Despite dismal sentiment about the low-end consumer and consumer confidence, Dollar Tree, Dollar General, and Five Below blew past Wall Street expectations on comp-store sales, with both comp-ticket and comp-transactions driving a material improvement in the 2- and 3-year comp-store sales trend as shown in the table below. With Dollar General’s results, we wrote about the upside stemming from trade-in, share-of-stomach gains from the fast food channel, and better retail execution / fundamentals.

As was anticipated by Advan’s data, Costco reported another strong comp-store sales increase for May (+5.5%), but at a touch lower rate than the March / April trend of +7.2% / +8.6% (adjusted) which benefited from pull-forward on large ticket items which consumer purchased to get in front of prices increases resulting from tariffs. General merchandise comp sales, which is where the pull-forward happened, went from +10% in March / April to around +5%.

Fiscal Q1 comp-sales results for off-price retailers were softer across the board due to a moderation in traffic. Traffic per location was slightly up for Burlington and HomeGoods and slightly down for TJ Maxx and Ross Dress for Less (per Advan). Results for the traditional department stores were less bad. In sum, this demonstrates that the share transfer from traditional to off-price slowed. In our view, this is the result of the traditional department stores executing better, rather than off-price brands executing “less well.

Lowe’s and Home Depot reported relatively stable results in what is a downbeat housing and home improvement market, as is shown by industry traffic in the chart below. Of note, both benefited from a pull-forward of larger ticket durable goods (appliances) ahead of any price increases resulting from tariffs; the other big-ticket categories like flooring, kitchen, and bath remain in a slump. Commercial building was the strongest end-market as demonstrated by Home Depot Supply (HDS) outperformance.

In contrast to the frequent press articles that Target’s foot traffic and sales were down mid-to-high single-digits due to consumer backlash over Target’s DEI policy changes, comp-transactions / traffic was down only -2.4%. Comp-sales for the stores were down -5.7%, which was partially offset by a +4.7% in digital sales (which is mainly store-delivery and curbside). As shown in the table below, February was the softest month per Advan traffic, and the period’s reported traffic* was largely in line with the Advan estimate.

Dick’s Sporting Goods acquiring Foot Locker was unexpected, and despite management’s claim that it would be accretive to earnings, along with a preliminary fiscal Q1 results where comp-sales were above estimates (+4.1% vs expectations of +2.6%), the stock dumped -15%. Our quick thoughts and then our data. First, the near-term accretion was simple math, ahead of the news Dick’s traded at 10.1X EV / EBITDA on a NTM basis, above Foot Locker’s 8.

In our review of Q4 Walmart Inc. results, we highlighted Sam’s compounding success in gaining household share which stems from strong execution on merchandise and service contemporizing (while also benefiting from the favorable macro-consumer trends that are lifting the entire club sector). Today, we shift the focus to Walmart US and its grocery business for this Q1 commentary. (We’ll come back to Walmart’s general merchandise results post Target’s earnings release next week.

Two weeks back, we wrote about the weak set of Q1 sales results from McDonald’s , Domino’s , Chipotle , Wendy’s, Shake Shack, and others. Last week, the wipeout in fast food (called limited service in industry lingo) broadened to include Sweet Green, Papa John’s, and Restaurant Brands International (i.e. Burger King). We wrote in our earlier articles that the softness was the result of consumer fatigue following compounding inflation and too many price increases by limited-service which has resulted in share-of-stomach shifting from away-from-home consumption to at-home (or grocery).

Better-than-expected quarterly results from Savers Value Village and ThredUp, plus the threat of inflation from tariffs, motivated us to take a look at foot traffic for the secondhand retail sector and its major players. As a reminder, the fiscal stimulus of ’21 and the bout of inflation in ’22 produced very strong years for the sector. So much so that those good times compelled ThredUp to IPO in ’21 and Savers in ’23.

By Thomas Paulson, Head of Market Insights At a time when many are concerned about a recession and a cutback in consumer spending, Disney once again demonstrated that it is a special place in consumers’ lives and an exceptional business. Domestic park attendance inflected by +300bps to +1% growth. Advan data in the table below shows that the Orlando parks, especially Magic Kingdom, drove the acceleration as hurricanes weren’t disruptive in the period, like the prior quarter.