 39% they'll be really hurting, may be the next ones owned by Thor.

So this topic actually got me thinking is this a bad sign for Thor, the RV industry or just a good time to buy their stock.

One thing became abundantly clear is on a historic basis Thor's stock price was at a record high and way out of proportion to years past. Have a look at this chart of Thor's stock price over the last 5 years.

So from a January high to where it is trading now, it basically reset to the January '17 level.

A couple of other quotes stood out to me from reviewing executive comments during their last earnings call mostly to explain why their revenue has declined over the last 3 quarters.

Chief Executive Bob Martin said: "As dealer orders, and our resulting production schedules, return to a more normalized pattern beginning in calendar 2019, we will continue to match production to our dealer needs, protect and seek to grow our space on dealer lots, ensure we provide high-quality, innovative products in all key price points with the features consumers are seeking and act aggressively to offset items pressuring our margins, whether from labor, tariffs, commodity increases or other sources.

Executive Chairman Peter Orthwein said: "Although we expect to have some near-term growth challenges, our industry's end-market demand trends continue to remain very favorable," said Peter B. Orthwein, Thor Executive Chairman. "Unlike many of the market expansions we have experienced over the past two decades, the current market strength has been driven largely by new consumers adopting the RV lifestyle with many consumers adopting the lifestyle at a much younger age than we have seen historically. We view such retail growth to be more sustainable over the long term."

They are also continuing their expansion through acquisition:

On Monday, Thor announced the acquisition of the largest European RV manufacturer, German Erwin Hymer Group, for $2 billion in cash and 2.3 million shares of Thor.

I wanted to also see what the other big player in the RV is saying. Really the only other RV manufacturer that is on the same scale as Thor would be Forest River.

Since Forest River is owned by Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffet's company) I went back and reviewed his letter to shareholders from 2018.

According to Berkshire:

Forest River is a leading manufacturer of RVs with brand names such as Berkshire, Cardinal, Cedar Creek, Cherokee, Coachman, Dynamax, Flagstaff, Forester, Georgetown, Palomino, Prime Time Manufacturing, Puma, Rockwood, Salem, Sandpiper, Sierra, Sunseeker, Surveyor, Viking RV and Wildwood.

Here's a really interesting point as to how much of the market Thor and Forest River own.

The industry has consolidated over the past several years with Forest River and its largest competitor possessing about 83% aggregate market share, with Forest River holding a 35% market share.

Note the use of the word "competitor" as being singular. That would mean Thor produces 48% of all new RVs.

It is also pretty clear that Forest River is doing well which echos what Peter Orthwein said.

Forest River’s revenues increased 13.7% in 2017 compared to 2016, reflecting a 13.5% comparative increase in units sold.
......
Forest River generated a pre-tax earnings increase of 28%, primarily due to increased sales volumes and higher gross margins.

Another angle to this story is how is another publicly traded RV manufacturer (Winnebago) stock is doing. It would appear that Thor YTD returns is -42% and Winnebago is also down -38%. Even with those large drops if you look more longer term both Thor and Winnebago are up 67% and +81% respectively. That does show some good longterm growth potential.

So with all that said I will again ask the question "is this a bad sign for Thor, the RV industry or just a good time to buy their stock?" With both Thor and Forest River continuing to signal the RV market is healthy could the large drop in Thor's stock price really be due to some large investors running up the price too high and it is now back to it's norm.

I wonder why the huge spike from July of 17 to Jan of 2018 ? Was that caused by an acquisition??

Either way, it's nothing to be concerned about as they are still above where they have been hoovering.... In my opinion . . .

That's all investor information!
As for us that already own one we've lost a hell of lot more than 39%. I was offered $28k trade in from a dealer.
Hopefully for new rv owners if sales drop a bit maybe the quality will go back up a bit.