How to buy Williams-Sonoma stock | 105

Williams-Sonoma, Inc is a specialty retail business based in the US. Williams-Sonoma shares (WSM) are listed on the NYSE and all prices are listed in US Dollars. Williams-Sonoma employs 11,600 staff and has a trailing 12-month revenue of around USD$6 billion.

How to buy shares in Williams-Sonoma

1. Compare share trading platforms. If you're a beginner, look for a platform with low commissions, expert ratings and investment tools to track your portfolio. Narrow down top brands with our comparison table.
2. Open and fund your brokerage account. Complete an application with your personal and financial details, like your ID and bank information. Fund your account with a bank transfer, credit card or debit card.
3. Search for Williams-Sonoma. Find the stock by name or ticker symbol: WSM. Research its history to confirm it's a solid investment against your financial goals.
4. Purchase now or later. Buy today with a market order or use a limit order to delay your purchase until Williams-Sonoma reaches your desired price. To spread out your purchase, look into dollar-cost averaging, which smooths out buying at consistent intervals and amounts.
5. Decide on how many to buy. At last close price of USD$105, weigh your budget against a diversified portfolio that can minimize risk through the market's ups and downs. You may be able to buy a fractional share of Williams-Sonoma, depending on your broker.
6. Check in on your investment. Congratulations, you own a part of Williams-Sonoma. Optimize your portfolio by tracking how your stock — and even the business — performs with an eye on the long term. You may be eligible for dividends and shareholder voting rights on directors and management that can affect your stock.

How has coronavirus impacted Williams-Sonoma's share price?

Since the stock market crash in March caused by coronavirus, Williams-Sonoma's share price has had significant positive movement.

Its last market close was USD$105, which is 29.84% up on its pre-crash value of USD$73.67 and 303.69% up on the lowest point reached during the March crash when the shares fell as low as USD$26.01.

If you had bought USD$1,000 worth of Williams-Sonoma shares at the start of February 2020, those shares would have been worth USD$530.96 at the bottom of the March crash, and if you held on to them, then as of the last market close they'd be worth USD$1,496.25.

Williams-Sonoma share price

Use our graph to track the performance of WSM stocks over time.

Williams-Sonoma shares at a glance

• Key figures

Information last updated 2020-10-16.

Latest market close	USD$105
52-week range	USD$26.01 - USD$107.09
50-day moving average	USD$92.2169
200-day moving average	USD$79.6762
Wall St. target price	USD$94.19
PE ratio	20.2462
Dividend yield	USD$2.12 (2.01%)
Earnings per share (TTM)	USD$5.208

Compare trading platforms

Compare special offers, low fees and a wide range of types of investments among top trading platforms.

Is it a good time to buy Williams-Sonoma stock?

The technical analysis gauge below displays real-time ratings for the timeframes you select. This is not a recommendation, however. It represents a technical analysis based on the most popular technical indicators: Moving Averages, Oscillators and Pivots. Finder might not concur and takes no responsibility.

Technical Analysis of Williams-Sonoma, Inc by TradingView

This chart is not advice or a guarantee of success. Rather, it gauges the real-time recommendations of three popular technical indicators: moving averages, oscillators and pivots. Finder is not responsible for how your stock performs.

Williams-Sonoma price performance over time

Historical closes compared with the close of $105 from 2020-10-16

1 week (2020-10-22)	7.52%
1 month (2020-09-29)	17.65%
3 months (2020-07-29)	22.66%
6 months (2020-04-29)	60.60%

1 year (2019-10-29)	53.02%
2 years (2018-10-29)	85.38%
3 years (2017-10-27)	100.31%
5 years (2015-10-29)	43.70%

Is Williams-Sonoma under- or over-valued?

Valuing Williams-Sonoma stock is incredibly difficult, and any metric has to be viewed as part of a bigger picture of Williams-Sonoma's overall performance. However, analysts commonly use some key metrics to help gauge the value of a stock.

Williams-Sonoma's P/E ratio

Williams-Sonoma's current share price divided by its per-share earnings (EPS) over a 12-month period gives a "trailing price/earnings ratio" of roughly 20x. In other words, Williams-Sonoma shares trade at around 20x recent earnings.

That's relatively low compared to, say, the trailing 12-month P/E ratio for the NASDAQ 100 at the end of 2019 (27.29). The low P/E ratio could mean that investors are pessimistic about the outlook for the shares or simply that they're under-valued.

Williams-Sonoma's PEG ratio

Williams-Sonoma's "price/earnings-to-growth ratio" can be calculated by dividing its P/E ratio by its growth – to give 2.0061. A low ratio can be interpreted as meaning the shares offer better value, while a higher ratio can be interpreted as meaning the shares offer worse value.

The PEG ratio provides a broader view than just the P/E ratio, as it gives more insight into Williams-Sonoma's future profitability. By accounting for growth, it could also help you if you're comparing the share prices of multiple high-growth companies.

Williams-Sonoma's EBITDA

Williams-Sonoma's EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) is USD$763.3 million.

The EBITDA is a measure of a Williams-Sonoma's overall financial performance and is widely used to measure a its profitability.

Williams-Sonoma financials

Revenue TTM	USD$6 billion
Operating margin TTM	9.58%
Gross profit TTM	USD$2.1 billion
Return on assets TTM	8.62%
Return on equity TTM	33.47%
Profit margin	6.83%
Book value	$17.134
Market capitalisation	USD$8.2 billion

TTM: trailing 12 months

Shorting Williams-Sonoma shares

There are currently 6.6 million Williams-Sonoma shares held short by investors – that's known as Williams-Sonoma's "short interest". This figure is 16% up from 5.7 million last month.

There are a few different ways that this level of interest in shorting Williams-Sonoma shares can be evaluated.

Williams-Sonoma's "short interest ratio" (SIR)

Williams-Sonoma's "short interest ratio" (SIR) is the quantity of Williams-Sonoma shares currently shorted divided by the average quantity of Williams-Sonoma shares traded daily (recently around 1.2 million). Williams-Sonoma's SIR currently stands at 5.57. In other words for every 100,000 Williams-Sonoma shares traded daily on the market, roughly 5570 shares are currently held short.

However Williams-Sonoma's short interest can also be evaluated against the total number of Williams-Sonoma shares, or, against the total number of tradable Williams-Sonoma shares (the shares that aren't held by "insiders" or major long-term shareholders – also known as the "float"). In this case Williams-Sonoma's short interest could be expressed as 0.09% of the outstanding shares (for every 100,000 Williams-Sonoma shares in existence, roughly 90 shares are currently held short) or 0.0956% of the tradable shares (for every 100,000 tradable Williams-Sonoma shares, roughly 96 shares are currently held short).

A SIR below 10% would generally be considered to indicate a fairly optimistic outlook for the share price, with fewer people currently willing to bet against Williams-Sonoma.

Find out more about how you can short Williams-Sonoma stock.

Williams-Sonoma share dividends

Dividend payout ratio: 30.03% of net profits

Recently Williams-Sonoma has paid out, on average, around 30.03% of net profits as dividends. That has enabled analysts to estimate a "forward annual dividend yield" of 2.01% of the current stock value. This means that over a year, based on recent payouts (which are sadly no guarantee of future payouts), Williams-Sonoma shareholders could enjoy a 2.01% return on their shares, in the form of dividend payments. In Williams-Sonoma's case, that would currently equate to about $2.12 per share.

While Williams-Sonoma's payout ratio might seem fairly standard, it's worth remembering that Williams-Sonoma may be investing much of the rest of its net profits in future growth.

Williams-Sonoma's most recent dividend payout was on 27 November 2020. The latest dividend was paid out to all shareholders who bought their shares by 22 October 2020 (the "ex-dividend date").

Have Williams-Sonoma's shares ever split?

Williams-Sonoma's shares were split on a 2:1 basis on 10 May 2002. So if you had owned 1 share the day before before the split, the next day you'd have owned 2 shares. This wouldn't directly have changed the overall worth of your Williams-Sonoma shares – just the quantity. However, indirectly, the new 50% lower share price could have impacted the market appetite for Williams-Sonoma shares which in turn could have impacted Williams-Sonoma's share price.

Williams-Sonoma share price volatility

Over the last 12 months, Williams-Sonoma's shares have ranged in value from as little as $26.01 up to $107.09. A popular way to gauge a stock's volatility is its "beta".

Beta is a measure of a share's volatility in relation to the market. The market (NYSE average) beta is 1, while Williams-Sonoma's is 1.6023. This would suggest that Williams-Sonoma's shares are more volatile than the average for this exchange and represent, relatively-speaking, a higher risk (but potentially also market-beating returns).

Williams-Sonoma overview

Williams-Sonoma, Inc. operates as an omni-channel specialty retailer of various products for home. It offers cooking, dining, and entertaining products, such as cookware, tools, electrics, cutlery, tabletop and bar, outdoor, furniture, and a library of cookbooks under the Williams Sonoma brand, as well as home furnishings and decorative accessories under the Williams Sonoma Home brand; and furniture, bedding, bathroom accessories, rugs, curtains, lighting, tabletop, outdoor, and decorative accessories under the Pottery Barn brand. The company also provides home decor products under the West Elm brand; products designed for creating childhood memories by decorating nurseries, bedrooms, and play spaces where children could play, laugh, learn, and grow under the Pottery Barn Kids brand; and line of furniture, bedding, lighting, decorative accents, and others for teen bedrooms, dorm rooms, study spaces, and lounges under the Pottery Barn Teen brand. In addition, it offers a range of assortments of lighting, hardware, furniture, and home décor inspired by history under the Rejuvenation brand; and women's and men's accessories, small leather goods, jewelry, key item apparel, paper, entertaining and bar, home décor, and seasonal items under the Mark and Graham brand. The company markets its products through e-commerce websites, direct-mail catalogs, and retail stores. As of February 2, 2020, it operated 614 stores comprising 572 stores in 43 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico; 20 stores in Canada; 19 stores in Australia; 3 stores in the United Kingdom; and 129 franchised stores, as well as e-commerce websites in various countries in the Middle East, the Philippines, Mexico, and South Korea. Williams-Sonoma, Inc. was founded in 1956 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

Frequently asked questions

• What percentage of Williams-Sonoma is owned by insiders or institutions?

  Currently 1.256% of Williams-Sonoma shares are held by insiders and 101.359% by institutions.

• How many people work for Williams-Sonoma?

  Latest data suggests 11,600 work at Williams-Sonoma.

• When does the fiscal year end for Williams-Sonoma?

  Williams-Sonoma's fiscal year ends in January.

• Where is Williams-Sonoma based?

  Williams-Sonoma's address is: 3250 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA, United States, 94109

• What is Williams-Sonoma's ISIN number?

  Williams-Sonoma's international securities identification number is: US9699041011

• What is Williams-Sonoma's CUSIP number?

  Williams-Sonoma's Committee on Uniform Securities Identification Procedures number is: 969904101