Pawnshops: Not Just for Deadbeats Anymore

Few industries look forward to choppy economic waters. Pawnshops are one of them.
 

• Cash America (CSH) owns about 500 pawnshops in 22 states. The stock has a P/E ratio of 4.9 and pays a yield of 0.60%.
  
  
• EZCorp (EZPW) has over 290 pawnshops in the US, and over 90 shops in Mexico. The stock has a P/E ratio of 9.96.
  
  
• First Cash Financial Services (FCFS) operates over 275 pawn shops. The stock has a forward P/E ratio of 12.

“You can look at all the publicly traded [pawnshop] companies; their businesses obviously have benefited from this current economic cycle,” Liz Pierce, a senior research analyst at Roth Capital Partners, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Televisions, stereo systems, musical instruments, laptops - they all line the shelves. People are pawning their possessions for gas money. Utility bills. One woman pawned 20 pieces of jewelry to save her daughter’s home from foreclosure.

Hard-up construction workers means that the tools sections of some pawnshops are stuffed with cordless drills, grinders, power washers and drywall stilts.

"I assume every one of those represents a guy out of work," the owner of one Las Vegas pawnshop told the Los Angeles Times.

But the Gaston Gazette of North Carolina says “The pawnshop business boils down to 2 basic items in today's economy.” That means gold. And guns.

Understandable, no? Gold is trading at an all-time high, so people are getting better prices for their jewelry. And if things get really bad out there, you’ll need a gun to kill your dinner.

But who wants to go through all the trouble of cleaning buckshot out of their bird before cooking, then having to spend even more time seasoning the meat?

Ladies and gentlemen, Season Shot!



From the company website:

"Season Shot is made of tightly packed seasoning bound by a fully biodegradable food product. The seasoning is actually injected into the bird on impact seasoning the meat from the inside out.

"When the bird is cooked the seasoning pellets melt into the meat spreading the flavor to the entire bird. Forget worrying about shot breaking your teeth and start wondering about which flavor shot to use!"

Season Shot comes in the following flavors:
 

• Cajun
• Lemon Pepper
• Garlic
• Teriyaki
• Honey Mustard

Try doing that with a MacBook.