Hershey’s (NYSE:HSY) is struggling with organic sales which is consistent with the snack food industry; however, Hershey’s has the capital to make acquisitions to continue fueling earnings growth. Additionally, the core legacy product line isn’t going anywhere and is continuing to deliver cash to fuel these investments, to grow the company’s product line and pay dividends to shareholders. I don’t expect to see any change in the stock price in the short-term while cost reduction and acquisitions pay off, but investors can enjoy dividends in the meantime.

Hershey’s recently reported fourth-quarter 2018 results of $1.99 billion, non-GAAP EPS of $1.26 and GAAP EPS of $1.60. This was largely inline quarter for the company as revenue and non-GAAP EPS fell short of analysts’ estimates by $10M and $0.1M, respectively, while GAAP EPS managed to beat estimates by $0.32. Revenue increased 2.5% in the quarter which was slightly lower than the 3.7% growth for the full year. A key driver in the company’s revenue growth was the impact of acquisitions and divestitures as it represented a 3% and 3.6% benefit to the fourth quarter and full year 2018 results, respectively. In evaluating the company’s results, there are 3 key items—(1) Organic Sales, (2) Inorganic Sales, (3) Future.

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