Not Even Pumpkin Spice or Brian Niccol Can Rescue Starbucks Now (Time to Freak Out?)

Starbucks thought it had scored big when it poached Brian Niccol from Chipotle (aka the corporate world’s LeBron James). 

Wall Street loved it too. In fact, the stock shot up 25% in a single day after the announcement. People were ready to believe Niccol could sprinkle some of that Chipotle magic dust on Starbucks and turn the coffee chain into a revenue machine.

Well the honeymoon is officially over. Jefferies analyst Andy Barish just crapped in Starbucks latte by downgrading the stock to "Underperform”and took a hacksaw to their price target, cutting it to $76. That’s a rude awakening for a stock that’s been sitting pretty around $95—up nearly 30% since Brian “The Corporate Lebron” Niccol showed up. Barish's reasoning? He’s calling for a “lot of uncertainty” over the next 12 months.

Barish didn’t hold back, basically saying Starbucks' sugar high is about to wear off. With all the hype fading, he’s betting that Starbucks’ fundamentals will come back to haunt them. He’s calling for a drop in same-store sales, disappointing earnings-per-share (EPS) growth, and labeling fiscal 2025 as a “throwaway” year. Yeah, “throwaway”—as in, let’s just skip ahead to 2026 and see if we’re still in business.

It’s not all Niccol’s fault, though. He’s stepping into a mess. In his open letter after taking the reins, Niccol admitted that Starbucks isn’t hitting the mark. He called out inconsistent product quality, long wait times, and a chaotic customer experience. Basically, he thinks Starbucks is about as efficient as the DMV.

The coffee giant is facing a slew of issues that aren’t going to be fixed with a pumpkin spice latte. And speaking of PSLs, even that white girl magnet isn’t pulling in the crowds it used to. Jefferies and Placer.ai reported disappointing foot traffic during this year’s pumpkin spice debut, which should’ve been an easy win (time to freak out).

And let’s not forget about China—Starbucks’ second-largest market and, lately, a major headache. Barish is ringing the alarm bells, pointing to China’s shaky macroeconomic outlook as a big risk to Starbucks’ ambitious plans. 

The company has been eyeing 7% global unit growth, but Barish is calling that out as overly optimistic, especially in China, where he predicts a 3% decline in same-store sales—much worse than the 1.2% growth the company had hoped for. With China’s market growth slowing down, Barish is hinting that Starbucks might need to dial back those grand expansion plans before they get burned by their own projections.

Starbucks is still holding on for dear life to stay in the green, at the time of this writing it’s only up 2% year to date.

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Stock.News has positions in Starbucks.