Stay Ahead with Advan Insights

By Thomas Paulson, Head of Market Insights

At a time when many are concerned about a recession and a cutback in consumer spending, Disney once again demonstrated that it is a special place in consumers’ lives and an exceptional business. Domestic park attendance inflected by +300bps to +1% growth....

By Thomas Paulson, Head of Market Insights

Floor & Décor Holdings Q1 results showed stability in earnings despite a challenging housing market. However, those challenges combined with the added pressures from tariffs led management to reduce its store openings plan for 2025 from 25 to 20. CEO Tom...

By Thomas Paulson, Head of Market Insights

Amazon’s Q1 results and guidance for Q2 reflect what we are broadly witnessing – relatively stable demand for goods, some pull-forward effects ahead of tariffs, and a lot of uncertainty. Including Leap Year, the North American retail business slowed about...

By Thomas Paulson, Head of Market Insights

Sprouts Farmers Market again produced stellar quarterly results; comp-sales increased +11.7% (vs. Advan’s estimate of +11.9%) and management guided Q2 for a 6.5% - 8.5% increase. We take that outlook to be “conservative” as Advan’s ML estimate is +8.8%,...

By Thomas Paulson, Head of Market Insights

McDonald’s US “comp-sales” declined -3.6%, or roughly -2.6% excluding Leap Day. The -2.6% figure was below expectations (+0.7%) and Advan’s estimate* (-1.2% +/-0.8%) -- as such, something in the “environment” changed (that’s why you have errors in...

By Thomas Paulson, Head of Market Insights

Polaris makes snowmobiles, motorcycles, ATVs, and power boats – all big-ticket discretionary goods, a category of consumer expenditure that has been in a world of hurt following a pandemic / fiscal stimulus fueled super-cycle in 2021 / ‘22. Higher...

By Thomas Paulson, Head of Market Insights

In the context of ongoing weak earnings results for Kraft Heinz and other branded food names, we took a deeper look into Trader Joe’s and Aldi’s traffic growth. Recall that one of our central themes is that industry growth of food-at-home will be driven...

By Thomas Paulson, Head of Market Insights

Given the recent news from the airlines that bookings were dropping and the deceleration in longer-term visits to Hilton’s brands as shown in Advan, it wasn’t surprising to hear Hilton cut guidance for the year. CEO Chris Nassetta said, “We reported...