Seeking Alpha: Persistent Sluggishness In The U.S. A Growing Problem For First Cash Financial

It's getting harder and harder to give First Cash Financial (NASDAQ:FCFS) the benefit of the doubt. While the currency issues that are pressuring the reported revenue from the company's large Mexican operations are arguably forgivable, the persistent sluggishness in the U.S. operations is harder to excuse. What's worse, I don't think investors are, or should be, all that happy that the company has committed sizable amounts of capital towards consolidating the slow-growing U.S. pawn market and held off on expanding into faster-growing regions like Colombia and Peru.

Cutting expectations for a stock you've recommended is never fun, and it's even less so when you own the shares yourself. The reality, though, is that First Cash has been a rotten stock over the last year, with the shares down about 30%. While there is still an opportunity for First Cash to generate high single-digit to low double-digit growth in Mexico for years to come and generate better margins from the U.S. operations, this is very much a "show me" story today.

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Persistent Sluggishness In The U.S. A Growing Problem For First Cash Financial