By coinnews 
00:00 Speaker A
Now, time for some of today’s trending tickers. You can scan the QR code below to track the best and worst performing stocks of the session with Yahoo Finances trending tickers page. Joining me now, catalyst host Madison Mills. Um, and today we’re looking at Conagra brands, Lamb Weston, and Best Buy. Obviously, there’s a lot of selling going on right now, but we found a few names that are moving for specific reasons as well. And actually, two of them are moving up. First up, let’s talk Conagra and Lamb Weston, both in the food business, both rising after earnings. Conagra did miss on the top and bottom line. It kept its annual forecast unchanged, and Lamb Weston, best known for its frozen french fries, their big supplier to McDonald’s. They topped earnings expectations. Both companies, though, did warn of macro headwinds to come. And it was quite interesting, Maddie, to see, in particular, Conagra up, maybe because it stuck with its forecast. Yeah. But because the numbers weren’t great. The numbers weren’t that great. It’s interesting to, and you mentioned some of this, is based on the company fundamentals. Taking a look at Lamb Weston back in July, they had a quote disastrous report according to one analyst because of global restaurant traffic and menu price inflation. So, a good reminder that the inflation problem was already in the room before these tariffs. Now you have tariffs potentially fueling even more inflation. But perhaps, based on this earnings print from Lamb Weston, their quarterly results coming in above expectations, maybe they are well positioned to handle any impact of those tariffs at least in the short term. Uh, we’re hearing obviously tons of calls this morning that in the second quarter earnings, we may not even be getting forward guidance from a lot of companies. So it’s going to be hard to suss out the growth path moving forward.
02:52 Speaker A
Yeah.
02:53 Speaker A
Right.
02:54 Speaker A
And Lamb Weston also hired Alex Partners and said it was evaluating opportunities for value creation and cost savings. That cost savings piece of it, I think, is really what investors are keying in on here because the CEO of the company saying in the release, we expect headwinds from soft restaurant traffic to persist, and we continue to see opportunities to further streamline costs. So it looks like the cost part is really what people want them to improve.
03:21 Speaker B
Yeah.
03:22 Speaker B
And I guess if they have some of the pricing power, then maybe that positions them well as well. But I think it’s going to be really hard for analysts to tell who has pricing power right now if they’re doing a lot of math to figure out how tariffs impact.
03:44 Speaker A
Yeah.
03:46 Speaker A
For sure. All right, let’s talk about another company that is being affected by tariffs and also a downgrade. Best Buy sinking after City cut its rating to neutral from buy. President Trump’s tariff policies pose risks to the company’s sales in the view of the analyst, who says that Best Buy could see consumers pull back in this uncertain macro environment. So, sort of like the double whammy there. On the one hand, a lot of the stuff it sells is going to be tariffed. On the other hand, consumers might not be too excited about buying.
04:27 Speaker B
And this comes after we’ve already seen a couple of downgrades to Best Buy over the past, at least in the month of March. We saw a couple from the likes of Morgan Stanley from Telsey and Piper Sandler as well here. Morgan Stanley talking about maintaining their equal rate rating, but cutting the price target from $100 to $85 here. Um, Best Buy is one of those big box retailers that obviously sells a lot of tech, right? Computers, phones, all of which could potentially become more expensive due to these tariffs, especially the tariffs coming out of Asia or being put on Asia, I should say. Uh, so, are consumers going to be able to withstand the hikes of those prices, or will they stop spending? Based on the stock reaction, it seems like there’s a thought that spending will be pulled.
05:31 Speaker A
Yeah.
05:40 Speaker A
And if Best Buy doesn’t pass on all of the costs, what what does that do to their margins? So
05:47 Speaker B
Right, right.