By Thomas Paulson, Head of Market Insights Casey’s General Stores, Inc reported strong quarterly results for its “inside” business with comp-sales on prepared food & dispensed beverages increasing 4.7% and grocery & general merchandise increasing 3.3%. As a reminder, the gas & convenience channel is undergoing a transformation to more fresh and prepared offerings vs. packaged food. Not only does the fresh & prepared allow retailers to create differentiation and capture market share, but the offering also has a much higher gross margin rate at nearly 60% vs.

By Thomas Paulson, Head of Market Insights Dick’s Sporting Goods, Inc. reported solid results, including an underlying sales increase of 6% based upon a 6.4% comp-sales increase and improved gross margin rate. The comp-sales increase was composed of increases of 4.4% in comp-ticket, 2.0% in comp-transactions, and a modest decrease in comp-traffic (Advan) of -1.1%. Assuming online comp-transactions were up high-single-digits and stripping that from the 2.0% increase in transactions, lowers estimated store comp-transactions to the Advan’s measure of comp-traffic, which implies a stable conversion rate.

By Thomas Paulson, Head of Market Insights Kohl’s: Quarterly sales were “less bad” at a decline (-9.4%) than our preview (we said -14%). In our preview, we also forecasted that incoming CEO Ashley Buchanan would set a very low bar on forward expectations, he did. Revenue for 2025 was guided for a decline of -5 to -7%. The operating margin target for the year was also significantly down (2.2% to 2.

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.

Notable Hit 1: On Wednesday February 26, 2025 The TJX Companies, Inc. (TJX) posted revenues of $16.35BN surpassing the analysts estimates by 1% and in the same direction of Advan’s implied sales. Advan’s data showed a 5.3% increase YoY in foot traffic to the retailer’s stores (subsidiaries such as Marhsalls, HomeGoods also included) in Q4 2024; the company’s revenue was slightly down (-0.4%) YoY. The stock moved higher during the trading session.