The owner of Vans, Columbia and Timberland (among other things) came in better than expected despite yet another decline in the Vans division, which fell by 14%. There's a little turnaround fever and a lot of shorts built into this rally.
Vans also raised its estimate for tariff costs to $250 - $270 million from $150 million last quarter. The company added that it bases the number on what they read in the paper. "Mitigation efforts" involve driving harder deals with foreign suppliers and raising prices (presumably everywhere other than Vans).
China is still VFC's largest supplier (~24%) but the company seems pretty chill about tariffs and Wall Street is sick of hearing about them. "Tariffs are real, here's the number, we plan to 'mitigate' by raising prices on our best-selling stuff" is pretty much the only answer analysts want to hear at this point.
General rule of thumb: If a company I own stock in has been good enough to sign up 3% of the entire population of Earth I'm not going to hassle them all that much about a quarter. Spotify needs to do better with ads. They know it. Everyone knows it. The stock became something of a hidey-hole as folks waited out the tariff noise. Just like $NFLX. I'd argue there wasn't much Spotify could have said that would have pushed the stock higher, tho the 10% drop was rough.
Etsy rallies 8% on Earnings Beat and >20% short interest!
I was long $ETSY going into the pandemic and rode Etsy to about a 15x return. Good times. Etsy is still shrinking but much slower than before and seeing decent traction in ads. It also has a 20% short base, which is a lot.
Alas, the world may never again be as in love with homemade surgical masks as we were in 2020.
Peloton 10% higher on Upgrade
Peloton upgraded to buy by UBS, sending the shares higher. The company reports next week. Summer is typically a rough quarter for Peloton as people tend to go "outside". Getting through this Q with the turnaround intact would be a huge step forward for the undeniably top name in connected fitness.
