Papa John's stock slips after missing estimates

Shares of Papa John's are down after missing estimates in the latest quarter, with the pizza company citing a 'challenging' operating environment. Yahoo Finance Live's Julie Hyman and Myles Udland break down the news and what it means for the state of the consumer.

Video Transcript

- It's tough times for pizza. Papa John's international missing estimates in the latest quarter. The company said it saw lower than anticipated comparable sales in the quarter, cited a challenging operating environment. The shares right now are down by 5% and North American comps down by 1.4%. So international comps down by 7/10 in 1%. So people not ordering as much Papa John's, apparently.

- Another pandemic trade that has-- I mean, the heat has come off the pizza trade for some time. And I think that, looking at their peer, Domino's, that's had a double interesting story-- double interesting walk back, let's say, go back in time five, seven, 10 years, like one of people's favorite trivia things was, what's the best performing stock over the last X number of years, and over a lot of time frames it was Domino's.

I mean, they had like double digit comps. Double digit comp increases for-- I don't know, 20 odd quarters in a row. It was a long time that they were crushing and had this-- they were the original tech play in the food space. And I think you have the consumer concerns here, certainly. There's a pizza specific problem that some of these companies are dealing with.

And there's likely going to be, from some corners of this trade, a read through on what it means for the consumer, and it probably says a little bit more about consumer preferences than it really does about the consumer health overall, but I think that point can maybe be debated.

- Well, and of course, I just wanted to talk about Papa John's as an excuse for us to talk about our New Jersey pizza preferences. For people who haven't watched the show in a while, Myles and I live in neighboring towns.

- [INAUDIBLE] part of the show.

- No, it's very useful information for people. And there is a pizzeria, a local-- Jersey pizza is very good. I do not Order Papa John's, or Domino's, or whatever else, full disclosure.

- I actually do not.

- Yeah, I don't either.

- Which might be a mild surprise to you.

- Mhm, not really. We order Trattoria, which is our local pizzeria.

- [? Village Trattoria ?] in Maplewood. That's right.

- [INAUDIBLE].

- I usually do the Summit location because it's a little bit easier to get. Is there one in South [INAUDIBLE]?

- [INAUDIBLE].

- Where is it?

- It's right on the main drag. It's always packed with people, especially on a Saturday night.

- So there's a trot in Maplewood and South Orange.

- Correct. And there's enough for both of them to do business.

- I know. We do in Star Tavern. Have you been to Star Tavern?

- I have gotten from Star Tavern.

- Right. Yeah.

- It's delicious pizza.

- Yeah, it's good. It's a very specific experience.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

- Yeah, exactly. You only get that kind of bar pizza in a specific part of the world, I guess, even though it's only New Jersey.

- I think they're telling us to move on.

- Well, we still haven't gotten the bunnies together.

- Oh, OK.

- I know it's slightly problematic, I guess, allegedly. But you know, we'll get some Seton Hall kids and we'll do a big hang.