UL - Consumer Staples Investors Should Be Keeping a Close Eye on Clorox Right Now. Here's Why.
Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you know that inflation has been eating away at your buying power in a big way over the past year or so. A key part of the pain has come as companies jack up their prices to offset their own rising costs. Unilever (NYSE: UL) , one of the consumer staple industry's giants, recently provided some very painful details on that trend.
Meanwhile, another industry icon, Clorox (NYSE: CLX) , has resorted to price hikes multiple times over the past year. And now, that company is leading the industry on the price front with yet another increase. What happens next with pricing could be good news or bad news for the consumer staples sector -- and for investors in these stocks. Let's dive in.
Unilever recently provided an unusual amount of detail on the cost increases it has been facing. The consumer staples company's fourth-quarter earnings presentation highlighted that cost headwinds were pretty mild between 2018 and 2020, but then started to tick up in 2021. The year-over-year jump was huge, with costs going from around 100 million euros to about 1.3 billion euros by 2021.
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Consumer Staples Investors Should Be Keeping a Close Eye on Clorox Right Now. Here's Why.