(1) Given all the hate towards $COST on Fintwit recently (on multiple alone), I thought this post provides perfect clarity towards how institutional investors think. Really don't want to spend time on this name but the noise is deafening. Some thoughts:

https://x.com/BillBrewsterTBB/status/1805653111991943326

(2) The reality here is that NOBODY shorts a stock professionally based only a valuation thesis. Just like how value managers won’t buy every stock that is cheap – the overall market tends to need something more. That something can’t be only a macro call as that’s probably the easiest thing to hedge (i.e. there are much better ways to execute that idea).

Unless you have a distinct view that $COST is going to miss, or the story itself will meaningfully change, here is what most likely will happen even in a deteriorating macro environment: Costco will simply grow into its multiple, on a relative basis. Will there be downside? Most likely. Will it be anywhere near practically the rest of the retail industry? Unlikely. Long only investors have to remain fully invested and pretty sure they won’t be selling Costco to buy $ANF in that scenario. Same thing with $ORLY.

(1) Fashion Island Mall, Newport Beach is fantastic place to assess the current Athleisure debate. $LULU, Rhone, Vuori, Alo, Athleta ( $GPS), and Fabletics all close to each other. It's also littered with the ghosts of formerly hyped but now dead brands such as Kit & Ace. Here are some of the takeaways and follow up analysis from my channel check trip this past holiday weekend: (2) First store visited was Vuori. Initial observation is there is nothing technical about this product mix. Could very well be $ANF selling most of this. Started looking at tags to understand product manufacturing. Weird – this tag has 4-5 pages and specifically names “Top Summit Garment Inc.” along with their address. I don’t ever remember seeing a $LULU tag like this.

tells me Nike is the number one customer of this manufacturer and Vuori is number two. That initially looks surprisingly good as typically harder for newer Athleisure brands to use established brand manufacturers. However, this isn’t a top ten manufacturing partner of Vuori.

Come to learn that not a single major brand meaningfully sources from the larger Vuori manufacturers. The best you will find is a small amount of Fila product sourced by their largest manufacturer, EMPEROR (VN) CO. LTD. But what is really troubling here, is that Vuori is by far the largest customer for their top four manufacturing partners (by a factor of 2x-10x). I will likely talk more to why that is troubling on the day that Softbank pushes Vuori to file an S-1.

Here are the only other brands of note that meaningfully source from these manufacturers: Tommie Copper, Eddie Baurer, 5.11, Birddogs, Rogers Sporting Goods, Genesco, and Rip Curl Canada. Not necessarily the brands you associate with taking market share from Lululemon.

Didn’t notice any promotions in the store. There was one other customer in the store when I visited, which was towards the lower end of the traffic spectrum of the day.Importinfo.com

(1) I love $FND. Best story in 20 years for retail. Took it public and am honored I was Bookrunner on the IPO. Seriously love the entire management team, with a similar passion as how they approach their business. Alas, can no longer defend where it trades. (2) There are many historical examples of the buyside getting over its skis on their own volition, only to later penalize the company itself. You know what $FND itself is not doing? They are not pumping expectations whatsoever – they have been very fair with all of their guidance assumptions in 2024. Alas when you trade at a 55x+ FY1 P/E, there is not a lot of room for honest debate.

A lot of noise on #Fintwit regarding upcoming $RH earnings this week. I covered the company at a sell-side bulge bracket from 2016 to 2019, which included a dramatic investor sentiment change from Gary is terrible to he’s the next Steve Jobs. Here is my preview: (1) $RH guided 1Q23 on March 29th. Since that time, US Census Retail Sales show April sales for Furniture industry down almost 9%, worst month since Mar-May 2020 and 2009 before that. March was down almost 3% so significant sequential industry deterioration.