After being on the road at two different conferences and a funeral, I'm finally home.  I watched my usual late night TV shows when I arrived on Wednesday night.   It seemed they all had some sort of comedy piece to do with the fact that Starbucks closed for the three slowest hours of the day to do staff training.  The basic premise of every piece was an addict searching trhough garbage for Starbucks coffee.  No, even a local deli coffee wouldn't do.  So I thought, I gotta buy more of this company –  I mean, even cynics, like writers on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are addicts.  But think the stock is as expensive as a Vente Mocha Frappuccino?  Think again, SBUX is a fancy caramel latte selling at deli prices.  The stock has a trailing p/e of 20 while the brand has a p/e of 30.

People are concerned about competition from Dunkin' Donuts and McDonalds. And even though I don't go to Starbucks because I live in the great local organic free trade coffee capital of the world (Greenwich Village), I know by the huge lines at the airport Starbucks that they own the idea of a comfy fancy (expensive) coffee in a way McDonalds and Dunkin' Donuts never will.

Photo:rudolf_schuba, Creative Commons, Flickr