By Thomas Paulson, Head of Market Insights Last week’s analysis included management’s comments relative to any DEI backlash that they were seeing no impact to their business. However, over the weekend, media outlets wrote about a negative impact on Target store traffic and business from the backlash. Well, third-party data being third party (i.e. an estimate vs. ground truth first-party data) requires understanding the scope of the aggregation and its limitations.

By Thomas Paulson, Head of Market Insights Production activity at Freemont, Austin, and Berlin has stepped meaningfully lower in February, accentuating the negative trend at year end. Clearly, Tesla’s sales and operations team are observing a slackening in demand, confirming industry and press reports, and cutting production to manage inventory levels down. Industry watchers Wards and Motor Intelligence peg deliveries at flat in the US through February (they should have been up due to an easy comparison); related research from Goldman Sachs shows deep declines in purchase intent for Tesla vs the Detroit-3.

By Thomas Paulson, Head of Market Insights To say that this is a dynamic time for grocery retail is a classic underbilling given the inflationary spiral coming out of the pandemic, the substantial share-of-stomach lost by conventional brands to private-label led retailers such as Trader Joe’s and Costco, an abandoned merger by Kroger and Albertson’s, and this week’s news of the departure of their CEOs. Before we jump into the earnings results from Kroger, we’d point readers to our recent analysis of the results from Grocery Outlet , Sprouts , and Walmart & Ahold .

By Thomas Paulson, Head of Market Insights Macy’s Inc. reported improved holiday results as Advan previewed . Macy’s go-forward 350 reported a comp-sales decrease of -1.6%, roughly in-line with Dillard’s (-1%), and Bloomingdale’s reported a comp-sales increase of +4.8%, roughly in-line with Nordstrom banner’s +5.3% increase. Versus 2019, Macy’s comp (-7%) was similar to FQ3’s and better than the 1H’s. Bloomingdale’s improved to +18% from mid-teens in the prior three quarters.

By Thomas Paulson, Head of Market Insights Ross Stores Inc. reported Q4 underlying sales up +3.5% and gross profits and operating income growth less. Sales growth was driven by Ross Dress for Less comp-traffic (+2.8% per Advan), comp-sales growth (+3%), and the new locations added earlier in the fiscal year. Looking at comps on a multi-year basis, all improved, including the comp to 2019 increasing from 17% to 21%. DD’s Discount’s comp outpaced the overall +3% comp and DD’s comp-traffic per Advan increased +6.

As expected, Target reported improved results QoQ and issued seemly conservative guidance for 2025. We write “seemly” because of all the consumer and business unease being stirred by the hurricane in Washington. That unease is leading to lower macro activity, which for retail means a lower volume month, resulting in bigger percentage-changes given a smaller denominator. A very wintery February is also a factor. We wrote about all of this in our Walmart story two weeks ago and the environment appears little changed since then – i.

Dillard’s is the first of the traditional department stores to report in the earnings cycle, providing a glimpse into the past few months of consumer demand. Dillard’s comp-sales decline of -1% was the most muted of the year, but that leaves the business only 5% above 2019’s level (on a comp basis) which is below the 8% level in the 1H’24, i.e. things are not getting “less bad” on an underlying basis.

This past week brought a lot of news on the beauty market with earnings from Procter & Gamble, e.l.f. Beauty, Estée Lauder, and L’Oréal. The takeaway from those is that luxury part of the market remains robust, but L’Oréal is taking a lot of share from Estée, which is in trouble. The mass part of the market has experienced a further slowdown. That divergence demonstrates that the K-shaped consumer economy in the U.

Grocery Outlet Holding announced Q4 results along with a new CEO, Jason Potter – The Fresh Market’s recent CEO, and a restructuring program. (The CEO change was expected) This follows the appointment of its new CFO / CIO in January – Chris Miller from Shamrock Foods. The restructuring program notably: (1) lowers the unit expansion rate to 34 new locations (down from the prior plans 54), (2) seeks to terminate leases for some of the unopened stores, (3) includes warehouse project cancelations, and (4) involves layoffs.

Looking at the off-price sector overall, comp-traffic was solid and while the rate was slower QoQ, that deceleration largely reflected the abbreviated shopping period this year (five fewer days and one fewer weekend between Thanksgiving and Christmas). Sales were likely little impacted as more items per visit were purchased. As has been the case all year, TJX’s Marshalls and TJ Maxx led its peers Ross Dess for Less and Burlington in comp traffic growth and likely in comp-store sales per Advan’s estimates.