Facts from the Week: Dec 5, 2021
Highlights from $COST $BKE $CTRN $BIRD $FIVE $HIBB $OLLI $BIG $SIG $KIRK $IBKR $FIVE
Summary
Costco saw inflation moderate in November from October
Retail results and commentary on November has been mixed
among value retailers, Big Lot’s said November comp was up 10% vs 2019 while Ollie’s said November was down low-single-digits vs 2019; Singet reported comps up 37% vs two years ago including brick and mortar up 28%
Costco’s two-year comp in the US ex gas/fx moderated to 24.6% while the Buckle accelerated to +44%
Supply chain, inflation, stimulus, and change in shopping patterns continue to be topics in focus
Interest in financial markets continues to be high with Interactive Brokers reporting a significant uptick in new accounts in November
Consumer
Costco - $COST - November sales results
US same-store sales up 9.1% and 24.6% on a two-year basis
“While we continue to see inflation year-over-year, particularly within fresh foods and food and sundries, there was some moderation in inflation during November relative to October.”
Buckle - $BKE - November sales results
Citi Trends - $CTRN
The Company expects an increase in comparable store sales in the high teens in the fourth quarter of 2021 compared to the fourth quarter of 2019.
Nevada Gaming:
Nevada’s casino industry topped $1 billion in gaming revenue for the eighth consecutive month in October, tying a 14-year-old record and putting the state on pace to surpass the single-year $12 billion mark for just the fourth time.
The Las Vegas Strip, backed by its second-largest monthly revenue total in history during October, is also on pace to top its 2019 pre-pandemic revenue total.
Allbirds - $BIRD
Looking at gross margin for the balance of 2021, I will share that we are experiencing higher-than-normal holiday season outbound shipping surcharges in the current quarter.
From a production perspective, it's important to note that Vietnam accounts for only about 50% of our manufacturing, with more of our production in the north than the south. Thus far, we have not experienced any government-mandated manufacturing shutdowns in Vietnam. Through careful planning, secondary sourcing and regional diversification, our teams have definitely navigated the challenging environment, positioning us to meet demand throughout the holiday season and over the coming quarters.
In short, we feel we have great momentum in our business, and we are confident, that in 2022, we can grow net revenue at the high end of our medium-term target of 20% to 30%. Our preliminary 2022 net revenue expectation is approximately $350 million, which would represent a 60% 2-year growth rate, a significant acceleration over the 2-year growth rate in 2021.
Five Below - $FIVE
We are very pleased with the start to the fourth quarter. Based on our current trajectory, we expect fourth quarter sales to be in a range of $985 million to $1.05 billion with a comparable sales increase in a range of 2% to 4% and versus the record fourth quarter comparable sales increase of 13.8% last year.
Comparable sales for the 9-week holiday period are expected to be stronger than the total fourth quarter comp, given we are anniversarying extraordinary January sales last year, which were driven by stimulus checks. The record sales results last year generated significant leverage on fixed costs.
Hibbetts - $HIBB
Comparable sales versus the prior year are expected to be in the positive high single-digits, which is an upward revision from our previous guidance and implies full-year comp sales percentage growth in the positive high teens.
Ollie’s Bargain Market - $OLLI
We also believe that the sudden rise inflation had an outsized impact on a portion of our customers who mostly live on a fixed income. While I'm extremely proud of our team's efforts through these challenging times, we were unable to overcome these headwinds during the quarter.
For the third quarter, comparable store sales decreased 15.5% compared to a 15.3% increase last year. Compared to 2019, our comparable store sales decreased 1.3%.
Quarter-to-date, comparable store sales trends are down low single digits compared to 2019. While we have received more of our seasonal products during the fourth quarter, it arrived later than expected, causing us to miss out on the early holiday selling season. Based on this, we expect comparable store sales to be down 2% to flat compared to fourth quarter of 2019. -CEO
Big Lots - $BIG
And the quarter has started off strongly with positive 10% 2-year comps for fiscal November. Last week, we had the best Thanksgiving and Black Friday week in the company's history. While manufacturing and supply chain pressures will impact both our top and bottom lines in Q4, we are aggressively managing through them as we continue to grow the business.
Signet - $SIG
Q3 same store sales up 18.9% to Q3 of FY21 and up 37.2% to Q3 of FY20
eCommerce sales were $273.1 million, up 14.4% to Q3 of FY21 and up 96.1% to Q3 of FY20
Brick and mortar SSS up 20.3% to Q3 of FY21 and up 28.8% to Q3 of FY20
Third, we are raising fiscal 2022 guidance to reflect enhanced connected commerce capabilities and business momentum, which continued through Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend. Also concluded in today's update is higher expected cost savings. In Q3, we achieved total sales of $1.5 billion, growth of approximately $237 million over last year. Compared to 2 years ago, sales are up $350 million with few -- with 423 fewer stores.
Gina noted that 25% of shoppers completed their holiday shopping prior to Thanksgiving this year, and that's up 8 points from the prior year. So that's the basis for our belief that some of the momentum we're seeing today is a result of that pull forward.
Kirklands - $KIRK
Looking at our results through the end of November, we were impacted by inconsistent traffic patterns and broader supply chain constraints. During Black Friday, we saw in-store traffic remain relatively flat on a year-over-year basis, but there was a meaningful decline in e-commerce traffic, which led to a total sales comp decline for the first month of the fiscal fourth quarter.
November started off tough for the same reasons that October ended slow with our comp for the month being down 9.5%, for the week of Black Friday, inclusive of Cyber Monday, our demand comp sales were flat.
Odds and Ends
Interactive Brokers - $IBKR - November account growth
More than 98% of S&P components closed down Tuesday - the first time in over a year more than 95% of S&P components closed down (last time being 10/28/20). Going back to 2016, this has happened 11 times and 10 times the S&P has been higher one week and one month later (with the only exception being 2/24/20).
US Federal Reserve Balance Sheet
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