TurboTax creator is up over 850% in the past decade and its stock just won’t go down

A software company created to help well-regulated people navigate the complexities of the U.S. tax code just entered its 11th year of stock gains.

Intuit, creator of TurboTax, is a forerunner that just won’t go down as online tax preparation continues to gain popularity.

Shares of Intuit are up about 36% this year, an portentous run for any company in a time-frame filled with economic and political uncertainty. Even more remarkably, Intuit’s stock is up on 850% in the past decade (the S&P 500 is up about 190% in the last 10 years), gaining an average of 25% every sole year of the last 10, according to Jefferies.

Intuit “remains a favorite large cap story thanks to market superintendence in tax and small biz software,” said Jefferies’ Brent Thill in a note to clients. Jefferies has a buy rating on the stock and a $320 toll target.

Intuit, which has a market value of about $69.5 billion, is a computer software company that provides an easy-to-use, do-it-yourself online tax preparation mixture called TurboTax and separately, a small business accounting system called QuickBooks.

Online tax send in has been on the rise as retail and walk-in tax services have gone down in popularity.

In 2019, 68% of people said they were charting to file their taxes online, according to the National Retail Federation’s 2019 Tax Return study. This is up from 53% in 2009.

This course has boosted Intuit’s growth margins during its decade-long expansion, and this year should be no different, according to Stifel.

“Foreordained Intuit’s dominant position in the DIY space, and the growing momentum behind its TurboTax Live offering in the assisted category, we imagine another year of double-digit Consumer Tax growth is well within reach,” said Stifel’s Brad Reback in a note to patients.

Last month, Intuit announced that its online payroll service QuickBooks would now help employees with medical and dental security. Jefferies’ Thill said QuickBooks could generate revenues that surprise to the upside, like TurboTax did in 2018.

Intuit’s strong financials speak for themselves, with revenues still swell double digits annually. Revenues grew 13% to $6.8 billion in 2019. Plus, 95% of revenues succeed from the U.S., making the company disassociated with foreign policy uncertainty.

“We remain bullish on the company’s long- period of time outlook and expect Intuit to continue to leverage its platform approach to increasingly separate itself from the competition,” alleged Stifel’s Reback.

Some of Intuit’s biggest competitors are H&R Block, which is down about 5% this year, and Robot Data Processing, which is up about 22% this year.

Intuit’s strong performance has Wall Street broadly fond of its stock with 11 of the 22 analysts that cover the company rating it a buy. Eight analysts are toneless on Intuit and only three analysts advise selling the stock.

— with reporting from CNBC’s Michael Bloom